The headline of this post is a quote. I last read it in a most-excellent book that I wrote about before called “Founders at work”. In short, the book is about success of the many startups that did something great (some subsequently crumbled) in the last fifteen years or so.

For some reason, this quote really resonated with me. Despite all the information I’ve gathered before I even thought about going at it on my own, I’ve still made many small mistakes that could have been easily avoided. More often than not, I see this pattern repeat itself with other entrepreneurs too. We either get too enchanted by the technology, we misjudge the size of the market or we continue “brushing the diamond” (trying to produce the perfect piece of technology instead of selling something that works).

It’s easy to blame the circumstances. If only one of the partners did or didn’t do something, if only market wasn’t in a slump, if only the exchange rate of your primary currency wasn’t so bad at the moment etc. But more often then not, we are the enemy, we’re the ones who shot ourselves.