The Worst Way to Launch a New Startup

The excitement of launching new startups can make it easy to forget what comes next.

Aaron Dinin, PhD
Entrepreneurship Handbook
4 min readOct 19, 2023

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The excitement of launching a new startup will make you as giddy as a child, but the reality of running it is very different.

“Launching startups is hard,” the exhausted founder said as he flopped into a chair across from my desk during my weekly office hours. He was clearly stressed, and I quickly realized our meeting was mostly going to be a venting session.

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I teach entrepreneurship at Duke. Software Engineer. PhD in English. I write about the mistakes entrepreneurs make since I’ve made plenty. More @ aarondinin.com