Setbacks and Success

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal,
it is the courage to continue that counts.”
                                      - Winston Churchill

There are some typical software venture dysfunctions that come from assuming that success is final and failure is fatal. 

The success delusion tempts you into sticking with what worked last year instead of focusing on what needs to change to succeed this year.  In the famous words of Andy Grove "only the paranoid survive" and success unfortunately drives out paranoia.

Failure tempts you into abandoning a direction that could succeed with an appropriate and active course correction.