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Entrepreneurshit

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Re: Entrepreneurshit

#51

Post by brazzy »

ahoyhere wrote: post #38

This is ONE way to be an entrepreneur, certainly not the only one. I don't mean to brag, because I'm sure none of you care about my "little dipshit company," but there are people out there who deserve to know that this kind of adrenaline junkie lifestyle as described in the article is not "entrepreneurship" as a whole but just one type of person's interpretation of it. We, for example, got back a couple weeks ago fro…

The article is definitely talking about a specific kind of entrepreneur: the explosive-growth startup founder. To VC types like Mark Shuster and Paul Graham this is the definition of startup and what you have is a "lifestyle business". Personally, I think it's a much better goal.

Re: Entrepreneurshit

#52

Post by tehayj »

ahoyhere wrote: post #38

This is ONE way to be an entrepreneur, certainly not the only one. I don't mean to brag, because I'm sure none of you care about my "little dipshit company," but there are people out there who deserve to know that this kind of adrenaline junkie lifestyle as described in the article is not "entrepreneurship" as a whole but just one type of person's interpretation of it. We, for example, got back a couple weeks ago fro…

If you are a bit smart with what you do, you can create your own passive recurring income stream that gives you some security and then focus on your startup. I do what my wife and me call "projects" together with her successfully for a few years and we have one of the relaxed, most balanced lifestyles of any person I know... A project usually means creating a new brand for product xy in her case, or a new website / service in my case. But everyone has their own way of doing things. This is how we run our company and it is pretty relaxed and successful so far.

Re: Entrepreneurshit

#53

Post by nitrogen »

minimax wrote: post #19
mrkurt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point is dead on, although I'm lazy and just go to XOCO in terminal 1 most of the time ... I think, perhaps, you interpreted him differently than I did on your other points: 2. I don't think he's talking about paternalism, I think he's talking about dealing with very intense, private insecurity about the state of a company. There is something not quite unlike doom facing company nearly every day, and it's…

2. I was thinking in particular about this particular paragraph from the OP: "Early on in my first company I had an employee ask if it was a good time to buy a home. We had less than 6 months’ cash in the bank. I was pretty sure we were going to raise another round of capital. But not sure, sure. I mean you never know if your investors are REALLY going to keep backing you. And you can’t go around telling all of your…

x. I think it makes him sound childish rather than intense.

The definition of what sounds childish and what sounds intense is largely cultural and situational. When you realize that all words are just words, and it's people that ascribe meaning to them, you and your social group can mutually decide exactly what meaning you want to assign to each word.

What makes some words special? Why is it not okay to say some words, but okay to say fun? Truck? Luck? Ship? Brit? Shiitake? Shih Tzu? Witch? Bishop? Custard? Bass? Crass? Aspect? Would you be offended if you heard someone say merde but didn't know what it meant?

Re: Entrepreneurshit

#54

Post by thisone »

minimax wrote: post #19
mrkurt wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first point is dead on, although I'm lazy and just go to XOCO in terminal 1 most of the time ... I think, perhaps, you interpreted him differently than I did on your other points: 2. I don't think he's talking about paternalism, I think he's talking about dealing with very intense, private insecurity about the state of a company. There is something not quite unlike doom facing company nearly every day, and it's…

2. I was thinking in particular about this particular paragraph from the OP: "Early on in my first company I had an employee ask if it was a good time to buy a home. We had less than 6 months’ cash in the bank. I was pretty sure we were going to raise another round of capital. But not sure, sure. I mean you never know if your investors are REALLY going to keep backing you. And you can’t go around telling all of your…

>If the runway ends in 6 months without more funding, you owe it to your employees to be honest about it. It sounds to me like he witheld the information because he was worried his employees would leave if he didn't.

I was in that situation, as the employee. Had a bonus contractually promised to me and a jump in salary, bought the house (luckily it was the house we needed, not the house we wanted). Bonus never materialized, salary bump was less than half of what we had agreed.

Why yes, I am looking.

