Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

generalist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 121 posts

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#51

Post by lnsru »

sgu999 wrote: post #41
loopdoend wrote: post #2

The nice thing about this article is it blows some ageist assumptions out of the water. I wasn’t expecting the average founders age to be over 40 in SV.

I learned that a couple months ago and was shocked as well. It could also be a symptom of ageism in the industry: as it becomes harder for those not attracted by the corporate ladder to be hired, they start a business.

I am almost here. Similar age and in a company planing 2nd round of layoffs. I really have no delusions that somebody will want to hire me again. Universities are pumping out thousands of cheaper and better looking graduates. I never saw big corp hiring (in Germany) a graybeard like me for developer role. All the graybeards were so called consultants hired over specific agency. 40 is the magic number I guess.

On the other hand 40 is about the right time, because body and mind is still functional. The network is available and the people skills should be developed even in worst outcasts (there are exceptions). People often have some business ideas and the worthy ones are developed a bit as a hobby. Being fired is the so much needed kick to get started for real.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#52

Post by gumballindie »

jossclimb wrote: post #36

I tell you what its not, being a great engineer. That can help in someways in understanding the technical aspects, but the amount of startups I know who have written incredible clean code with beautiful architecture who have run out of funding compared to the folks who wrote a janky frankensteins monster which they sold to customers, is very high.

> who wrote a janky frankensteins monster which they sold to customers

That's likely because they are focused on building products not fancy toys. No wonder they succeed. Once cash flow is established you can hire workers to tidy things up and argue over what indentation style to use or which shiny new framework to adopt.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#53

Post by Kye »

gumballindie wrote: post #50

"In pursuit of that subject, we’ve studied companies from around the world, across industries, and at different stages of maturation, hopping from Starbucks to Stripe, Y Combinator to Flexport, Rappi to Kaspi, and DST to TSMC." A curious sample. Unfortunately these types of "studies" omit the bulk of entrepreneurs that keep an economy running. Small businesses, 5-50 employees, that tick on without the glory and fame…

It might be the actual research is more diverse, but they plucked out examples that were more likely to get people interested. Bob's Extruding in Elbow, Alabama might be a key plastic component supplier for the global economy, but nobody's heard of it.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#54

Post by JanSt »

lnsru wrote: post #51
sgu999 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I learned that a couple months ago and was shocked as well. It could also be a symptom of ageism in the industry: as it becomes harder for those not attracted by the corporate ladder to be hired, they start a business.

I am almost here. Similar age and in a company planing 2nd round of layoffs. I really have no delusions that somebody will want to hire me again. Universities are pumping out thousands of cheaper and better looking graduates. I never saw big corp hiring (in Germany) a graybeard like me for developer role. All the graybeards were so called consultants hired over specific agency. 40 is the magic number I guess. On the…

My employer is hiring many older people. Where do you live in Germany?

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#55

Post by gumballindie »

Kye wrote: post #53
gumballindie wrote: post #50

"In pursuit of that subject, we’ve studied companies from around the world, across industries, and at different stages of maturation, hopping from Starbucks to Stripe, Y Combinator to Flexport, Rappi to Kaspi, and DST to TSMC." A curious sample. Unfortunately these types of "studies" omit the bulk of entrepreneurs that keep an economy running. Small businesses, 5-50 employees, that tick on without the glory and fame…

It might be the actual research is more diverse, but they plucked out examples that were more likely to get people interested. Bob's Extruding in Elbow, Alabama might be a key plastic component supplier for the global economy, but nobody's heard of it.

> but nobody's heard of it.

Well naturally since all these papers are focused on lottery wining tickets. Running a small to medium sized business is far more relevant to most of us.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#56

Post by Kye »

throwaway290 wrote: post #46
drusenko wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I think the dominant entrepreneurial trait isn’t risk taking, it’s optimism.

Optimism is basically the same as poor risk assessment. Risk assessment, aka spending time analyzing everything that could go wrong ahead of time. Show me an optimist who does that and I will show you a pessimist. But the dominant trait at least for serial entrepreneurs might still be pessimism at the core, because it requires willingness to fail. You need to be pessimistic enough to expect to fail many times as a no…

This is the same kind of error people make when they assume an introvert must have poor social skills, even though that's often not the case.

There's a meme/comic that goes like this:

Panel 1, "Nothing really matters": a little creature in a void, sad. "What people think nihilism is."

Panel 2, "Nothing really matters": the same creature surrounded by rainbows and puppies, happy. "What nihilism really is."

In the same way that recognizing nothing really matters in our march toward entropy means we can get on with choosing our own path in life, recognizing the pitfalls of a potential path means we can walk it in confidence.

I know there be dragons, and I'm going to date them all.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#57

Post by trylfthsk »

shon wrote: post #20

It’s an interesting article. In my view, Non-conformists start companies. Possibly aggressive non-conformists most of all. In my personal case, I made many questionable choices, including turning down a job at Microsoft in the nineties (would have been better financially) and leaving multiple great jobs (one of which afforded me corporate apartments in Honolulu and London) to risk everything multiple times to start m…

>This is why I can’t play any games which require grinding (looking at you Eve)

Eve actually broke my desire to play a lot of games for this exact reason.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#58

Post by gadders »

I'd like to have seen more on the socio-economic background of entrepreneurs - does YC collate this diversity data?

The stuff about the Chinese famine is interesting but I don't think can be generalised beyond China.

My sense is that there are two socio-economic backgrounds that become entrepreneurs - those who are (not to put too fine a point on it) "poor" and so have no assets to risk in starting a company, and those that are "rich" that are also not risking much because their family or others could support them if the company failed.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#59

Post by brnewd »

My primary motivation to start a business was freedom. Having no boss and a ton of spare time. I got lucky and have something almost running on auto pilot. I'm not eager to start another business, I rather enjoy chilling at the pool and browsing HN. I guess this is the opposite of most VC funded YC startups eager to take over the world.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#60

Post by jt2190 »

gumballindie wrote: post #52
jossclimb wrote: post #36

I tell you what its not, being a great engineer. That can help in someways in understanding the technical aspects, but the amount of startups I know who have written incredible clean code with beautiful architecture who have run out of funding compared to the folks who wrote a janky frankensteins monster which they sold to customers, is very high.

> who wrote a janky frankensteins monster which they sold to customers That's likely because they are focused on building products not fancy toys. No wonder they succeed. Once cash flow is established you can hire workers to tidy things up and argue over what indentation style to use or which shiny new framework to adopt.

Furthermore, we’re now in a far more cash-constrained business environment, and it’s much harder to justify having staff that have a vague impact on the bottom line (“argue over indentation style”, “argue over which shiny new framework to adopt”).
Post reply on HN