Someone much smarter, much experienced than me, told me this once. This is something I think contains immense wisdom and real world experience, which I feel needs to be shared with other too.

Working at a start-up requires an irrational amount of commitment. This either comes from the love of the vision, or love of the team, or love of the work you’re doing, or all of the above, or something more irrational than any of the above. A start-up does not pay well, cannot manage well, and has process gaps that are inanely obvious, and other things that one rationally expects. Start-ups do not lack the understanding or appreciation to solve these problems, but lack the luxury to spend time on those important things because of other more important things. Only when you dissolve yourself in the start-up as an owner (not an employee) does it start making sense, and every problem is seen as one you need to fix and not something that the company needs to fix for you.