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I Don't Want to Be a Founder

carolchen.me

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Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#231

Post by startup_thrway »

jimbokun wrote: post #216
startup_thrway wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But don't do it because you want to do it. Do it because you literally can't imagine not doing it. What about because you can't bear the thought of having to work 8 hours a day for the rest of your life? I realize this is probably among the "bad" reasons to start a business (and it probably sounds disrespectful to people who have and will keep on doing that until retirement), but that is how I feel currently. It ma…

> What about because you can't bear the thought of having to work 8 hours a day for the rest of your life? Probably the lowest risk strategy to solve this problem is get a FAANG job and invest at least half your salary in mutual funds for 10 years.

Yes, probably. Unfortunately, no such thing in my neighborhood.

Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#232

Post by eloff »

hef19898 wrote: post #188
eloff wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised this isn't talked about more. Trading your job for a VC-backed startup is just changing one master for another, with a more uncertain outcome and better upside. I came to the conclusion I'd much rather own 100% of something small than 10% of a Unicorn. So I changed to part-time work to cover the bills and I'm bootstrapping. I think if I'm ever successful enough to need an HR department, I'll sell the bu…

The biggest reason that so pushes me away from VC funding. One Pre-Seed fund reached out, so, and I will most likely pitch the guys. Because VC money allows you to speed things up in ways you can't by relying on free cash flow. That being said, I'd still prefer the latter becaus I don't want another boss (or multiple ones). Gess it depends on the conditions, so. And good point about the HR-department moment, that's t…

Pre-seed? So that's what maybe $10-$30K investment? Save yourself the trouble and do some contract work for 1-3 months, you can make the same amount with no strings attached.

Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#233

Post by icedchai »

jimbokun wrote: post #216
startup_thrway wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But don't do it because you want to do it. Do it because you literally can't imagine not doing it. What about because you can't bear the thought of having to work 8 hours a day for the rest of your life? I realize this is probably among the "bad" reasons to start a business (and it probably sounds disrespectful to people who have and will keep on doing that until retirement), but that is how I feel currently. It ma…

> What about because you can't bear the thought of having to work 8 hours a day for the rest of your life? Probably the lowest risk strategy to solve this problem is get a FAANG job and invest at least half your salary in mutual funds for 10 years.

Yep, I know someone who did this, but without a FAANG job, living in a relatively low cost of living area. It took 15 years to get to the first million, and roughly 20 years to get to two. You need to be able to handle a lot of ups and downs, like the dot com crash, great recession, and now corona.

A lot of people, quite understandably, can't deal with that sort of volatility. You'll see $100K+ drops in a month. You'll also see 6 figure gains, of course. Some people give up, put it all into bonds. That's not good, either.

Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#234

Post by neutronicus »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #226
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…

Maybe you just need to be hanging out with a better class of folks? Not to be a dick, but if you find that you are attracting a certain type of person that you don't want to, then it's time for some introspection.

Oh, I'm married, with a kid.

What you're hearing is the result of introspection. At the end of the day it's easier (for someone privileged to be in this line of work) to just suck it up and make house-and-kid money than to date around looking for someone who wants to hitch their wagon to a slacker. And I really do love my wife and son to pieces

Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#235

Post by wutbrodo »

jimbokun wrote: post #218
wutbrodo wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To me, it feels much more like a pick your poison type of thing. The way out is consistently living way under your means (if possible). If you don't live in poverty, this is likely possible in the general case; just pretend you make XX% less aftertax and voila, you have an %XX savings rate. There are non-monetary costs to doing this, but there are also benefits, and the freedom is really hard to beat. ...though I'v…

> ...though I've heard that that doesn't apply to having a family. It 100% applies to having a family. (Source: have family.)

Could you elaborate? As I said, I'm assuming this is a blind spot, but assuming both parents are onboard with trading consumption for security/freedom, I don't understand what specifically would make this unworkable.

That is to say, the same logic applies to a family: If a family making $120k could survive adequately in a given location, then a family making $160k can pretend they make $120k and do the same thing. As I mentioned, the only exception I can think of is wanting to max out education spending: taking for granted that school spending is valuable for educational outcomes, does this explain 100% of the difficulty in maintaining this habit once having a family?

