Long after our startup is done, no matter what the outcome, our Founder reputations will live on.
And for many of us, that could actually present a real problem.
Unlike our resumes, which present essentially one dimension of our lives (our job performance), our Founder Reputation is built on how our performance affects so many people — employees, investors, customers, the media, and even our personal relationships.
From the get-go, we have two huge obstacles working against creating a great reputation.
First, we're about to build an organization that will likely (statistically) fail. It's sort of hard to build a winning reputation on the back of a potential failure that could result in the loss of job...