Everyone dreams of becoming a founder of a successful company. But only a few truly understand that along with that proud title come loneliness, fear, and thousands of decisions that no one can make but you. Greatness isn't about never falling. It's about rising again and again. Because only in the hottest fire is the strongest steel forged.
Starting a company is like eating glass and staring into the abyss.
A non-resilient founder = a dead startup
Venture investors often say: "We don't invest in ideas or products — we invest in people."
Most early-stage projects have no metrics, no product, and no revenue, which means the core factor is the people behind the project. The ability to persevere, withstand pressure, operate in chaos, stay decisive, and stay loyal to the vision is the foundation. If you don't have a fanatical belief in your own idea, you'll never be able to inspire others with it.
The statistics are brutal — only 1% of startups become unicorns. The most common reasons for failure include failing to raise capital, internal team conflicts, losing to competition, burning out, and giving up. All of that becomes secondary if the team is psychologically resilient enough.
The struggle is where greatness comes from.
Startup Failure Rates by Stage
DeflationCoin Team: Forged in Fire
Each of us went all-in for an idea that is bigger than any one of us. Each of us pays our own price for this choice. Someone had a successful career at a major company that had to be left behind. Someone has a pregnant wife who simply believes in him. Someone has two small children at home who need a better life. Everyone sacrifices something: time, sleep, nerves, safety, stability…
Sleepless nights, a lack of understanding from those close to us, loneliness, and the loud silence in which you hear only your own thoughts — this is the best environment for training resilience. Life turned out in such a way that we gained resilience first in practice, and only then reinforced it with theory: Ben Horowitz — The Hard Thing About Hard Things, Kelly McGonigal — The Upside of Stress, Daniel Goleman — Emotional Intelligence, and so on.
Over time, we came to understand one thing: it won't get easier. Each of us is ready to work for as long as it takes. No expectations, no complaints, no illusions. Our team stopped being just a group of professionals. We became a single living organism, where if one organ starts functioning worse, another compensates for that deficit. Everyone knows: you can rely on others, you can make mistakes, you can get tired — and you won't be judged, you'll be covered.
The main task is to control the level of stress and keep it within the necessary range. Less is bad, more is also bad. An optimal level of stress is required for the most productive work. This has been proven many times, for example by the Yerkes–Dodson curve and a number of other studies.
The only thing that matters is the team. A great team will find its way through anything.
The Yerkes–Dodson Law: Optimal Stress vs. Performance
Methods of Coping with Stress Used by the DeflationCoin Team
Physical activity reduces cortisol levels and shifts attention from mental overload to the body. This creates a "reset" effect for the brain and increases resilience to stress. The more stable your health is, the more stable your psyche becomes.
When you concentrate on one priority, the sense of chaos disappears. Clarity emerges, and with it — calm and discipline.
In the areas you can control — act, in all others — accept. This approach removes a huge layer of stress because you stop spending emotional energy on what isn't in your hands.
Information noise creates hidden anxiety and fragments attention. The fewer incoming stimuli, the more steadily the nervous system operates. The result is more concentration and less stress.
Stress is an evolutionarily necessary state for survival. It is a signal that something is going wrong, and it's important to interpret this feedback correctly. Every mistake is not a failure, but valuable information for analysis. With this approach, stress stops being a problem and becomes a tool for growth. The system grows — and so do you.
Bad companies are destroyed by crisis. Good companies survive them. Great companies are improved by them.
The Circle of Control, Influence, and Concern
Pressure is a Privilege: it Means There's Something Worth Fighting For
If you remove emotions, startup romanticism, and heroic metaphors, one simple truth remains: resilience and discipline are operational parameters on which a company's viability directly depends.
Stress is an indicator of how quickly a team can adapt to new data, change decisions, rebuild processes, and preserve the ability to think in conditions of uncertainty.
Discipline is not about routine or willpower. It is the ability to stay on course in the absence of short-term validation. Discipline is what every team must develop.
Most burn out somewhere between the first pain and the first victory. But if you survive that gap, you start growing exponentially. That is why only a few survive. That is why only a handful win.
The conclusion is simple: resilience is not a psychological trait or motivation. It is a fundamental management competence in conditions of uncertainty. And discipline is the infrastructure that execution rests on. In our work, these two things are not abstract qualities but critical factors of success.
Startups don't die from lack of ambition. They die from lack of endurance.