{"id":19581,"date":"2015-11-02T01:18:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-01T17:18:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/what-surviving-on-mars-can-teach-you-about-building-a-startup-to-last\/"},"modified":"2015-11-02T01:18:47","modified_gmt":"2015-11-01T17:18:47","slug":"what-surviving-on-mars-can-teach-you-about-building-a-startup-to-last","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/what-surviving-on-mars-can-teach-you-about-building-a-startup-to-last\/","title":{"rendered":"What surviving on Mars can teach you about building a startup to last"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Movie
Movie poster from The Martian. Photo: Wikipedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It\u2019s rare that a story about survival set on another planet can provide guidance on how to build an enduring company on this one.<\/p>\n

But as it turns out, that\u2019s just what The Martian<\/em> does.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a book and a movie that take you literally into another world \u2014 with a gripping plot and breathtaking panoramas. Watching this film did what only the best can do \u2014 transport you into another reality and make you forget yours for a couple of hours.<\/p>\n

But, ultimately, as I reflected on the movie afterwards, I realized that it was one of the final scenes that affected me the most.<\/p>\n

In the closing frames of the film, Matt Damon\u2019s character, Mark Watney, is addressing a room of hopeful, would-be astronauts and he answers one of the questions that many wonder:<\/p>\n

\u201cDid I wonder if I would die?\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

And his answer is yes, he did. And that it was always there. That it was a part of accepting to be an astronaut.<\/p>\n

But, he said, the point is that it\u2019s about solving the problem in front of you and then solving the next one. And, if you\u2019re able to solve all of them: you get to come home.<\/p>\n

And it struck me, how that was the most apt analogy for startups. It\u2019s ultimately not about risk or about glory or about changing the world in the grand sense.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about facing death every single day and just solving the most immediate problem in front you and then the next and the next \u2014 until someday you get to go home.<\/p>\n

As I thought about it more, I realized many startup lessons were hidden within the folds of this tale.<\/p>\n

Here are my top five:<\/p>\n

1) Resources = Runway<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"Matt
Matt Damon in The Martian. Photos via 20th Century Fox<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Survival is about rationing resources, not about some artificial notion of time period. When Mark Watney is calculating how long he has, he\u2019s not saying: \u2018Oh, 31 days, that\u2019s it, I\u2019m done.\u2019<\/p>\n

He looks at all of his resources (namely food) and calculates based on that. When he grows more, his lease on life grows. When it disappears, so does his \u201crunway.\u201d The time you have to do what you\u2019re doing is directly related to the resources available to you.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s why most startup burn rates are done by weeks or months. Annual budgets are completely irrelevant. If you last a year, all of those calculations will have been revised at least a dozen times. And saying \u201cthis is our 5 year plan\u201d is completely meaningless if you don\u2019t have five years worth of runway in the bank.<\/p>\n

2) Live to fight the next fight<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Each day is about rallying to solve the problem at hand so you can live to solve the next one. Literally clawing your way to survival, one precious, hard-earned inch at a time. The rest is all irrelevant distraction.<\/p>\n

<\/span> If today\u2019s problem kills us, there is no future problem to solve. So, do whatever it takes to solve this problem so that you have the luxury of solving the next.<\/span><\/p>\n

Towards the end of the film, when all of the efforts have still resulted in a calculation gap, the crew decides to solve a distance problem, only to create a speed one.<\/p>\n

But the captain says to go ahead because that gives them 39 minutes to solve the new problem. And that\u2019s exactly it \u2014 it is completely irrelevant what next week\u2019s problem is.<\/p>\n

If today\u2019s problem kills us, there is no future problem to solve. So, do whatever it takes to solve this problem so that you have the luxury of solving the next.<\/p>\n

3) Survival is a choice <\/strong><\/h4>\n

\"ScreenUltimately whether you live or die is a matter of faith and sheer will. Mark Watney character refused to give in. He wasn\u2019t delusional about the odds and he prepared for the worst. But he chose to live. He chose to fight. And he chose to approach every set back and an opportunity to regroup and figure out a new path.<\/p>\n

He chose to live.<\/p>\n

Successful entrepreneurs often say that those that win were often just the most persistent. Not smarter or lucky or richer. Just simply more persistent.<\/p>\n

4) Your team is your safety net<\/strong><\/h4>\n

When you\u2019re lost and flailing about in the abyss and you\u2019re certain you\u2019re going to die, the only people that can save you are your team. Not investors, not advisors, not your family. Just your team.<\/p>\n

And when you feel like all is lost, when you don\u2019t think you can go on or you wonder why you should, it\u2019s your team that will remind you why you\u2019re doing this anyway.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re the ones that will breathe live back into this very hard journey you decided to devote your life to.<\/p>\n

5) The loneliness in the pursuit of greatness<\/strong><\/h4>\n

In one of the monologues, Mark Watney talks about how it\u2019s incredible stuff \u2014 knowing he\u2019s the first to do many things, that he\u2019s the only person on a whole planet. But underpinning this commentary you can\u2019t miss the loneliness.<\/p>\n

\"watney-greenhouse\"How, even with his crew and the whole world behind him, how very alone he is in this endeavor.<\/p>\n

He knows that he\u2019s doing what few can. That he\u2019s changing the world. That he loves what he does and that he\u2019s really good at it.<\/p>\n

But he also knows that that kind of world will always be isolating. It will always be lonely. That\u2019s the trade-off. The haunting loneliness for the chance of greatness.<\/p>\n

There were so many facets to this tale and it was engaging on so many levels that the science geek in me watched, wide-eyed with wonder and a touch of envy. But I was surprised how in the end, it was the entrepreneur that walked away the most impacted.<\/p>\n

Because it showed me, to do something great, there are so many things you must endure. Ultimately, though, it just comes down to this simple thing: solve this problem and then the next.<\/p>\n

Until one day, you find yourself home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Movie poster from The Martian. Photo: Wikipedia It\u2019s rare that a story about survival set on another planet can provide guidance on how to build an enduring company on this one. But as it turns out, that\u2019s just what The Martian does. It\u2019s a book and a movie that take you literally into another world […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5612,5613,4550,21,4329],"class_list":["post-19581","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-advice","tag-commentary","tag-movies","tag-space","tag-startups"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19581"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19581"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19581\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19581"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19581"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19581"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}