There’s too many months at the end of the money.

A friend of mine got laid off from her job some years back. I called to check in on her, and somewhere in the conversation I asked if she’d thought about building something of her own. At the time, I was still deep in the delusion that the founder life was the only life worth living.

She said no. She just wanted to find another job, work for someone, and enjoy her life.

In my mind I was horrified. How dare she? Being a founder rocks! Building things is the dream! Why would anyone choose to work for someone else when they could build their own empire?

Younger me was so naive.

Now, after years of watering dirt in the desert, I understand something she already knew: it’s easier to be an employee. And there’s nothing wrong with choosing that path.

Let me be brutally honest with you. Being a founder is one of the hardest things you will ever do. And I’m not talking about the glamorized “hard” you see on X or Instagram. The humble brags about working weekends or shipping at midnight.

I’m talking about the kind of hard that breaks people. The kind that makes you question everything. The kind that teaches you faith whether you signed up for the lesson or not.

The reality nobody posts about

As an employee, you know what’s coming. The 25th hits. Money lands in your account. You can plan. You can breathe. You can sleep.

As a founder? You’re staring at your account on the 20th, doing mental gymnastics trying to figure out how to make payroll. Or rent. Or both. Or neither.

Too many months at the end of the money. That’s the founder reality.

You’re not thinking about product-market fit when your bank account is bleeding. You’re not dreaming about Series A when you can’t afford groceries. You’re surviving. Day by day. Sometimes hour by hour.

And the worst part? You can’t tell anyone. You’re supposed to be the visionary. The leader. The one with the answers. So you smile in meetings while your stomach knots because you don’t know if the business will exist next month.

You post encouraging content online. “Keep going.” “Trust the process.” “Your breakthrough is coming.” And people think you’re motivating them. But really? You’re piggybacking on your own posts. You’re writing to convince yourself as much as anyone else. The encouragement you give others is the encouragement you desperately need to hear.

The predictability you gave up

Employment gives you something founders don’t talk about enough: predictability.

You know what you’re earning. You know when you’re earning it. You can plan a vacation. You can sign a lease without anxiety. You can buy something without calculating if this purchase will be the one that breaks you.

Founders? We operate in perpetual uncertainty.

Revenue is unpredictable. Customers churn without warning. That deal you were counting on falls through on Friday afternoon. The invoice you sent 60 days ago still hasn’t been paid. The client who promised to sign this week has gone silent.

You can do everything right and still have months where nothing works.

Employment doesn’t prepare you for this. Nothing prepares you for this.

The Chinese Bamboo Tree

There’s a story I think about often when things get dark.

The Chinese bamboo tree is one of the most remarkable plants on earth. You plant the seed. You water it. You fertilize it. You wait.

Year one: Nothing.

You keep watering. Keep fertilizing. Keep showing up.

Year two: Nothing.

Year three: Still nothing.

Year four: Nothing visible. Just dirt. Just faith. Just showing up to water something you can’t see.

Then in year five, the Chinese bamboo tree grows 80 feet in just six weeks.

80 feet. Six weeks. After five years of nothing.

Here’s the question that haunts every founder: Was the tree growing for six weeks or for five years?

The answer is obvious. For five years, that bamboo was building a root system strong enough to support 80 feet of explosive growth. The work was happening. You just couldn’t see it.

Founding a company is the same. You’re watering dirt for years. You’re showing up when there’s no evidence it matters. You’re building roots nobody can see. Relationships, reputation, product, skills, understanding of your market.

And then one day, it breaks through. Or it doesn’t. And you won’t know which one until you’ve already put in the years.

Can you water dirt for five years without seeing a single sprout?

Most people can’t. That’s why most people should stay employed.

If you don’t have faith, founding will give you some

I don’t say this lightly. If you don’t have faith in God before becoming a founder, the journey will teach you to find some.

Because there will be moments. Many moments. Where the math doesn’t math. Where logic says quit. Where every rational analysis says this is over.

And yet you keep going. Why?

Because something beyond spreadsheets tells you to. Because you feel called to this thing even when the evidence says walk away. Because you believe in something you can’t prove, can’t show investors, can’t explain to your family who keeps asking when you’ll get a “real job.”

That’s faith. Raw, uncomfortable, irrational faith.

I’ve had moments on my knees at 2 AM. The bank account was empty. The options were gone. The logical thing was to quit. But I prayed anyway. Because when everything else fails, you go back to the only foundation that doesn’t move.

But I didn’t quit. Something kept me going. Call it God, call it purpose, call it delusion. But founders know this feeling. The inexplicable conviction that you’re supposed to keep watering the dirt even when everyone else sees a fool talking to soil.

Founding will either find your faith or build it. There’s no atheism in a foxhole, and there’s no pure rationalism in a startup at month 18 with no revenue.

Sam Altman once said:

The most successful people I know believe in themselves almost to the point of delusion.

The weight nobody sees

Your employees go home at 5 PM. Their work ends. Yours never does.

You wake up thinking about the business. You shower thinking about the business. You eat dinner with your family while half your brain runs calculations about runway and conversion rates.

The weight is always there. Even on vacation. Especially on vacation. Because you know every day you’re not working is a day your competitors might be.

And the loneliness. God, the loneliness.

You can’t fully vent to your team. They need you to be confident. You can’t fully vent to your family. They’re already worried. You can’t fully vent to other founders. Everyone’s performing success.

So you carry it. Alone. Day after day. Smile on your face, terror in your chest.

Asake was on to something; it is quite lonely at the top.

