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Why Should I Start a Startup?

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#121

Post by guimarin »

vabmit wrote: post #98
taurath wrote: post #77

I do find it rather hilarious that he dropped interest in yale for being too academic, but during my (failed) interview as a web developer at Twitch about 5 years ago, the questioning had to do with only academic subjects like graph traversal algorithms - they proudly stated when I applied that 90% of their employees come from an Ivy league background. Here's who I think should start a startup: - People with the back…

I think there's some truth to the family support part of this. I was just racking my brain trying to think of any founder I knew (and I know a ton of them) that was in the position of "success or potentially homeless". But, I can't. I think there's some variable confounding going on when YC and others talk about people in their early 20's being better positioned to do startups because they're less risk averse due to…

My dad was not a successful founder. He quit his job at 40 or so to start a company. He failed miserably, and despite us being fairly well off, went into a downward spiral. He is divorced, alone, and living in a trailer park. Every time I visit him in his doublewide in Campbell, still same furniture as person who died in it had, I expect him to be hanging from the rafters. He was a serial startup employee with over 20 years tech startup experience before starting. His startup destroyed his life. the YC, anyone can become a founder mythology is toxic. My dad was rich from previous exits, had everything going for him, and had a good idea/execution. He just couldn't boil the ocean and it destroyed him.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#122

Post by koolkatkool »

mwseibel wrote: post #103
vabmit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some truth to the family support part of this. I was just racking my brain trying to think of any founder I knew (and I know a ton of them) that was in the position of "success or potentially homeless". But, I can't. I think there's some variable confounding going on when YC and others talk about people in their early 20's being better positioned to do startups because they're less risk averse due to…

I agree that being able to move back in with your parents is a huge luxury that many founders have (I did as well). I also believe that there are a lot of people (not everyone of course) who have that safety net.

Yeah something like 1% have wealthy families and something like 99% don't. YC has always been a program by the upper class and for the upper class.

There's a reason YC doesn't publish economic diversity stats. It would be an indictment of their systemic bias.

You're not better than the all of the 99 other people that didn't go to Yale/YC, you're just lucky that you were granted help instead of them.

And yet it never seems to occur to the "elite" YC team that any of them could've been born on the outside of this class system.

YC, like most class-based institutions, sits on a fortunate while millions are starved for opportunity. The people that receive its help are those that need it least.

Someone with a genuine underdog story needs to create YCs successor. YC is too much the "Harvard of accelerators."

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#123

Post by nostrademons »

vabmit wrote: post #98
taurath wrote: post #77

I do find it rather hilarious that he dropped interest in yale for being too academic, but during my (failed) interview as a web developer at Twitch about 5 years ago, the questioning had to do with only academic subjects like graph traversal algorithms - they proudly stated when I applied that 90% of their employees come from an Ivy league background. Here's who I think should start a startup: - People with the back…

I think there's some truth to the family support part of this. I was just racking my brain trying to think of any founder I knew (and I know a ton of them) that was in the position of "success or potentially homeless". But, I can't. I think there's some variable confounding going on when YC and others talk about people in their early 20's being better positioned to do startups because they're less risk averse due to…

There are a few examples of startup founders who were potentially homeless if it failed (AirBnB is the obvious one...they started it because they were literally a month away from being homeless), but you're right, this is the exception rather than the rule.

I think what's frequently overlooked in the "how do I get the resources to found a startup without risking everything?" is that you don't do it in one shot. If you have zero in the bank, your first priority should be to get six months of living expenses in the bank, and that usually means taking a job and saving 25% of your paycheck for two years. Then once you have six months in the bank, your next priority should be to get 3 years of savings in the bank, and that usually means taking a better job and saving 50% of your paycheck for 3 years. Only once you've got about 3 years saved up are you really in a position to found a startup without having run across seed funding from an angel.

