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Editorial Illustration for Factor Daily's story project Startups and Society.
Entrepreneurial journeys are like space missions. They combine bold vision and fearlessness with the drudgery of operations. Add to that the millions of tiny pieces of execution that must work in tandem and exactly as prescribed for a spaceship to land successfully. External and internal factors define a space mission and are sometimes too unpredictable to plan.
Remember, though, that the world’s third largest startup ecosystem is littered with failures for every success story. Companies founded by ambitious entrepreneurs that showed early promise impressed angel investors or venture capitalists enough to raise seed or growth capital but got nowhere and disappeared. Entrepreneurial journeys are lonely and ruthlessly demanding. If the startup is bootstrapped, these journeys get even more desolate, and the valleys of death get endlessly long."
This illustration was based on the Apollo 13 incident, looking at failure as a pedestal for learning and way forward.
