Hype, Confusion, Punishing the Innocent, and Rewarding the Uninvolved: The Typical Startup Journey

Anyone who has ever launched a business project has likely had a moment of déjà vu—“Wait, haven’t we been here before?” There’s an old joke claiming that every project goes through four stages: first comes the hype, then the confusion, followed by the punishment of the innocent, and, finally, the rewarding of the uninvolved. Sound absurd? Far from it. Ask any entrepreneur who’s been pulled into the vortex of their own startup—there’s more truth than exaggeration in this tongue-in-cheek sequence.

Let’s take a lighthearted look at the average startup as it travels through these four phases. Expect laughter, moments of painfully familiar recognition, and valuable lessons (or at least some cathartic relief—sometimes humor is the only way to survive the rough patches of entrepreneurial life).

---

Stage 1: The Hype — Boundless Enthusiasm

The first stage of any project is like a honeymoon: it’s sweet, exhilarating, and tends to blind you to reality. Hype is that euphoric period when you’re convinced the whole world will soon bow before your genius idea. The startup concept seems revolutionary, the team is on fire, and investors (if they’re on board at this point) nod in excited approval. Grandiose words like “disruptive” and “game-changing” fill the air. Lofty promises fall like confetti: an MVP in one month, market launch in one quarter, a million users by year’s end. Reality? Who cares—we’re building the future!

During this phase, founders often resemble kids let loose in a toy store. They describe their startup as a “rocket ship ready to conquer space” or a “unicorn grazing in a meadow of cash.” They sprinkle social media with motivational hashtags (#startup, #dreambig), and in interviews they casually compare themselves to Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. Everyone is smiling, clapping each other on the back, and wholeheartedly believing success is inevitable.

Common Signs of Hype

1. Unfounded Optimism
   Any risk is dismissed out of hand. If someone dares to ask, “What if something goes wrong?” they’re met with blank stares—how could anything go wrong with such a brilliant idea?
2. Overblown Promises
   The team commits to impossible deadlines and features that anyone with real-world experience would reject. Statements like “We’ll launch our multinational platform in three months—no problem!” or “We’ll build an AI solution with a built-in blockchain and a fully immersive metaverse—piece of cake!” become standard fare.
3. Cult of Inspiration
   Office walls (or that tiny space in a co-working hub) are plastered with motivational posters: “Think Big!” or “Innovate or Die!” Mornings start with team huddles, group hugs, or spirited pep talks about a grand mission to change the world.
4. Negativity? What Negativity?
   Anyone who expresses doubts or asks critical questions is quickly labeled a naysayer. The prevailing belief is that if you just believe strongly enough, the universe will align and make it all happen.

Yes, hype is fun—and it injects projects with the energy needed to get off the ground. However, after the initial wave of euphoria recedes, reality steps in. That’s when things get really interesting.

---

Stage 2: The Confusion — When Reality Hits the Brakes

After floating on clouds during the hype stage, the confusion stage is a crash landing—sometimes face-first. Suddenly, rosy fantasies shatter. You discover that competitors are also moving fast, the tech isn’t functioning as flawlessly as you’d hoped, customers aren’t lining up to hand over money, and your code or prototypes refuse to match the bold claims in your pitch deck.

Confusion is pure chaos. Remember that carefully crafted presentation with the neat project roadmap? Toss it. Now the strategy seems to change weekly. One day, the priority is to attract customers at all costs; the next day, the whole product must be reworked; a few days later, expense slashing becomes urgent because the budget is evaporating faster than you ever anticipated. The team is frantically juggling a million tasks, sometimes making progress and sometimes going in circles. A single day might look like this:

• 8:00 a.m. – A stern phone call from an investor asking, “Where are the results?”
• 9:00 a.m. – An emergency team meeting
• 11:00 a.m. – Three new versions of the roadmap
• 4:00 p.m. – Five conflicting directives from management
• 6:00 p.m. – An inbox full of urgent emails nobody has time to read
• By evening – Chaos reigns supreme

What Happens During the Confusion Stage

1. Galloping Priorities
   The project’s goals change so frequently that even the most organized team members can’t keep track. Whatever is on fire today gets all the attention. “Pivots” may happen monthly—as if pivoting was part of the original business plan.
2. Communication Overload
   Inboxes overflow with endless email threads, chat apps explode with messages. Meetings get scheduled to figure out why no one understands anything. Ironically, half the day is spent in discussions about why there are too many meetings.
3. Overwork and Burnout
   Suddenly, every single person is “mission-critical,” because you’re short-staffed and overloaded with tasks. Developers and marketers run on four hours of sleep and gulp down coffee (or energy drinks) to keep the lights on. Enthusiasm slowly gets replaced by exhaustion and a hint of quiet panic.
4. Initial Blame Game
   Official finger-pointing hasn’t started yet, but the question, “Who got us into this mess?” is already floating around. Development teams complain about unrealistic deadlines. Marketing points at engineering’s slow progress. The founder’s overconfidence may be silently questioned. Tension escalates.

