Surviving The Startup Rocket: Secrets From Seasoned Entrepreneurs

Launching a startup is not like steering a cruise ship. It is like strapping yourself to a rocket, lighting the fuse, and hoping you remembered to build the parachute. The ground shifts beneath your feet. The playbook is on fire. The experts—the ones who have actually piloted these rockets and lived to tell the tale—they see things differently.

Down at MIT, in the forges of the Martin Trust Center for Entrepreneurship, four of them sat down. Jenny Larios Berlin of Optimus Ride. Devon Sherman Daley of MassChallenge FinTech. Chris Moses of Arsenal Health. Ben Soltoff, climate tech guru. They know the chaos. They know the code.

Here's the first secret.

That chaos you feel? The uncertainty? It is not your enemy. It is a spotlight. A harsh, unforgiving glare that illuminates the world's real, painful problems. Devon Sherman Daley says this is where entrepreneurs thrive. Not by avoiding risk, but by wrestling it to the ground. By managing the inevitable with intelligence.

Then there is the matter of survival. Chris Moses knows this battlefield. When money is easy, companies get soft. Bloated. They forget the mission. Survival demands a return to basics. Focus. Brutal efficiency. It requires the discipline of a bootstrapped venture, where every dollar is a prisoner and every decision is weighed in ounces of gold.

You must learn faster from your customers than you burn through your cash. Too much capital. A slow poison.

So you need money. Of course you do. You chase the big names on Sand Hill Road. The famous VCs. The titans. And the phone doesn't ring. Ben Soltoff points to a different map, a hidden geography of capital.

Look beyond the usual suspects. There are grants. Angel investors. Family offices that play a longer, quieter game. For ventures in climate and energy, the biggest prize is not venture capital at all. It is a vast ocean of infrastructure financing. VCs are a puddle by comparison. You are digging for water in the wrong desert.

And then comes the hardest part.

The part that happens inside your own head. Jenny Larios Berlin draws a line in the sand. Commitment on one side, attachment on the other. They are not the same. Commit to the venture. To the mission. To the fight. But your perfect, beautiful idea? The specific outcome you have fallen in love with? Be prepared to take it out behind the woodshed.

Attachment is a blinder. It narrows your thinking until the only path you see is the one leading off a cliff. Love the journey, not the destination. Because the destination will change. It always does.

• Embrace the Problem Uncertainty magnifies problems that desperately need solving.

This is your opportunity, not your obstacle.
• Master Efficiency During lean times, operational excellence is not a goal; it is a means of survival. Learn from customers faster than you spend.
• Expand Your Capital Search The most famous VCs are not the only source of funding.

Explore grants, specialized VCs, family offices, and infrastructure financing.
• Commit, Don't Attach Be deeply committed to building your company, but remain unattached to a single, rigid outcome. Flexibility is your greatest asset.