A founder answers

What's one brutal startup lesson Nathan Yun learned?

Nathan tried to be well-equipped by listening to startup podcasts to learn from "other people's mistakes," but found "there's always gonna be challenges out of expectation." His honest take: if he went back in time, "I might not want to know what are the challenges ahead — ignorance is bliss sometimes."

The full answer

NY
Nathan Yun · Paire
EP 26 · Co-founder, Paire
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Nathan tried to be well-equipped by listening to startup podcasts to learn from "other people's mistakes," but found "there's always gonna be challenges out of expectation." His honest take: if he went back in time, "I might not want to know what are the challenges ahead — ignorance is bliss sometimes."

More from this episode

Nathan says he tried his best to be "well equipped to run a startup," listening to "a lot of podcast... how I built this, at to cart" to learn from other people's mistakes, so he felt "mentally prepared." But "there's always gonna be challenges out of expectation," and that's part of what he likes about startups. Asked what lesson he wished he'd known, he reflected that if he went back in time "I might not want to know what are the challenges ahead — ignorance is bliss sometimes." The real lesson is to "enjoy the journey," because "the people that last actually just enjoys the journey," and "feeling defeated is part of the journey, and overcoming that gives you the most accomplishment you can ever get in life."