Re: Entrepreneurshit

#55

Post by paraschopra »

I may be in the minority here (and I certainly have nothing against Mark), but I really dislike such _implicit_ glamorization and heroism of entrepreneur hardships. There two specific problems with the post: a) in general (unless you are lucky), all good things require hard work so what's so special about entrepreneurship?; b) this interpretation of entrepreneurship is clouded by a specific type of startup (and I am guessing for a founder with a specific personality type who gets a kick out of such emotional turmoil -- I am probably like that but it doesn't change the argument).

Athletes, politicians, charity workers, soldiers, scientists and many others work hard even when outcomes are unpredictable. Even people with so-called "normal" jobs may require episodes of such unpredictability and hard work. Why specifically elevate entrepreneurship?

And, frankly, such lifestyle even for an entrepreneur is a choice. I see no point in re-iterating the obvious that doing a startup may be hard if you are aiming to build a huge business. If it were easy, most people would be doing it, no? I fail to see the whole point of the article.

To be fair, I did write about how is it in the life of an entrepreneur (specifically it was about my day): http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/startup-an-emotional-ro... but my aim there was to document how is the day in life of a founder at a startup that is still in early days and I tried hard to avoid generalizing or glamorizing the hardships. Looking back, I think I should have been more specific and objective in documenting the day (rather than making generalizations on the nature of entrepreneurship and heroism contained in living through such a day).

Re: Entrepreneurshit

#56

Post by InclinedPlane »

ahoyhere wrote: post #38

This is ONE way to be an entrepreneur, certainly not the only one. I don't mean to brag, because I'm sure none of you care about my "little dipshit company," but there are people out there who deserve to know that this kind of adrenaline junkie lifestyle as described in the article is not "entrepreneurship" as a whole but just one type of person's interpretation of it. We, for example, got back a couple weeks ago fro…

Here is the deeply weird aspect of our industry: it's not monolithic, but so many people think it is even though they should know better.

I think this is largely because software is effectively invisible. Everything software does happens more or less without our ability to directly perceive it, it's just electrons shuffling around in silicon, and it's very hard to get a sense of the scale of anything because even at the high end of the scale where banks of computers are running, it's still just banks of computers humming along invisibly computing, there aren't tons of Earth being moved or ships crossing across oceans and so forth.

Anyway, our industry is one of the most diverse in the history of industry. It spans scales across factors of not just billions but trillions. And it ranges in complexity and seriousness across similar scales.

Imagine the "container" industry, which spans all the way from someone making wicker baskets in their spare time and selling them on ebay all the way up to perhaps the fuel tanks of orbital launch vehicles or the steel reinforced concrete containment vessel of a nuclear fission reactor. Or consider vehicles, which can be anything from a plastic tricycle all the way up to an aircraft carrier. Nobody would imagine that those industries are monolithic or that the way to run a tricycle factory is necessarily the same as the way you'd run a shipyard.

Yet here we are in 2012 and people who should know better still insist that running a "software company" is a singly story with a single set of best practices and a universal set of advice that applies equally well to every variant. In reality a "software company" is one of hundreds of different types of enormously different endeavors.

Re: Entrepreneurshit

#57

Post by rdl »

If you live in the Bay Area, there's not a whole lot of travel which can't be done in your car. That's the whole point of being in the capital. Maybe it's different if you're in LA.

I go to Vegas a couple times a year for conferences (which I could skip, but I enjoy them), and have met with investors and BD partners in Seattle, but if I had to do a business without going more than 10 miles from I-280 in the Bay Area, it could be done. (I'm curious if you could do it without leaving MV/PA/MP!)

(with enterprise or b2b, maybe there's a little bit more call to go to DC, maybe Boston, NYC, maybe a few other cities, but absolutely not for consumer, and if you don't enjoy travel, you could probably get away with no travel.)

