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Why Should I Start a Startup?

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#161

Post by true_religion »

jaypaulynice wrote: post #157
scottLobster wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counterpoint: My spouse's ongoing education is currently dependent on my regular income. Once she graduates it'll effectively double our collective income and hopefully give her her first good career. I'm not sure how I could sell gambling all of that on a 90% chance of failure even if I wanted to. Sounds like the act of a gambling addict. Also, if you need to gamble your family's livelihood to find out if your…

You don't think financing your spouse education is a gamble? Who is to say you won't get divorced right after she's done? That's honorable, but at the same time a huge risk.

Whilst anything is possible, it ought to be much easier to gamble on staying married than gamble on a fickle market of consumers liking a product that you haven't built and is in no way similar to anything else.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#162

Post by justin »

timr wrote: post #124
mwseibel wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

fukk we should have hired more ivy leaguers

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#163

Post by justin »

mwseibel wrote: post #111
tanilama wrote: post #31

The startup starts up because of money is often time uninspiring. It is a good thing that we have fewer startups like that. If you don't have a good problem, plz don't make a startup for it.

Our problem was how to create a reality tv show with Justin Kan wearing a camera on his head. Is that a good problem?

at least we were solving our own problem....

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#165

Post by mynameisvinn124 »

nathan-wailes wrote: post #8

Great post! I love reading pre-company autobiographical accounts from successful founders, as I find it to be a great way to get ideas for what pre-company experiences might best prepare me to be successful myself. Some additions I would make to Michael's list for "Why to start a start-up": - As a founder you get a level of control over what problem you're solving that you'll rarely have as an employee. - You also ge…

"- You also escape having your income determined by the market for labor, and instead have it determined by the market for your product."

one of the most insightful comment on the concept of value ive read in my 34+ years.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#169

Post by keerthiko »

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…

Re: A high failure rate, it doesn't necessarily mean game of chance, it could mean a challenging game. I'd compare it more to darts:

If 90% of dart throws miss the bullseye it could mean various things:

* As you suggest, a game of chance with poor odds, ie 100% of people have roughly the same distribution of shots, landing only ~10% on the bullseye

* Only 10% of people have the right confluence of skill, experience and a bit of luck to nail it ~100% of the time to make up for the 90% people who land it ~0% of the time. Secret society knowledge scenario.

* Anything in between. It could be 20% of people who land it 25% of the time, and 80% people landing it 6.25% of the time to give you the same output. Some people have figured out some techniques, but can't quite master the challenging problem, and others seem to almost rely on luck. This is where I believe running a company lies.

Taking responsibility is different from "being hard and critical of yourself". You can take responsibility and own failure without feeling like a lesser person, it helps to learn from it and improve (if you don't take responsibility and blame "luck", you have lower motivation to take anything away from the failure). It can be paired with the ability to retain self-confidence, inspiration and motivation while learning from your failures. This is the tenacity and refusal to die that I believe VC's talk about being seen in strong founders.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#170

Post by brucephillips »

mwseibel wrote: post #106
spitfire wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the sales pitch. "It's too hard, you couldn't do it." Same sales pitch as gym workout programs. "Are you man enough?" and many others. Create an artificial scarcity (a barrier to entry), weed out those who will ask questions. Ideally they're looking for people who seek outside validation - the sort of people who often become doctors or lawyers.

My goal was to help people create their own framework for deciding whether to do a startup. I actually didn't talk much about YC at all.

You're starting to go down the same route PG did, by engaging with trolls on HN too much.
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