An entrepreneur’s mascot

Savvy entrepreneurs respect survival. When Airbnb was running out of money as it was starting up, the co-founders made and sold custom cereal in order to pay off their debts. Paul Graham praised them, “You guys are like cockroaches. You just won’t die.” It’s the unofficial mascot of Y Combinator. In an anthropomorphic sense, cockroaches aren’t strong like lions, beautiful like butterflies, or friendly like dogs. They’re just very difficult to kill. When I talk about the importance of focusing on making a business work in its first year, the cockroach comes to mind. (So does the jellyfish, which are much prettier than cockroaches.) The post An entrepreneur’s mascot appeared first on Herbert Lui.