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Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#201

Post by yesimahuman »

pcsanwald wrote: post #107
yesimahuman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea the adage that you should move to the bay area to start a startup feels increasingly outdated. I couldn't have gone full time on my (now VC-backed startup) back when we were bootstrapping and living on $2k a month from early customer credit card swipes (one of the absolute best feelings in the world) if we had living costs like that in SF/bay area. Once we did find traction and raise we still didn't move. Times a…

Did you find it harder to raise VC outside the bay area? We definitely did when we were raising for our Baltimore based company. Whereas now that I live in the bay area, I see companies get funded all the time and think to myself they would never get funded if they were HQ'd elsewhere.

I think it's safe to say that's harder to raise bay area VC if you're not there, though I did do it for our Series A. It's not impossible, and considering "ease of raising VC" isn't the primary variable I optimize for (and doing so seems to be falling out of vogue), I don't think it warrants moving. Some investors just can't get over location, and I think that says more about them than it does you.

At this point I also get a little kick out of doing things differently and trying to change the ecosystem. Isn't that what being a contrarian is all about?

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#202

Post by yesimahuman »

segmondy wrote: post #180
yesimahuman wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea the adage that you should move to the bay area to start a startup feels increasingly outdated. I couldn't have gone full time on my (now VC-backed startup) back when we were bootstrapping and living on $2k a month from early customer credit card swipes (one of the absolute best feelings in the world) if we had living costs like that in SF/bay area. Once we did find traction and raise we still didn't move. Times a…

If you don't mind, what's your location?

Our primary office is in Madison, WI (recently opened another in Boston)

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#203

Post by jon-wood »

Qworg wrote: post #126
rpeden wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an irrelevant side note - what do envision when you think of 'Uber for cats'? - A cat sharing service? - A 'cat on demand' service that allows you to reap the benefits of cat ownership without having to worry about acquisition and maintenance costs? - A taxi service for cats? I could envision paying for all of those, under the right circumstances. So such a company would likely have at least a few dollars of rea…

Not the GP, but... Obviously cat sharing, but you'll have to find a way to take a margin from what was nominally a goodwill activity. Maybe you pay cat owners in cathours (pronounced cath-ours), and have a marketplace where people can buy and sell cathours. Even better, make Catcoin (CC), set up an ICO, and get to work.

http://join3.borrowmydoggy.com/

They had the genius idea of charging both sides of the transaction as well. Owners pay for dog sitting, borrowers pay for time with a dog.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#204

Post by sputknick »

wolco wrote: post #162
sputknick wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you talk more about this. Roughly where in the world do you live? How do you find work? How deep is your backlog? How many customers do you have?

I'm in Canada and contracting for the government pays well. I personally do the full time job plus contractor gigs. My contracts come from referrals, places and people I worked full time for and from being number #1 for a specific search term locally for a number of years. I have found work on upwork, craigslist and angellist as well. Usually starts off as an employment position but changes into a contract.

I appreciate the insight, I never have quite understood the boundary between consultant and employee.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#205

Post by rokhayakebe »

edoceo wrote: post #200
mahyarm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80k* %50 = 40k vs. 160k * %35 = 56k Bay area in a nutshell. You can have higher savings rates too, I do around %40 and I could save even more. Working at a startup does make it harder, usually it's better to work at FANG. You also learn a lot and realize the difference between 'facebook does this dev practice because it's huge so it has to vs. it's the better practice'

FANG?

Facebook, Amazon, N*, Google

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#207

Post by SriniK »

edoceo wrote: post #200
mahyarm wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

80k* %50 = 40k vs. 160k * %35 = 56k Bay area in a nutshell. You can have higher savings rates too, I do around %40 and I could save even more. Working at a startup does make it harder, usually it's better to work at FANG. You also learn a lot and realize the difference between 'facebook does this dev practice because it's huge so it has to vs. it's the better practice'

FANG?

Probably Facebook, Amazon and Google

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#208

Post by firebird84 »

lkbm wrote: post #176
edw519 wrote: post #156

Employee (individual contributor / middle manager) Pro: More work and fewer meetings LOL, IF ONLY! Another example that people in silicon valley (and yc in particular) have no idea what goes on in the real world. (HN reply in one window, with skype and webex open in 2 other windows, my 5th and 6th meetings today. I've been on HN for 10 years with over 5,000 contributions, almost all while in meetings, ignoring talkin…

Individual contributors where I work have significantly fewer meetings than people who choose the leadership route. What makes my company less real world than yours?

As soon as I indicated I would try exploring the leadership path (I had originally intended to only progress as an individual contributor, but I'm bored and I'll learn any skills I can at this point), my managers gave me the role and immediately I was swamped with meetings. I don't resent it, but I'm going to see if I can push to streamline the behaviors that lead to this. My time is now even more precious than ever and I have to find ways to reclaim it.

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#209

Post by Veelox »

krat0sprakhar wrote: post #95
koolba wrote: post #51

Regardless of which path you'd like to go down, learn some basic financial planning, frugality, and learn to live like a miser. It'll pay dividends, both figuratively and literally. Regarding the executive path, or more generally any management role, learn early on if it's for you. If you're the type that gets caught up in human interest stories, considers it inhumane to fire low performers, or generally believes in…

For someone who recently graduated and quite clueless about financial planning, do you have some resources to get started?

The other pieces of advice are all good resources. Something that I am learning is that sometimes the "financial planning" advice you see has the goal of maximizing $$$. Realize that it is your money and you can spend it how you want to.

With that said, be realistic about the trade offs you make, you can spend $30 on food and $10 on coffee every day if you want or you can buy a $30k car in cash in three years if you eat on $10 a day[0]. Good financial planning allows YOU to make informed decisions about YOUR money.

[0] ($30 (expensive food) + $10 (coffee) - $10 (cheap food)) * 365 (days in a year) * 3 (years) = $32,850 That is almost a Tesla Model 3 ($35k standard)

Re: Three Paths in the Tech Industry: Founder, Executive, or Employee

#210

Post by TuringNYC »

Qworg wrote: post #126
rpeden wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an irrelevant side note - what do envision when you think of 'Uber for cats'? - A cat sharing service? - A 'cat on demand' service that allows you to reap the benefits of cat ownership without having to worry about acquisition and maintenance costs? - A taxi service for cats? I could envision paying for all of those, under the right circumstances. So such a company would likely have at least a few dollars of rea…

Not the GP, but... Obviously cat sharing, but you'll have to find a way to take a margin from what was nominally a goodwill activity. Maybe you pay cat owners in cathours (pronounced cath-ours), and have a marketplace where people can buy and sell cathours. Even better, make Catcoin (CC), set up an ICO, and get to work.

UberKittens used to do cat deliveries (15min IIRC) in NYC some years back as one-day promos. https://newsroom.uber.com/uberkittens-are-back/

It was such a ridiculously awesome service I wish they had it year-round. Our office ordered bunches of the service and there was a lot more demand than supply (obviously for that one day they offered it.)

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