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Why you shouldn't start a startup

laurentk.posterous.com

31–40 of 66 posts

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#31

Slightly off-topic, but how did you make the SecretPoke video? http://vimeo.com/19517022 Did you make it yourself or was it done by someone else?

There are a few services online where you can download after effect source files, and then edit. we used videohive, but don't tell anyone :)

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe that's another reason that the mean age for founders is quite low. I mean if you're older and have dependents it's not the best time to throw your salary out the window and go it alone.

The mean age for founders in the US is 39: http://blog.checkadvantage.com/2011/02/09/baby-boomers-job-m...

I think the mean age for YC founders is ~26 from what I gather.

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

who would you rather work with, a "biz guy" who has built a prototype that can't scale or a "biz guy" who has been talking about an idea for 3 months but doing nothing?

I would rather not work with any developer who underestimates business guys at this level. Now, if you want to make the next "To Do" app, a dev can be fine, but if you want to do something useful, you will need a biz guy. I mean, this thinking from the dev side is exactly why companies today are full of crappy products (SAP, Windows, etc.).

Read the comment you replied to again; you misinterpreted it as attacking "biz guys," but it's actually commending those willing to get their hands dirty.

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#34
post #2

Slides from a presentation I gave last week at HEC - would love some feedback if I reuse. Thanks!

Laurent, I'd like to get in touch, but couldn't find your email. Can you ping me? My email is in my HN profile. Or just reply here where I can get in touch.

Thanks

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#35
post #16

Kind of a linkbait title since less than half of the presentation is caveats and the remainder is advice for starting a startup. Nevertheless I thought it was well done--definitely lays out the risks very nicely. One thing I'd like to hear more about are people who took "secure" jobs for a period of time out of college and then jumped ship for a startup once they had some money saved up. I feel like most people comin…

If you took on student loans (incredibly common), you have 6 months before the collectors come calling and survival then requires an additional $100-$1000 income per month. Failure to pay or having insubstantial means to pay can result in substantially larger amounts of interest to repay, substantially longer repayment periods or garnished wages. Since there's no way to escape repayment a debt-encumbered individual has more at risk than a debt-free peer. I think the pervasiveness of student loans and the exploding cost of higher education is dividing equally risk-tolerant people into two paths.

I'm on the "secure" path at the moment to pay off student loans between my wife and I, and we just had a child. My obligations are more than paid for and things are stable, which is good because my family life is happy and fun and I value that highly, but it means that my risky endeavors have to be on-the-side and bootstrapped because doing stuff that's likely to fail now puts 3 people at risk instead of 1. I don't particularly enjoy the jobs I've had, and that gives me motivation to do things for myself.

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#36
post #2

Slides from a presentation I gave last week at HEC - would love some feedback if I reuse. Thanks!

How about writing something up to give a bit of context to those slides. I clicked through 20 or so of them and couldn't find anything resembling a narrative.

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#37
post #2

Slides from a presentation I gave last week at HEC - would love some feedback if I reuse. Thanks!

How about writing something up to give a bit of context to those slides. I clicked through 20 or so of them and couldn't find anything resembling a narrative.

i thought they were self explanatory, but you're right - thx !

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#38
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would rather not work with any developer who underestimates business guys at this level. Now, if you want to make the next "To Do" app, a dev can be fine, but if you want to do something useful, you will need a biz guy. I mean, this thinking from the dev side is exactly why companies today are full of crappy products (SAP, Windows, etc.).

Read the comment you replied to again; you misinterpreted it as attacking "biz guys," but it's actually commending those willing to get their hands dirty.

I'm not the grandparent poster, but I think his point was:

Programming is not the only thing that constitutes "getting your hands dirty," i.e. the "real work", and that anyone who thinks this is completely overlooking the importance of business principles.

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#39
it sounds like the talk would have been good, but i learnt nothing whatsoever from the slides (possibly because i've been through the startup experience, albeit as an employee, but it just seemed like the usual collection of platitudes)

Re: Why you shouldn't start a startup

#40
post #39

it sounds like the talk would have been good, but i learnt nothing whatsoever from the slides (possibly because i've been through the startup experience, albeit as an employee, but it just seemed like the usual collection of platitudes)

thus the title: beating a dead horse :)

the talk was for last year + mba students at HEC, and most of them never started / worked at a startup.

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