Re: Entrepreneurshit

#58

Post by a5seo »

jessedhillon wrote: post #46
ahoyhere wrote: post #38

This is ONE way to be an entrepreneur, certainly not the only one. I don't mean to brag, because I'm sure none of you care about my "little dipshit company," but there are people out there who deserve to know that this kind of adrenaline junkie lifestyle as described in the article is not "entrepreneurship" as a whole but just one type of person's interpretation of it. We, for example, got back a couple weeks ago fro…

I expect downvotes for this. I upvoted, but I think this is an important point: Mark Suster is a VC, and so his perspective will of course have to reinforce a view of the world that justifies the kind of entrepreneurship which requires large financing rounds -- unless he is a very honest individual who can accept that he does a job which is based on principles which he personally cannot endorse (I doubt this). Conver…

You make it sound like an either-or (income or shot at $10M-100M exit), but it's not.

I was pulling a 500k per year in income from a web business I founded AND got a $10M+ exit. It depends a lot on the business model and multiples.

My advice would be to continue to build the business and balance income and reinvestment until someone makes you an offer that allows you to retire.

Btw, my definition of "allows you to retire" is $250k/yr after tax, drawing no more than 2% of your portfolio indefinitely with a 95% chance of portfolio survival at age 95 assuming below avg market return of 4% and above avg volatility of 10%. If you're in your 30's, that's probably going to be around $20M. It goes down as you get older.

Re: Entrepreneurshit

#59

Post by mdda »

lsc wrote: post #24
minimax wrote: post #12

A few (dissenting) points: If you want to eat healthy at O'Hare, you can find a salad or sandwich in any terminal. If you really want to blow your calorie budget, go find one of the Goose Island bars in terminal 1 or 3. Have a Matilda. It's fantastic. Next point: I really dislike working for bosses with a misplaced sense of paternalism. If there are risks or uncertainties facing the business, don't hide them from you…

>Last point: look, if a life of flying around the country and working long hours is your idea of a tortured life only a special breed of men known as "entrepreneurs" can bear, then you need to pull your head out of your ass. That life is stressful and that it takes hard work to get ahead are universal truths. The rest of us aren't just coasting along in a risk-free world. What I find especially amusing is that it see…

If you're gambling with other people's money, it's in your interest to keep complaining about how hard you're working, and how stressed out you are : It's a positive signal to the people funding you.

If it's all your own money you're gambling with, complaining about the stress might be taken as indicating you bit off more than you can chew : A negative signal for employees.

Re: Entrepreneurshit

#60

Post by ahoyhere »

mrkurt wrote: post #48
ahoyhere wrote: post #38

This is ONE way to be an entrepreneur, certainly not the only one. I don't mean to brag, because I'm sure none of you care about my "little dipshit company," but there are people out there who deserve to know that this kind of adrenaline junkie lifestyle as described in the article is not "entrepreneurship" as a whole but just one type of person's interpretation of it. We, for example, got back a couple weeks ago fro…

I have not built a successful company like yours, but I can't imagine the decision to hire employee #1, or health care options, or drama related to a bad hire, or any of the other things that can cause ulcers have been stress free for you guys. I have unsuccessfully attempted to build an company like yours ... and it was stressful.

Yup, getting started with healthcare was stressful (so we used an agent) and hiring our first employees wasn't stressful but firing them both was. So was getting our (personal) mortgage — that tied my guts in knots for weeks.

But then, like the mortgage, the healthcare and hiring/firing was over and life went back to normal. We didn't have to keep up "a good front" so people wouldn't jump ship, or worry about whether we could make salary, or any of those things. Nobody was breathing down our neck to do any of this, either -- we did them because we chose to. And we were able to make decisions on our own, without having to consult or sell anybody, to change the way we did these things so it wouldn't be stressful next time. For example, shutting down a product which would require us to hire too many people to run effectively, rather than take that on.

That's the power of ownership -- the bad shit passes, and you have the power to avoid it altogether in the future.

Now if you're not making any money, that is another kind of stress, but because we served a hungry market with a product that delivers value (and did a good job of marketing it), we didn't have that problem.

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