-You understand the numbers are against you and realize even if you fail it’s worth trying again; you believe it’s better to go for 0 for 50 than 0 for 0.
-You provide a utility that is good enough for someone to pay for.
-Your startup saves someone time or make someone’s life easier.
-Your costs are so low you’re virtually impossible to kill.
-You don’t care about material possessions.
-Your startup makes others money.
-You treasure not (or rarely) having meetings.
-You love working for yourself.
-There’s very little wasted time and red tape. Your team is lean, mean and aggressive.
-You’re patient. Twitter, Kayak, Plenty of Fish and Facebook have been around longer than you think. And two of them aren’t even profitable.
-You know IPOs or acquisitions aren’t required to make a good living..
-You do instead of talking about doing.
-You realize, in the very early stages, that the worst thing that could happen is you lose a few hundred or thousand dollars and learn something. What do you have to lose?
-When you get lucky or catch a break you’re ready for it.
-You believe that success is the amount of your life you control.
-You love what you do. Or at the very least, love your situation.
-You avoid blanket statements like this: All the millionaires were in porn in 2000 and realize that not every “startup rule” or any rule applies. Businesses can be very different from each other.
-You understand that your odds of having an enjoyable job paying 200k are roughly the same as owning a profitable small business.
Posted here by Dan Haubert, cofounder of TicketStumbler.
Matt Mazur 