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There’s only one thing you have complete control over when you start a company. Only one. Everything else, to some degree or other, is out of your control.
What is this one thing that’s in your control? It’s your cash.
As I said at the beginning, everything else isn’t completely in your control. Let me give you an example.
The first product my company introduced was designed by my co-founder and VP Engineering, Jeroen. The product had minimal risk of failing. In fact, Jeroen’s track record was 100% “first silicon” success on products like this.
I still remember the cold December day when the wafers for that first product were delivered. Jeroen and I excitedly, like two kids, went to our lab to evaluate the product.
“That’s funny,” Jeroen said after looking at the waveforms, which looked like a flat line, instead of the square wave we expected, on the oscilloscope. He then said, “Something’s not working.”
“It’s probably just not wired up right,” I said. I was going by my experience that, in all likelihood, the setup was just wrong.
Jeroen looked at the wiring and confirmed that everything was wired properly. Then he said, “This may take some time to figure out what’s wrong. I’ll let you know.”
