Today, we celebrate, our startup day!

I love watching movies! When I was a kid, my parents bought a VCR (if you kids don’t know what’s that, please Google) soon after it was available for purchasing. So I had the opportunity to watch a hole bunch of them. But to remember Independence day from 1996 (Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum), you don’t have to be a movie lover like me. However, let me remind you quickly what happens in that movie.

Investor’s speech or action can motivate startup founders

First of all, aliens invade. Blablabla… Then at one point, you have one guy, a great pilot (because he shot 1 alien aircraft) courageous as hell. He is a soldier, or a marine (Will Smith). And than you have the other one, who is reeeeealy smart, but needs to drink a little bit to calm down, and go on a mission (Jeff Goldblum). What happens next is that the smart guy says some wacky things about destroying the mother ship, that no one else thought of (some sort of a hack), a lot of a people disagree with him, call him crazy, etc. He somehow convinces the president, that that’s the right course of action. All they need is a pilot. Naturally, the “courageous as hell” guy volunteers! He says he can fly the alien aircraft! Heck fly, if he entered a Podrace on Tatooine, he’d beat Anakin Skywalker!

And than a crucial moment happens. The smart guy and the brave guy sit in that alien aircraft and they have a little chat. The smart guy asks the brave guy, can you really fly that good? And the brave guy replies: “Well if you can do all that mumbo-jumbo with the mothership I can fly that good!”.

Startup co-founders

They both know, but refuse to admit, they are going on a suicide mission. In all honesty, they aren’t that sure what they are doing, but it seemed like a good idea at the moment. There’s no turning back now. They are going to deactivate the mothership’s shield, some crazy guy is going to nuke the SOB (I have no idea how he got there) and that’s that. They are going to change the… excuse me, save the world.

And as the story goes, they succeed in their plan, and than they realize they might have a chance to get out of the mothership. Since this is Hollywood, they make a dramatic exit at the veeeeeery last second! They manage to survive, they get the ladies (love), they get the medals from the president (recognition), they make the headlines (fame), and they don’t have to pay taxes (fortune).

A lot of startup founders go on a same suicide mission, but they never come back. Let’s have a moment of silence for them.

The ones who do make it back, will be there to tell the story.

The end

Actors:

The president as Angel Investor

The pilot as Co-founder 1

The smart guy as Co-founder 2

The crazy guy as The crazy guy

Goran Duskic

Goran Duskic co-founded a game development team Generation Stars when he was a teenager, and he co-founded hosting and web develpoment company GEM Studio (which was sold in 2011). He co-founded tech startup WhoAPI and has 10+ experience in business development, online marketing strategy and PR.