Other possibilities:

  1) education/housing spending is often a proxy for class segregation, which I suppose is another factor you'd want to max out for your kid (I have no experience with this: my parents were upper-class in the old country so they hung out with other upper-class old country people (of various incomes) and I got the values they hoped I would without having to pay for it)
  
  2) Perhaps it has less to do with kids than it does coupling up: anecdotally, most of my male friends who are happy to be ascetic need to start flashing money when they start dating, and most of my female friends are far more interested in consumption/comfortable living spaces.  I know few people living well below their means, but 0% of them are women, despite my having many female friends. Though this is a pretty low-confidence guess, since as I said, it's based on anecdota.

Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#236

Post by filleduchaos »

bjornsing wrote: post #144
filleduchaos wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, when one actually takes that entire part in context it's clear what the author means: > To be ambitious often means things like wanting to do a Ph.D, become a medical doctor or an astronaut. On that scale, it's not really about being better at something you're doing (though it partially is), but joining a new game where it's supposedly harder .

Is it? Do people think it’s harder to do a PhD or get through medical school than it is to succeed with a VC-backed startup...?

Nobody said it was harder, so what's your question exactly?

Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#237

Post by spiffytech »

pier25 wrote: post #225
jmchuster wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> You want to start a small business Maybe something got lost in translation (I'm not a native speaker) but a startup cannot be small?

"Startup" means many things to many people, but most people most of the time use it to mean something close to a rapid-growth business (millions in revenue in Crucially, the startup might not be like a business in some important regards. It's common to operate a startup at a significant financial loss, with the goal of either being bought out or growing fast enough to "make it up in volume" before the VC money runs out.

(sidenote: the word "startup" is also coming to sometimes be used to mean a self-funded tech-oriented business, without VC backing, with a slower expected growth rate but an expectation of maxing out at significant revenues).

All of this is in contrast to "small businesses", which have relatively modest growth prospects (sub-$1m is very common), frequently keep a headcount low enough to gather all employees in a small room, and are designed with prompt profitability in mind from the start, due to taking little/no outside investment.

Startups, both by their mode of operation and their level of ambition, rapidly grow to hundreds or thousands of employees, and demand immense revenue/funding to cover that. Small businesses are designed to get off the ground efficiently and more or less coast, sometimes with limited growth over time, sometimes keeping a steadystate.

Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#238

Post by pier25 »

spiffytech wrote: post #237
pier25 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You want to start a small business Maybe something got lost in translation (I'm not a native speaker) but a startup cannot be small?

"Startup" means many things to many people, but most people most of the time use it to mean something close to a rapid-growth business (millions in revenue in Crucially, the startup might not be like a business in some important regards. It's common to operate a startup at a significant financial loss, with the goal of either being bought out or growing fast enough to "make it up in volume" before the VC money runs o…

Interesting. I'm from Europe and here "startup" usually means a new tech company. At least that's how I've used it and how I've heard people use it. Also in Mexico where I'm currently residing.

Anyway, about the comment I should start a small business instead of a startup, yeah I don't plan to grow to millions of users and having hundreds of employees.

Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#239

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

neutronicus wrote: post #234
HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you just need to be hanging out with a better class of folks? Not to be a dick, but if you find that you are attracting a certain type of person that you don't want to, then it's time for some introspection.

Oh, I'm married, with a kid. What you're hearing is the result of introspection. At the end of the day it's easier (for someone privileged to be in this line of work) to just suck it up and make house-and-kid money than to date around looking for someone who wants to hitch their wagon to a slacker. And I really do love my wife and son to pieces

Good. Glad to hear that you're happy.

Re: I Don't Want to Be a Founder

#240

Post by [deleted] »

throwawaygh wrote: post #30
cryptoz wrote: post #2

Reacting mostly to the ending/conclusion here. I don't know about other founders, but for me, startups are basically the only vehicle for solving big problems that nobody else will/can solve. Often the reasons that (nearly) nobody else is trying to solve your exact problem are 1) it is risky/unlikely to monetize well, 2) it is hard, grueling, or boring work that may not even function right in the end, 3) might believ…

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