Episode 781 | A Founder's Regret List: 12 Mistakes I’ll Never Make Again

Startups For the Rest of Us

Are you repeating any of these mistakes in your business?

In this episode, Rob Walling walks through his ‘founder regret list’, detailing 12 key mistakes from his 20-year entrepreneurial journey. In this very personal episode, he tells some stories he’s never shared publicly before.

Topics we cover:

• (4:17) – Thinking venture capital was the only path
• (6:12) – Launching without validating the idea
• (9:26) – Choosing ideas that couldn’t be bootstrapped
• (12:48) – Relying too much on books
• (16:36) – Trying to do everything solo
• (21:10) – The arrival fallacy
• (23:19) – Delaying email list growth
• (25:51) – Taking random advice too seriously
• (28:43) – Overestimating skills after early wins
• (30:29) – Letting anxiety steal the joy from success
• (32:34) – Not letting wins build confidence
• (33:50) – Holding onto a scarcity mindset

Links from the Show:

• TinySeed Institute
• Sponsor the Podcast or MicroConf
• Start Small, Stay Small
• The SaaS Playbook
• Zero to Sold by Arvid Kahl

If you have questions about starting or scaling a software business that you’d like for us to cover, please submit your question for an upcoming episode. We’d love to hear from you!

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