What Startup Founders Could Learn from Restaurateurs

Summary

A Medium story by Dave Lu, dated Mar 28, 2017, in which the author writes of always feeling a kinship with restaurant owners. The author writes that a mutual respect with restaurateurs led to befriending and eventually cofounding the current company, Pared, with Will Pacio, founder of Spice Kit restaurants. It describes this as a second startup, where the fear of failure and stress from uncertainty is not any less than the first. The text says both startup founders and restaurateurs struggle with the same challenges, including turning an idea into a real business, convincing people to give money to try, and growing the business to profitability.

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[![Image 1: Dave Lu](https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fill:64:64/1*-ZlRJLa4qMqVyBfhpGe6uw.jpeg)](https://davelu.medium.com/?source=post_page---byline--b092e6b19c55---------------------------------------)

11 min read

Mar 28, 2017

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I’ve always felt a kinship with restaurant owners. It’s hard not to respect people who pour their blood, sweat and tears into starting and running a restaurant. The hours of work before opening to prep the food. The hours of work and stress during service. The hours of work to clean everything up so they are ready to do it all again the next day. The time they will never get back that could have been spent with their families and friends. All of this in the face of the frighteningly unfavorable odds that they will most likely fail. I could never pinpoint why I connected so well with restaurateurs until I realized how much we had in common. It was this mutual respect that drew me to befriend and eventually cofound my current company [Pared](http://www.pared.com/) with Will Pacio, founder of Spice Kit restaurants.

Since starting [Pared](http://www.pared.com/), I’ve only grown to appreciate the similarities of starting a tech company and starting a restaurant even more. This is my second startup and the fear of failure and stress from uncertainty isn’t any less than the first. Turning an idea into a real business that employs people and has paying customers is hard. Convincing people to believe in your ability to do that and give you their money to try is hard. Managing and growing the business to profitability is really hard. Both startup founders and restaurateurs struggle with these very same challenges…

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