Floppy disks around 12 for the MSX. Was making games, demos and utilities. I miss the 80s.
Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
21–30 of 82 posts
Re: Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
#22I am 18 when I started Pencilcoders . I screwed up my 2 semesters !
Re: Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
#23This is a good question. 10: First entrepreneurial effort selling lemonade. 13: First software entrepreneurism selling a game on floppy disks. 16: First founded a company, ostensibly to make games. 18: First made a living contracting for myself. 25: First founded a company that became profitable and hired people. Which one counts?
I usually consider a first company as when it trips the full time mark: either hiring a full-time employee or working in it full-time yourself. So the web design gigs at 15 and forming an LLC for part-time consulting don't count. I came up with this definition after reading a book where the author bragged he'd started 10 companies by age 21... by the above definition the number was actually 2 -- still impressive.
Even I started Pencilcoders at 18 , helping businesses build great social web experience ! We create Websites , Social Media Marketing for startups and are involved into Consulting ! We are about to Incorporate , so Does my startup count here ?
Re: Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
#24I interned at a 1.0 bubble company the summer prior to my freshman year of high school. I built a website for the church I attended for no particular reason, the CEO happened to be a member, and he thought it would be fun for me to come work for him. I couldn't agree more, because the alternative was carrying around heavy golf bags for another summer.
I had a really great summer working long hours writing ASP all day, befriending the college interns that also worked there (whom I still keep in touch with), and generally feeling all grown up and respected even at age 14. The only real disappointment was when I found out my boss made $70k/yr for doing more or less the same thing I did, but I was making minimum wage. That may have been the same moment I realized I needed to be my own boss.
Re: Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
#2518, and i just joined two well-funded startup founders (both also 18) and moved to silicon valley to work for the summer. PS: I think this poll should be 'how old were you at your first funded startup.
that would also be interesting, but I was also interested in knowing about people who first got into the world of startups by being hired/joining after start.
So many interesting things to ask in a single monodimensional poll!
Re: Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
#26I am 26 and am in the process of my first startup. Looking at all the young start-uppers makes me feel out of place. I am also just starting to code :| In fact when I was in college I hated writing code, but something about starting up wants to make me do it now.
What are the chances I will make it ? Low, I reason. High, I feel.
So does that make me stupid?
Re: Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
#27i had started a company when i was 19, when i was freshman at Technion. I was developing some stuff for SOHO-companies to make web branding \ identity very easy, with real feedback & customers. Year ago i left the company , it's still alive , they stopped working on product , just making CRM & other data management tools ( based on opensource stuff ).
The truth of Israel , now i'm coding for ministry of defense , as an army duty ;)
Re: Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
#28I interned at a 1.0 bubble company the summer prior to my freshman year of high school. I built a website for the church I attended for no particular reason, the CEO happened to be a member, and he thought it would be fun for me to come work for him. I couldn't agree more, because the alternative was carrying around heavy golf bags for another summer. I had a really great summer working long hours writing ASP all day…
As an aside, being a golf caddy (especially in scotland) was a pretty awesome job to have as a kid, you earned more money than you should be allowed to at that age for a nice walk in the fresh air.
Re: Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
#29The worst bit it, I was 24, but my boss was 21!
Re: Poll: how old were you at you first startup?
#30Buying big sticker packages and selling them individually in the school when I was about 9, I made a killing as a 9 years old :) From there to today did about ~20 different jobs, selling water in football (soccer) games, training police forces on computer security field, SaaS, making money from Adwords (when it was possible), penetration testing, selling t-shirts in bazaars, selling desktop software, etc...
First consultancy job at 15~, 2 failed companies between 18-22, about 5 failed web project around the same years.
Started my own company again at 26 again, been 2 years now, became profitable in first 6 months of starting to sell and so far so good ever since.