Entrepreneurship is a humbling experience!
When I was in my first year of college at IITD, I was extremely proud of myself for getting AIR 27 in IIT-JEE.
Being showered with incessant praise can get to your head and you start thinking that you’ll succeed in whatever you do.
In my second year, I started my first startup and after working for months, we failed miserably. We were not able to get even 100 customers and realised pretty soon that ‘the market’ doesn’t need this.
From dreaming about becoming a $1B company, we went to zero in no time.
Now, in my second stint at entrepreneurship, I’ve realized that market doesn’t care about your degrees or the institute you went to. It also doesn’t care whether your last product had 1 million installs, whether your last startup got acquired or whether you’ve raised money from ace investors.
Long story short, the market simply doesn’t care about you. All that it is concerned with is about what you can do FOR IT.
It really crumbles your ego and keeps you grounded.
As Steve Jobs said, “Stay hungry, stay foolish”. I’d add - “Stay humble, Stay hungry, Stay foolish” :)