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Why Should I Start a Startup?

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#51

Post by CryptoFascist »

blizkreeg wrote: post #30

You should not start a startup. I like to think of it differently. It's semantics but I find that it aligns my thinking better. You should start a business if: - you are strongly driven _by the idea_ of doing business, i.e., at some point in your evolution, you become Walt Whitman. A business, which - solves a problem, makes a product, or offers a service, that - you think can you do better and make money while doing…

This! Especially the 'solves a problem or offers a service'. Any company without a viable plan to create surplus is a failure waiting to happen. It's why most startups fail... their purpose is to be a startup first, create a surplus if they luck out, or be flipped into a bubble market.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#52

Post by mwseibel »

Swizec wrote: post #9
agentultra wrote: post #7

> 1. The vast majority of startups are not successful This alone is why 90% of people will not choose to work at a startup. You will work long hours, for crap pay, and you'll be waiting in line if there is an exit. The odds of there being an exit worth anything to anyone other than a founder are small enough to not even worth considering. If you are a founder you're gambling on your chances. There are ways to mitigat…

If you have the entrepreneurial itch and don't have the financial security to back it up, becoming a bootstrapped micropreneur is a great first choice. Start your business on the side, when it revenue is high enough to live on, make the jump. It's slower than a funded startup, but a lot less risky. Does come with a high social opportunity cost due to lack of time, however. But so does starting a startup. If your side…

I totally agree with this - starting by bootstrapping is a great way to get your feet wet while maintaining a stable salary

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#53

Post by ABCLAW »

nostrademons wrote: post #33
ABCLAW wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. This is a nice dichotomy. Until you add "living out of a car with your pregnant wife and 2 year old child" to the things you have organized your life to do. Humans are very adverse to ruin, and this has nothing to do with what they want to do or achieve. It has to do with what they do not want to experience or put others through.

While living out of my car is a bit more hardship than I'm willing to endure or put my wife through, I do know people who have voluntarily quit their job and lived out of their car for six months or so, because seeing the country, rock climbing, and camping by the side of the road was more important to them. Heck, my wife lived in a house with 3.5 walls for 2 years (Peace Corps). Hopefully you are not giving up thing…

Sure.

When you're financially secure, it isn't a big deal to live out of your car and climb a few mountains for shits and giggles.

But what does that have to do, prescriptively, with the reverse situation, when you aren't financially secure? Very little.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#54

Post by metalliqaz »

marssaxman wrote: post #44
Analemma_ wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So if you go to work for a startup, you should demand substantially more money than with an established company. The problem is that most startups can't match, much less beat, established companies on salary, and they'll just turn you down. It's not even malice or greed on their part, it's just that they have a finite runway and a few tens of thousands of dollars a year on a single person can mean the difference be…

The megacorp economy requires people to accept the likelihood of crushing institutionalized misery in exchange for a chance at being able to sustain a high salary long enough that the accumulated pile of cash after you finally quit will allow you to live a good enough life to make up for all that lost time and deferred happiness. I decided not to play along with that and will never again work for a megacorp, because…

But then you have kids, and kids require stability. So you go to work for the man, because the kids are more important.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#55

Post by mwseibel »

falcolas wrote: post #18

So, does "personal responsibility for [...] failure" really apply when there is a 90% failure rate? Seems like short of failing to execute, it's more a game of chance than something you can influence. That is, it's seems like its a lot like video poker: you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win. I would also think that getting into an industry with such a high failure rate would be terrible for…

"you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win" - I like this - maybe I would restate this as "you can cause yourself to lose, but a lot of things outside of your control need to go right in order to win"

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#56

Post by brucephillips »

agentultra wrote: post #7

> 1. The vast majority of startups are not successful This alone is why 90% of people will not choose to work at a startup. You will work long hours, for crap pay, and you'll be waiting in line if there is an exit. The odds of there being an exit worth anything to anyone other than a founder are small enough to not even worth considering. If you are a founder you're gambling on your chances. There are ways to mitigat…

I agree with most of what you wrote, but I will say that people outside of the scene might not realize how common it is for founders to raise a couple million in seed funding, then pay themselves a market salary (I've seen as high as $350K for a CEO of a ~10 person company), removing most of the downside.

I'm not saying this is advisable, but it's common.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#57

Post by [deleted] »

Swizec wrote: post #9
agentultra wrote: post #7

> 1. The vast majority of startups are not successful This alone is why 90% of people will not choose to work at a startup. You will work long hours, for crap pay, and you'll be waiting in line if there is an exit. The odds of there being an exit worth anything to anyone other than a founder are small enough to not even worth considering. If you are a founder you're gambling on your chances. There are ways to mitigat…

If you have the entrepreneurial itch and don't have the financial security to back it up, becoming a bootstrapped micropreneur is a great first choice. Start your business on the side, when it revenue is high enough to live on, make the jump. It's slower than a funded startup, but a lot less risky. Does come with a high social opportunity cost due to lack of time, however. But so does starting a startup. If your side…

[deleted]

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#58

Post by kinkrtyavimoodh »

rahimshamsy wrote: post #13

Is the desire to transform as a person a good enough reason? Very few endeavors are as challenging as solving a problem by building a profitable business around it, and having the pleasure of meeting and working with a variety of people.

The problem is that you are entangling the lives of a lot of other people (your family at the very least, your co-founders, your employees, potentially your customers) in this quest for personal transformation.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#59

Post by metalliqaz »

Swizec wrote: post #28
moeamaya wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Checked out your profile, is your side hustle a combination of books and teaching or do you have another product?

A combination of books and teaching. I'm experimenting with coaching and a company is sponsoring my React Native writing on a cobranded blog/yt channel. I publish monthly breakdowns on swizec.com and that lists all revenue streams.

Did you leverage a mentor to get started on running something on the side? If so, where did you find one?

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#60

Post by mwseibel »

agentultra wrote: post #7

> 1. The vast majority of startups are not successful This alone is why 90% of people will not choose to work at a startup. You will work long hours, for crap pay, and you'll be waiting in line if there is an exit. The odds of there being an exit worth anything to anyone other than a founder are small enough to not even worth considering. If you are a founder you're gambling on your chances. There are ways to mitigat…

On the flip side - if you want to be a founder - try to start early. On balance you often have fewer constraints, lower expenses, and much more life flexibility.
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