At this point, the corporate version of hypocrisy makes its grand entrance. People who once championed big dreams now shake their heads, wondering why “no one warned them it would be hard.” Senior managers suddenly remember the metrics and goals they themselves approved, ignoring the fact that these were impossible from the outset. As disappointment sets in, instead of calmly diagnosing the real issues, the project often descends into the next, even more dramatic phase.

---

Stage 3: Punishing the Innocent — Hunting for Scapegoats

Welcome to the most toxic phase of the journey—punishing the innocent. The name speaks for itself: it’s time to single out culprits and conduct show trials. After all, what could be easier than blaming specific people for the project’s failings? Ironically, those who made the riskiest or most misguided calls often dodge blame entirely because they were “acting in the best interests of the project.” Instead, you’ll find plenty of sacrificial lambs who can be held up as the supposed cause of all the trouble.

In practice, it often looks like this:

• Leadership, with grim expressions, summons the team.
• They announce “We’re disappointed in these results” and “This can’t continue.”
• The search for “those responsible” begins—though the true scapegoats were likely chosen days before, behind closed doors.
• Some unfortunate middle manager or an overworked lead developer gets singled out. The fact that they were following contradictory orders or dealing with unrealistic deadlines doesn’t matter.

Sometimes an entire department takes the fall, e.g., “We’re forced to part ways with the UX design team; they failed to meet expectations,” when in reality, that team was just scrambling to reconcile conflicting requirements.

How Punishing the Innocent Manifests

1. Public Shaming
   During all-hands meetings, you hear phrases like “There was insufficient effort” or “This initiative was a failure.” A specific individual or department is labeled the disappointment of the quarter. Company-wide emails might then broadcast the “unfortunate shortcomings” of certain teams, with everyone solemnly nodding.
2. Firings and Reshuffles
   The most direct form of punishment is letting people go. Often, those who spoke up about problems or tried hardest to fix them are the first to be shown the door. Another tactic is to move a perceived “troublemaker” to a different team or demote them, so they can’t “obstruct” the big vision anymore.
3. New Rules from Old Mistakes
   Leadership responds by layering on more bureaucracy “to prevent future issues.” For instance: “All project changes must now pass through three levels of approval,” or “Developers must submit detailed progress reports twice a day.” This might sound like corrective action, but in practice it piles more busywork on the already stressed-out team.
4. Ignoring the Real Causes
   Notice how no one talks about the core problems, like flawed strategy or poor market research. Instead, they focus on individual failings and “insufficient dedication.” It’s more convenient to blame a few people than to admit that the project’s entire foundation was shaky from the start.

This stage often leaves scorched earth in its wake. Morale plummets—those who remain feel either demoralized or angry. Ironically, the root causes of the mess remain unidentified, increasing the odds that the project will either collapse or lurch into a weird new phase. And that’s when the final twist emerges.

---

Stage 4: Rewarding the Uninvolved — And the Winner Is…

After the storm, you might think the project is dead. But sometimes a bizarre finale unfolds: those who had the least to do with the project come out on top. It’s the height of absurdity—a moment when any lingering sense of fairness goes out the window. In many corporate cultures, this phenomenon is actually quite common.

Imagine the project ends, or it’s “officially relaunched” under a different name. The people who worked nights and weekends, or who poured their hearts into saving it, have either been fired or quietly moved on to new opportunities. Suddenly—bam!—at the annual company meeting or in a blog update, you see an announcement: “Project X fulfilled an important mission, teaching us valuable lessons.” A high-level executive who barely knew the project’s name takes the stage to deliver a triumphant talk about “key results” (which the original team is hearing about for the first time). Then this executive receives an award for “Outstanding Leadership in Innovation,” cameras flash, and the audience applauds. Meanwhile, the real heroes are nowhere in sight—some are job hunting, others are on vacation trying to recover from the ordeal.

