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Ask HN: Did working at a large company, help you become a better entrepreneur?

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Re: Ask HN: Did working at a large company, help you become a better entrepreneur?

#11

Post by Mz »

elliotec wrote: post #8

Not yet an entrepreneur (I guess I started my freelance business..), but I feel there are certainly lessons to learn from working at a large company. I mean, my CEO is an entrepreneur, so it seems that even just by watching some of that person's decisions and how it trickles through the company, I can learn what to do or not to do when I am in his position someday. But really the people that we want answering this ma…

Your closing remark assumes a correlation that may not exist. It implies that working for BigCo translates to entrepreneurial succes. This may not be true. In fact, the data I know suggests that entrepreneurs are frequently mavericks who can't cut it in The Establishment and that is exactly why they struck out on their own.

Re: Ask HN: Did working at a large company, help you become a better entrepreneur?

#13

Post by adamwdraper »

davismwfl wrote: post #10

Basically yes. In two ways, it taught me what to avoid in business, like having layers of management filtering facts that are needed to make informed decisions. Along those same lines it taught me that many times that stupid ass decision you can't understand why the Director or VP or C level made, came because s/he was given half truths or partial information and did the best with what they were told. Second way is t…

I think most responses here echo the fact that they learned what not to do more than anything.

To your second point, it seems that one thing big companies do actually offer is exposure to large scale, whether that be engineering or business practices.

Re: Ask HN: Did working at a large company, help you become a better entrepreneur?

#14

Post by vinayak147 »

At a large company it is very difficult to try new things quickly. Flat hierarchy, smart people and great culture help but not enough to make a drastic difference.

I have found it helpful to understand this from experience - as opposed to theory.

Trying new things quickly is the biggest competitive advantage of an entrepreneur. A sharp focus on maximizing this advantage does make a better entrepreneur.

Re: Ask HN: Did working at a large company, help you become a better entrepreneur?

#15

Post by rajnikant »

An Entrepreneur needs to learn a lot, while I always believe that an experienced person can always conduct a better business than a fresh one but learning mostly depends on these 2 things instead of size of organisation. (1) Your Role in organisation : you should be at the place where you get enough exposure to learn new things (2) Your desire to learn : The person who is happy in a 9 to 5 job can never learn the things which don't fall in his/her JD so if you really want to become a good entrepreneur, you should be ready to do as much work as you can do to learn new things
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