[maldie]

Agreed, expectations are everything or at least very important to keep sanity in this area.

Reality is that big majority of startup-s do fail to "make it" 90% of time to even be self sustaining. Financially meaning that you pay from your pocket overall and the resources have to come somewhere, day job or whatever, making it very much overwhelming and can break even a strong man. Only small percentage out of those 10% actually make it to sustainable enough to live by.

Percentages can begin to rise on your favour after learning from failures but there is of course no guarantees, some domains are inherently much less forgiving or have fierce competition. It is important to resarch and understand the landscape you're going into.

If you realise your odds then mindset starts to get clearer, you know what you risk losing and accept that loss is likely, you still put enough effort to win but don't set your mind so deep that everything collapses with the project.

It might be contrary to some suggestions that you have to put everything into startup to have a chance but that is also correct imo, you do have to be able to invest all your available time on the project. Keeping in mind that the project is not absolute everything in life and being able to walk away at right time as to not sunk endless resources to unfruitful endeavour keep you healthier.