Examples of Rewarding the Uninvolved

1. Claiming Credit
   A vice president who showed up to maybe two out of twenty project meetings is heralded as the face of the project’s success. They star in the press release, describing how their “visionary guidance” propelled the team to new heights. They get the promotion and bonus; the actual team gets polite nods and an invitation to do it all over again on a new project.
2. Surprise Bonuses
   Maybe the project yielded something valuable—often by accident. For instance, the team developed a sophisticated internal tool. Who gets recognized for it? The head of IT, who discovered this tool only after reading the project’s final report. But hey, it looks impressive on paper, so of course they should be rewarded.
3. Ceremonial Trophies
   In many large organizations, intangible accolades like “Most Innovative Project of the Year” are a big deal. But the actual trophy might go to a department that functioned more as a figurehead than as a real contributor. Cue staged photos for the corporate newsletter, while top brass announces progress on “frontier innovation.”
4. Rebranding Failure as Success
   The most creative spin is painting an outright flop as a triumph of “learning.” For example: “We never launched this product to the market, but we gained invaluable knowledge!” All of which is attributed to people who stood on the sidelines. Sometimes a separate budget is even allocated to “spread the project’s best practices across the organization,” managed by executives who barely participated.

Rewarding the uninvolved is the final flourish, that moment when you might simultaneously laugh and cry. Those who slogged through the project’s darkest hours get no applause, while those who hovered at a safe distance (or inadvertently created obstacles) revel in their 15 minutes of fame. Is it unfair? Absolutely. Does it happen? Too often. Welcome to the real world—or at least a comedic version of it.

---

A Global (and MENA) Perspective

Though this four-stage drama is recounted with tongue firmly in cheek, it’s by no means limited to Silicon Valley or traditional Western startups. In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, entrepreneurs often experience a heightened version of these phases. Rapidly expanding markets, government-backed innovation hubs, and intense competition among new ventures can amplify each step:

• Hype can skyrocket with the support of regional incubators, often sponsored by sovereign funds or industry giants.
• Confusion may kick in when multiple regulatory environments, cross-border expansion plans, and fast-evolving consumer preferences clash with an overzealous timeline.
• Punishing the Innocent is no easier in MENA than anywhere else—it can be fueled by cultural norms that discourage speaking up or conflict with hierarchical leadership styles.
• Rewarding the Uninvolved might include giving credit for “transformational projects” to corporate groups or individuals far removed from day-to-day operations.

These challenges aren’t unique to MENA, but local factors—such as diverse markets, varying levels of infrastructure, and intricate partnerships—can make the path even more complicated. For strategies on mitigating these pitfalls, you might consult resources like the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) guidelines on responsible business conduct or ISO standards on project management (e.g., ISO 21500). Of course, no standard or guideline completely insulates you from human nature, but it can help strengthen organizational frameworks.

---

Conclusion

After following this comedic odyssey—from the ringing fanfare of the hype stage to the bittersweet irony of rewarding the uninvolved—you might wonder if every startup is doomed to this cycle. Unfortunately, it’s more common than we’d like, in both fledgling companies and giant corporations. Why? Because wherever you find human ambition, fear, and office politics, these four stages lie in wait.

Yet being aware of the pattern can at least help you spot it early—forewarned is forearmed. This doesn’t guarantee that your next venture will avoid hype, confusion, toxic blame games, or misplaced accolades. But when you notice these telltale signs, you can take a step back and think, “Ah, we’ve entered that familiar script!” That small bit of self-awareness might protect you from illusions and allow for course corrections before the train completely derails.

Ironically, each stage teaches an uncomfortable lesson:

• Without hype, most projects would never launch.
• Without confusion, we’d never learn where our weaknesses truly lie.
• Without punishing the innocent, we wouldn’t appreciate how important it is to build healthy team culture and fair leadership practices.
• Without rewarding the uninvolved, we might not develop the skill of spotting false heroes and inflated egos.

So laugh at these stages all you want, but take note of the underlying truths. In entrepreneurship, a sense of humor can be a lifesaver when your project starts to sink into chaos. Yes, every project might pass through hype, confusion, punishing the innocent, and rewarding the uninvolved. But laughter, coupled with a clear-eyed perspective, can keep you sane—and maybe help you rewrite this script in a more positive way.

Good luck, fellow founders. If you recognize yourself in these descriptions, at least you know you’re in good company. With any luck, your next endeavor will dodge some of these pitfalls—or handle them with grace if they do appear. And here’s to having fewer “uninvolved winners” along the way!