Lessons of Greatness: How to Defeat "We're F*cked, It's Over" (WFIO) Moments

WFIO moments feel like dying, but your startup can always move forward. With ingenuity and grit, you will find a way out of it.

Ben Horowitz’s WFIO moment: In September 1999, Horowitz co-founded LoudcloudAfter the dot-com bubble, the company ran out of money in 2002

No private investors would touch them, they couldn’t raise money from anybody. They decided to go public, which was insane at the time. The move felt like cutting your limbs but they found a way through.

The company ultimately raised money from public markets and survived.

• Get it out of your head and onto paper; writing is the best way to calm your “monkey mind“. Writing forces you to stress test the clarity of thinking.
• Share your worries with trusted friends from outside the company, especially if they have experience with WFIO moments in their startups. Don’t make all decisions by yourself.
• Create victory psychology for your team: It is about getting all of the most innovative people in the same room to work with the angle of the problem
• Focus on the path through the obstacles instead of obstacles themselves
• Face the pain head-on