The math of employment

Let’s be real about what employment offers:

• Guaranteed income: You know what’s coming and when
• Benefits: Health insurance, retirement plans, paid leave
• Boundaries: You can actually clock out
• Shared responsibility: The company’s survival isn’t solely on you
• Social proof: People understand what you do
• Career progression: Clear ladders, clear expectations
• Psychological safety: One bad month doesn’t end everything

Founder math

• Income: Maybe. Someday. Probably not for a while. Possibly never.
• Benefits: Whatever you can afford (often nothing)
• Boundaries: What are those?
• Responsibility: Everything. All of it. Always.
• Social proof: “So… like a startup? Is that a real job?”
• Progression: There is no ladder. You’re building the building.
• Safety: One bad month might end everything

Read those lists again. Really read them.

Employment is the rational choice. By almost every metric, being an employee makes more sense. The risk-adjusted returns of a good job crush the expected value of most startups.

And yet. Some of us look at both lists and still choose the second one. Not because we can’t read. Not because we’re bad at math. But because something in us would rather build the building than climb the ladder.

”But they can fire you!”

I know what you’re thinking. “Kelvin, employment isn’t that safe either. They can fire you any day. You’re not in control.”

You’re right. They can fire you. Layoffs happen. Companies go under. That Slack message from HR can come any Tuesday morning.

But let’s be honest about the comparison.

When you get fired, you have options. You update your LinkedIn. You tap your network. You interview. Within weeks or months, you can be earning again. Your skills transfer. Your experience counts. Someone else will pay for what you know.

When your startup fails? You’ve potentially lost years. The skills you built might be hyper-specific. The network you neglected while heads-down building has atrophied. The gap on your resume raises questions. The savings you burned through aren’t coming back.

Yes, employment has risk. But it’s a different magnitude of risk.

Getting fired is a setback. Your startup failing can be a crater.

And here’s the thing nobody mentions. As an employee, getting fired is something that happens to you. As a founder, failure is something you own. Every decision that led there was yours. Every pivot you didn’t make. Every hire you got wrong. Every feature you prioritized incorrectly.

The weight of that ownership is different. Heavier. More personal.

Everything is hard. Pick your hard.

Here’s the truth that cuts through all of this: everything is hard.

Employment is hard. You’re building someone else’s dream. You’re subject to decisions you didn’t make. You can be let go through no fault of your own. You hit ceilings. You play politics. You watch less competent people get promoted because they’re better at the game.

Founding is hard. You’re bleeding money. You’re carrying weight alone. You’re watering dirt for years. You might build something nobody wants. You might sacrifice relationships, health, and savings for something that never works.

Neither path is easy. You’re just choosing which hard you want.

The hard of employment is the hard of constraints, ceilings, and building someone else’s vision.

The hard of founding is the hard of uncertainty, loneliness, and total ownership.

Pick your hard. But pick it with open eyes.

Don’t choose founding because you think it’s easier. It’s not. Don’t choose employment because you think it’s safe. It’s not entirely.

Choose based on which type of hard you’re built for. Which struggle feels meaningful to you. Which weight you’re willing to carry.

Because you’re going to carry weight either way. The only question is whose weight. And whether it’s a weight that makes you stronger or just heavier.

Why we do it anyway

Some of us can’t not do it.

There’s something broken. Or maybe fixed. In founders that makes employment feel like a slow death. The security feels like a cage. The predictability feels like suffocation. The clear ladder feels like someone else’s climb.

We’d rather water dirt for five years on the chance of bamboo than tend someone else’s garden forever.

It’s not rational. It’s not smart. It’s not what any reasonable financial advisor would recommend.

But it’s who we are.

So will I quit the founder journey?

After everything I just wrote, you might be wondering if I’m about to throw in the towel. If the next sentence is me announcing I’m going back to employment.

No. I don’t think so.

Because apparently I love the suffering. I love the uncertainty. I love watering dirt and believing something is growing underground even when everyone thinks I’m crazy.

I’m still building. Still founding. Still creating things like The African Engineer because something in me refuses to stop.

My friend made the right choice for her. Employment lets her live her life, enjoy her weekends, and sleep without the weight of a company on her chest. I respect that now in a way I couldn’t years ago.

But I made the right choice for me too. Even knowing everything I know. Even with the scars.

The honest conversation

If you’re thinking about becoming a founder, I want you to hear this clearly:

It’s easier to be an employee. In almost every way that can be measured, employment is the better deal.

If you need predictability, stay employed. If you need external validation, stay employed. If you need to see results quickly, stay employed. If you can’t operate on faith, stay employed. If the bamboo analogy terrifies you instead of inspires you, stay employed.

There’s no shame in that. Employees build the world too. Some of the most impactful people I know chose the stability of employment and used that security to do meaningful work.

But if you’re already watering dirt. If you’re already in the desert of founding. Hear this too:

The bamboo might be growing right now. Underground. Invisible. Building roots that will support something you can’t yet imagine.

Keep watering.

Even when you can’t see it.

Especially when you can’t see it.

That’s the job. That’s the faith. That’s the founder’s path.

It’s harder than employment. It’s lonelier than employment. It’s more irrational than employment.

But it’s ours.

Steve Jobs understood this when he wrote that famous ad. Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The ones who see things differently. The ones who are crazy enough to think they can change the world.

He wasn’t just selling computers. He was describing us. The founders. The ones who look at both lists and choose the harder path anyway.

Maybe we are crazy. But the people crazy enough to think they can change the world are the only ones who do.