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Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

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Re: Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

#211

Post by mrangle »

idopmstuff wrote: post #134
coldtea wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Gotta disagree with this. As someone who grew up middle class, I was fortunate, in a lot of ways, to also learn to be prudent with money. I started bootstrapping microbusinesses with almost no monetary investment. This eventually allowed me to support myself (on a very low budget), and then, later, on a slightly larger budget. Eventually, one of these businesses became successful enough to support a family comforta…

The whole point of the post you're responding to is that it's not a random outcome; it's an outcome driven by a strategy that is specifically useful for people with $0 in the bank and middle class connections. You're talking about $300k in the bank, but the quote you included literally says "almost no monetary investment."

And what strategy was that, exactly?

Re: Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

#212

Post by mrangle »

mattgreenrocks wrote: post #198
coldtea wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still a random personal anecdote. And the "strategy" is an empty trivial advice. Do you think other poor people trying to start businesses don't try to do it with "almost no monetary investment"? Not only they try that, that's the only way they can afford to try anyway. Still no match for a big monetary investment, and still much much harder for them to get the same outcomes as an enterpreneur coming from privil…

This is cynicism disguising itself as wisdom. Of course people with privilege have it easier. The whole world runs on the Matthew Effect because it's too lazy to do anything else. It isn't just or fair. Until you can fully accept that truth and do things despite that, you're stuck. Me? As someone who rarely is fully confident about things, I'm fully confident I'll achieve some moderate success in bootstrapping if onl…

Cynicism, and its brother pessimism, are absolutely necessary to survive and thrive in business. Unbridled optimism is generally for future failures.

Re: Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

#213

Post by Viliam1234 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #159
FlyingSnake wrote: post #8

Entrepreneurship is like one of those carnival games where you throw darts or something. Middle class kids can afford one throw. Most miss. A few hit the target and get a small prize. A very few hit the center bullseye and get a bigger prize. Rags to riches! The American Dream lives on. Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good…

> Rich kids can afford many throws. If they want to, they can try over and over and over again until they hit something and feel good about themselves. I see this story repeated over and and over again on the internet, but I don't really see it playing out the same way in the real world. I've seen a lot of "rich kids" try to start businesses, but then quickly realize that it's a huge amount of work and not guaranteed…

> I would constantly get LinkedIn requests from stereotypical "rich kid" MBA grads who banded together and wanted to "do a startup", but they just needed a few engineers to actually do all the work. It was funny to hear the pitches about how they'd give me 1-5% for doing all of the tech work of their company while all of them (up to 7, in one case) would handle the business side of things for me. No thanks.

If they kept trying, someone else probably said yes.

Re: Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

#214

Post by zdragnar »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #197
zdragnar wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point the GP was refuting- that middle class kids only get one throw - is also not an actual fact. I'll take their assessment of their life ("lived experience" in modern parlance) over a bad analogy any day.

The point the original comment was making is that richer kids get more throws. The particular number 1 was used to highlight the magnitude of this difference. If you read it literally, then sure, it isn't true of all edge cases.

And the refutation was that the "number of throws" matters less than the scale of risk they took on each "throw", hence why I said it was a bad analogy. If the point of the original comment is that rich people have more money, then I'm not really sure what was worth pointing out.

Re: Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

#215

Post by mattgreenrocks »

mrangle wrote: post #212
mattgreenrocks wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is cynicism disguising itself as wisdom. Of course people with privilege have it easier. The whole world runs on the Matthew Effect because it's too lazy to do anything else. It isn't just or fair. Until you can fully accept that truth and do things despite that, you're stuck. Me? As someone who rarely is fully confident about things, I'm fully confident I'll achieve some moderate success in bootstrapping if onl…

Cynicism, and its brother pessimism, are absolutely necessary to survive and thrive in business. Unbridled optimism is generally for future failures.

Cynicism that keeps you out of the game is maladaptive...if you want to be playing that game.

Nobody is arguing for unbridled optimism.

Re: Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

#216

Post by rchaud »

gizmo wrote: post #13

> The start-ups he later launched all ultimately failed. And even now, as a solopreneur, combining freelance consultancy with writing books and developing information-based products, he often looks back with regret at not simply sticking with his job at a large management consultancy in Beirut. He now has a consultancy called "Business Model Hackers LLC". One of his books is titled: "Vision, Mission, Values, Aspirati…

Lots of ex-management consultants do this in their 50s, writing books and getting on the paid speaking gig circuit. Any business will have significant marketing and admin work that's challenging to manage. That's true whether you're shilling a book or running a SaaS company renting Shopify plugins to dropshippers.

Re: Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

#218

Post by ameister14 »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #205
ameister14 wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't describe most generational wealth. A family house is generational wealth. Most people who at age 65-75 are worth over $1 million dollars didn't get there by using the power of law to stay on top or profiteering from slavery or genocide. That's insane.

> didn't get there by using the power of law NIMBYism is the power of law. Mortgage interest deduction is the power of law. Without either, that million dollars of wealth, much of it in the home, would be a lot less.

Even if I take that as true, it's still not "using the power of law" to follow the law. "Using the power of law" implies some degree of control over the law.

Re: Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

#219

Post by anonymouskimmer »

ameister14 wrote: post #218
anonymouskimmer wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> didn't get there by using the power of law NIMBYism is the power of law. Mortgage interest deduction is the power of law. Without either, that million dollars of wealth, much of it in the home, would be a lot less.

Even if I take that as true, it's still not "using the power of law" to follow the law. "Using the power of law" implies some degree of control over the law.

People vote, and on some issues they vote as blocks.

Re: Entrepreneurs who regret starting businesses

#220

Post by anonGone73 »

winstonprivacy wrote: post #186
coldtea wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's still a random personal anecdote. And the "strategy" is an empty trivial advice. Do you think other poor people trying to start businesses don't try to do it with "almost no monetary investment"? Not only they try that, that's the only way they can afford to try anyway. Still no match for a big monetary investment, and still much much harder for them to get the same outcomes as an enterpreneur coming from privil…

I did something similar, so there you go... now you have three "random" anecdotes.

No ones anecdotes in this thread are random. The majority of failures are not reading this.
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