I agree, the survivor bias in the startup world is intense. We're always focusing on the success stories and replicating what they did. But, like you say, for every "toiled away and finally made it" story, there are probably 5? 10? 100? "toiled away and still got nowhere" stories.
As someone who has written a little about trying and failing[1][2], I'll say that the community doesn't exactly embrace such stories. Instead, everyone piles on to armchair quarterback and tell you what you did wrong.
But, to anyone who is serious about succeeding, you need to listen and learn from both the successes and the failures. Otherwise, you're operating on far less than half the story.
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I agree, the survivor bias in the startup world is intense. We're always focusing on the success stories and replicating what they did. But, like you say, for every "toiled away and finally made it" story, there are probably 5? 10? 100? "toiled away and still got nowhere" stories.
As someone who has written a little about trying and failing[1][2], I'll say that the community doesn't exactly embrace such stories. Instead, everyone piles on to armchair quarterback and tell you what you did wrong.
But, to anyone who is serious about succeeding, you need to listen and learn from both the successes and the failures. Otherwise, you're operating on far less than half the story.
[1] http://blog.aisleten.com/2009/04/06/what-we-did-to-not-get-i...
[2] http://peachshake.com/2011/07/20/entrepreneurship-stumbling-... (go about 10 minutes in to hear about failure)