The startup stories we are all familiar with tend to end with an oversubscribed IPO and millions of dollars for the founders. You know the drill; the side-hustle, the Unicorns and the rest of it.
But if it was that easy, would not the ever-growing torrent of inspirational stories and the ton of how-to books that flood the internet and fill the self-help sections of bookstores have lead to a lot more ‘successes’? But, here is the thing; numbers don’t lie.
Today, nine startups out of ten fail. That’s right. Irrespective of a startup team’s ideas, talent, funding, hard work or milestones achieved along the way, only 10% of startups make it past the ten years mark.
It is this realization that led me to conclude that to improve the probability of entrepreneurs succeeding, we need less improbable tales of ‘success’ and more real-world startup stories.
How Hard Can It Be compiles well over a decade worth of learnings from startup and scaleup experiences. But How Hard Can It Be is not your typical ‘5 Hacks to Making Zillions after hours’. Instead, it is the behind-the-scenes account of what it really takes to run a tech startup. In reading How Hard Can It Be, my goal is to prepare you for the rough ride that the startup journey is.
In How Hard Can It Be, you will learn (amongst many other things):
Photo Magnus Sundelin @magnus.sundelin
Arnaud Henneville-Wedholm is an entrepreneur, author and possibilist. Today, he leads sales at Furhat Robotics a company known for its most advanced social robot. He is a board advisor to HealthPhy, a physiotherapy-on-demand app.
Arnaud is the founder of multiple startups, including internalDesk, a SaaS platform for enterprise collaboration. internalDesk was recognized as one of the ‘top10 tech rising stars’ in the Nordics in 2014 and was acquired in 2019. Arnaud’s interest areas include entrepreneurship, neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy and everything related to mindset and longevity. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden with his wife and three children.