Startup = Growth
- Venture Capital pouring millions into untried businesses.<p>- The crazy valuations.<p>- The recent complains of VCs that "Entrepreneurs aren't working on enough big ideas".<p>It all actually makes sense now. It's all in the name of Big Risk = Big Reward style ventures. Especially after defining a "startup" as a company meant to grow rapidly and to massive proportions. Not necessarily a tech business. Not an online store for your company. But instead an extreme-expantion-potential style company. I wish Startups were defined like this from the beginning.<p>It also further pushes me away from the whole Startup / Silicon Valley thing. Growing that fast means a lot can go wrong and there's very little time to learn from mistakes. I'm a slower thinker, I like to analyze and enjoy, learn and understand, build and live, not sacrifice my life and grow my company like a lunatic.<p>Thank you Paul. You've actually freed me from a dream that I now realize will never make me happy. I can finally let go of my plan to abandon my family, move to the bay area, drain my life savings, live in a shoebox, stumble from one conference and event to the next hoping to network and find my messiah & co-founder, try to get funded, grow my business to someone else's expectations, all for a tiny fraction of a chance to succeed and be either a slave to my own company or lose control of my baby and walk away with diluted equity. I think I'll stay here in St. Louis with my aging family and build my businesses slowly and calmly.<p>You freed me Paul. You gave me back my life, my real one.