Few people really understand compound interest or how it works out in practice. It's not just about putting money in a bank account or index fund and letting it grow. It's about having successively larger cash cushions so you can take bigger risks with better risk/reward trade-offs.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#124

Post by timr »

mwseibel wrote: post #101
taurath wrote: post #77

I do find it rather hilarious that he dropped interest in yale for being too academic, but during my (failed) interview as a web developer at Twitch about 5 years ago, the questioning had to do with only academic subjects like graph traversal algorithms - they proudly stated when I applied that 90% of their employees come from an Ivy league background. Here's who I think should start a startup: - People with the back…

Sorry you didn't have a better interview experience at Twitch. Also, 90% of our employees didn't come from Ivy League backgrounds. Maybe there was a miscommunication there.

Certainly not 90% of the early employees.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#125

Post by jasode »

graveThrow56 wrote: post #120
jasode wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>if was genuine, he would suggest another option: starting a small/medium business in tech. It's an essay relating his personal experience. (Notice that Seibel wrote: "Here is how I learned this about myself. [... rest of text ...]" He didn't cofound a small-medium-lifestyle business so he wrote what he was familiar with: justin.tv/twitch. Lastly, I didn't see any advice that didn't also apply to small-medium busines…

Paul Graham goes to extra lengths to differentiate startups vs other type of business: it's all about growth. So this essay talks about startups under the YC brand, I assume we're talking about hi-growth business, not small and medium ones that have no goals to grow double digits every month. Finally, we should stop adding a condescending "lifestyle" qualififier to businesses that are not trying to become a unicorn.…

>stop adding a condescending "lifestyle" qualififier to businesses

"Lifestyle" is a neutral label and is not a condescending perjorative unless you insist on perceiving it that way. See:

+ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestyle_business

+ https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4053554

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#126

Post by jansho »

guimarin wrote: post #121
vabmit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some truth to the family support part of this. I was just racking my brain trying to think of any founder I knew (and I know a ton of them) that was in the position of "success or potentially homeless". But, I can't. I think there's some variable confounding going on when YC and others talk about people in their early 20's being better positioned to do startups because they're less risk averse due to…

My dad was not a successful founder. He quit his job at 40 or so to start a company. He failed miserably, and despite us being fairly well off, went into a downward spiral. He is divorced, alone, and living in a trailer park. Every time I visit him in his doublewide in Campbell, still same furniture as person who died in it had, I expect him to be hanging from the rafters. He was a serial startup employee with over 2…

Damn that's hard. Thank you for sharing. Best of luck to you and your family - as optimist, I hope that your dad can find peace soon.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#127

Post by timr »

CryptoFascist wrote: post #51
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.

The key word there is "viable plan", and you don't know that you have one until you do it. Many of the biggest, most successful companies are pivots from some lame initial product.

There are plenty of bozos who don't try to solve a problem or offer a service, but there are plenty of dead startups who did all of that and still failed.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#129

Post by koolkatkool »

mwseibel wrote: post #101
taurath wrote: post #77

I do find it rather hilarious that he dropped interest in yale for being too academic, but during my (failed) interview as a web developer at Twitch about 5 years ago, the questioning had to do with only academic subjects like graph traversal algorithms - they proudly stated when I applied that 90% of their employees come from an Ivy league background. Here's who I think should start a startup: - People with the back…

Sorry you didn't have a better interview experience at Twitch. Also, 90% of our employees didn't come from Ivy League backgrounds. Maybe there was a miscommunication there.

What kind of bias do you need to get 10% Ivy Leaguers, given that they make up like 0.01% of the population?

Not a defense so much as an admission that the parent comment is correct.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#130

Post by justboxing »

johan_larson wrote: post #24
fredgrott wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

true but the odds are getting better..it use to be 20%, it's now at 30% contrast that to small biz is now at 50%

Where did you get that 30% figure, if I may ask? The usually cited figure is 10%.

> The usually cited figure is 10%.

Right. And even that 10% is very optimistic. It's closer to 5% or 7% at the most.

> This number suggests that a startling 93% of the companies that get accepted by Y Combinator eventually fail.

Source: [2013] "DEAR ENTREPRENEURS: Here's How Bad Your Odds Of Success Are" => http://www.businessinsider.com/startup-odds-of-success-2013-...

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