During the last couple of years, I’ve entered survival mode quite often.
It all began in 2020 when I left VC for becoming a startup founder. I was in Belarus back then, and the summer of 2020 appeared to be quite an “interesting” time to launch a startup there.
In august after the obviously falsified presidential elections protests began. The authoritarian regime, of course, resorted to violent repressions. And it happened that I became one of the first to get under this machine (or "tractor", the joke only Belarusians will understand).
Despite that I spent in prison only 4 days, these days completely changed my life. First, inside there were a number of moments when I thought I won’t get out alive. Second, after getting out life in the repressions country wasn’t sweet. I hope you’ll never experience the feeling of your heart going to the heels when you hear the sound of sirens, a doorbell, or simply a mobile phone ringing.
After living around a month in such an atmosphere I realized that I need to relocate. That’s why at the end of 2020 I left Belarus. Left for Ukraine.
Then there was a year and a half of adapting to living in a new (though pretty close and friendly to Belarusians) country, achievements, failures, and pivots. And then February 24 came.
Explosions in Kyiv, a day filled with a total misunderstanding of how the hell that could happen and what to do next, one-backpack leaving, 4 days in a car with another 4 people, a cat and a dog, a new country, shutting down my company.
All in all, I know something about survival mode. And I know how this mode can affect the other functions of the organism, including creation and creativity.
In short, it kills them.
When your basic needs are under threat, your brain focuses exclusively on that. And I’m pretty sure it applies to companies as well.
Speaking about startups, young innovative companies, their only competitive advantage is their flexibility and creativity, the ability to quickly find an insight, form a hypothesis, and test it.
That’s why I think that even in the hardest crisis times, “just survive” is pretty shitty advice. Ok, you extended your runway for couple more months, but at what cost? When talking about early-stage startups, that always involves some trade-off on the speed of generating and testing hypotheses. In other words, you trade off your only competitive advantage.
Of course, I don’t say that you shouldn’t manage your burn rate. You should. But it should not be your top priority, whatever happens.
“Just survive” is a clear path to becoming a zombie-startup.
That’s the company that does not die, but better died a long time ago. If you’ve found some courage to launch a startup, find more courage to search, make mistakes, and even shut companies down – but not just “survive”. If you wanna just “survive” – you’d better choose another path.
You can also check my previous posts: