I Don't Want to Be a Founder

Post by neutronicus » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 8:06 PM UTC

goldenchrome wrote: post #214

neutronicus wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably because you're still young. More specifically (and here I'm guessing something about you), romantically unattached. Dating is a tough road to hoe if you can't or won't fund about half of a wedding and at least one of kids-and-a-house or traveling-the-world. Well, not dating exactly - you can get laid and even start relationships but in my experience the relationships will have a half-life and eventually…

What you said is very subjective and is likely the product of the way you present yourself to the world. Normal people want those things because they’re the things that society deems normal, but there are plenty of weirdos out there if you look.

Post by sgt-serverless » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 8:30 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #105

gkoberger wrote: post #21

I remember as I was starting my company, I reached out to a founder of a company you've likely heard of for advice. We grabbed drinks, and he practically begged me to not start a company, for my own sake. I thought he was a dick. But he wasn't wrong. Write down a list of why you want to start a company. I bet the list involves things like "building something nobody else has," "getting to program and design and do a b…

Yeah, that's how I've always expected the VC-Backed-Startup world to work. It's fascinating to me to watch people going into that, expecting it to work out for them. It's like watching somebody take up smoking. You can watch the history of people doing this activity as far back as you like, and just hardly ever come up with an outcome that seems to make your life genuinely better . But with lots of examples of it mak…

Post by pier25 » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 8:49 PM UTC

jmchuster wrote: post #204

pier25 wrote: post #194

For me the main reason to try it is the frustration of having been working for 20 years as a freelancer or as en employee. In both cases I've been investing my time and blood in exchange for money. Then the money runs out and you start all over again, and again. I want to invest my time into something which hopefully can grow so that I can keep investing more of my time instead of just giving it away. I want to plant…

i think if those are your motivations, then you definitely don't want to start a startup. You want to start a small business where you're the boss and maybe you have one or two assistants. Or maybe you just want to start a side project. As a founder, i think you very quickly lose your sense of freedom and control.

Post by rickdangerous1 » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 9:16 PM UTC

take_a_breath wrote: post #139

rickdangerous1 wrote: post #9

My take on this is: the only people who should become a founder are the people who can't bear the thought of not doing it. Anyone with less than "Give me libertly or give me death" levels of commitment should not even bother.

This seems like an unnecessary barrier to new ideas and innovation. So many of the businesses we rely on started as simple hobbies or games.

Post by bjornsing » Mon, Jul 20, 2020, 10:15 PM UTC

flr03 wrote: post #186

bjornsing wrote: post #85

I’m a former VC-backed founder and I liked the post, but this part made me cringe: > To be ambitious often means things like wanting to do a Ph.D, become a medical doctor or an astronaut. Why should it be considered ambitious to do a PhD or become a medical doctor. Those are just slogs that most people can get through if they stick it out... Something is very wrong with our cultural preconceptions around ambition. It…

So you basically say that becoming a doctor or an astronaut is easy and doesn't require "ambition". I'm sorry I can't agree with that. Maybe as a former VC-backed founder you'd like to have the monopoly of ambition but there are many many ways to be ambitious. For some it's just be able to run 5km after being overweight for decades, for others it's changing the world with a vaccine.