Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're awake at 4 AM because of anxiety about growth rate and lack of capital, make some hot cocoa and then thank God you don't have real problems. I'm not saying this to be snide. Those problems feel real and scary enough. But as the other replies to this comment demonstrate, there is a vast spectrum of human misery that we live on the far end of. Anything you can do to remain mindful of that will have the side e…
I don't disagree, but when you're growing and responsible for the economic livelihoods of several households, it's hard to write your anxieties off as first world. Because it's not really about you anymore, and a "whatever, I'll be fine in the end" attitude just feels, selfish? Irresponsible? I think a great many of us would sleep just fine if we only bore responsibility for ourselves. I'm not arguing that anyone sho…
Entrepreneurs anonymous
91–100 of 111 posts
Re: Entrepreneurs anonymous
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think that's only true if the company has a decent sized win. As the CEO I actually feel pretty much unemployable. You're the ultimate generalist in a world where companies need specialists.
This is entirely true, and it isn't only that you cannot find another job as a CEO, but you might have a really hard time finding any job at all even if it is lower status (non-executive).
Re: Entrepreneurs anonymous
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, this sounds like a non-problem. The most crucial first step is to change your frame of mind: you're not bound to any employer, and your personal time is entirely your own. Develop a prototype in your own time, get lots of feedback to improve it, and suddenly all sorts of avenues and options will be open to you. You could license it back to your company (for a price); if that's rejected, go somewhere else. I…
I think iamshs was saying " If I build the product in my spare time, my employer owns it as it is directly in company's field of operation" Maybe iamshs could switch to another job, perhaps something a bit more part time without the non competes and build the thing on the side then?
That is what I was thinking, of changing jobs. I have talked to lot of friends and they all have this clause as a standard. I think going part-time is a good suggestion. Because even yesterday I had a chance meeting with one of local company's director and he was also up to see the product and said if I "build it solidly, company will be my first flag". I want to build this thing ASAP.
Re: Entrepreneurs anonymous
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
The kinds of people that start tech companies in this economy are among the most employable people in the entire world. If your company fails, you'll do the same thing a laid-off steelworker will do: get another job. But of course you'll succeed at doing that almost immediately.
When I talk to other founders about the gut of steel, it's not about the money but the people. 'Real' founders are fine -- we have a lower expected salary anyways but are probably extra employable. (Imagine who knows the most about contributing to a business!) The issue is that we were the ones who convinced the people we sat down with to put their eggs in our basket. Investors put in their hard-earned money, employe…
Re: Entrepreneurs anonymous
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
So basically you can't be successful as an entrepreneur unless you're a sociopath? That's a disappointingly cynical view. Some advice from someone who has also been in the trenches: First, you don't need to waste time thinking or complaining about angels and VCs when you start a business you can fund yourself. Second, if you're expecting growth to come easily and quickly, and you don't have the capital necessary to e…
I forgot to add, you're always going to run into smug people who haven't walked in your shoes.
It might be convenient for you to believe that anybody who disagrees with your negative perspective hasn't been in the trenches, but that doesn't make it reality.
Failure is part of the game. Very few successful entrepreneurs have no losses. If you truly believe that VCs or a lack of sociopathic tendencies are to blame for the failure of a new business, I would humbly suggest that you reconsider. Such a cynical attitude is far more likely to be a detriment to one's efforts than any external force.
Re: Entrepreneurs anonymous
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're awake at 4 AM because of anxiety about growth rate and lack of capital, make some hot cocoa and then thank God you don't have real problems. I'm not saying this to be snide. Those problems feel real and scary enough. But as the other replies to this comment demonstrate, there is a vast spectrum of human misery that we live on the far end of. Anything you can do to remain mindful of that will have the side e…
The mind-churn is not anxiety always, but consciousness of the sheer gravity of what you are doing. The "vast spectrum of human misery" exists unless or until someone's mind-churn waking them up at night results in viable solutions and real growth. It's not one or the other, both are linked situations. There is a seriousness about all the "preoccupation" ... it's even natural and organic in the sense that it is how o…
Re: Entrepreneurs anonymous
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Entrepreneurship is hard and I know it from experience, but have you ever taken care of someone 24 hours a day? An alzheimers patient or a developmentally disabled child? My dad has AD and I'm his primary caregiver and compared to caregiving, entrepreneurship with all its pain is literally a fucking joy. Happiest part of my day even when making $0. I've failed at entprenreurship badly for a 2+ years but psychological…
Frankly, your post sounds like a piece of dialog from the Four Yorkshiremen sketch. The point, from my interpretation, is not that entrepreneurship is mind-numbingly painful but that it is deceitfully painful, while care-giving for an Alzheimer's patient is expected to be painful.
Re: Entrepreneurs anonymous
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Frankly, your post sounds like a piece of dialog from the Four Yorkshiremen sketch. The point, from my interpretation, is not that entrepreneurship is mind-numbingly painful but that it is deceitfully painful, while care-giving for an Alzheimer's patient is expected to be painful.
Did you really mean to write a comment that implies that entrepreneurship might be harder than caring for someone dying of Alzheimers?
Re: Entrepreneurs anonymous
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Please, please please write more of this. This is one of the most fascinating things I've read. I've never heard anyone talk about this aspect of success before.
I'm not op, but will tell two stories that may interest you. My cousin, mid 30's has FU money. Took him around 8-9 years of hard work (not in technology). He's the guy that buys a 5k rolex (or whatever big brand of watches) for fun. Last 'toy' he got was a 250k euro car for himself to drive maybe 1 month a year (he travels a lot). He is still an amazing person, tries to help people. He will have no problem spending a…
However younger people often have little or no idea what happened before them. Perhaps among the aunts and uncles of a family, an older brother or sister sacrificed for years working at a dead-end job in order to put a younger brother through college. Then as things work, the younger brother moves across the country has some success, and the older brother is working in a dead-end job. This was the story in "It's A Wonderful Life" 60 years ago and the story wasn't new then.
Then they have kids - the better-off ones go to a private prep school, the ones of the guy who sacrificed go to public schools. The children don't even know everything about how one brother sacrificed his potentiality and even to some extent his children's potentiality for the other brother. Some kids go to Ivy League schools, have great financial success, and develop a conceited attitude. The sacrificer's kids might not even be able to go to college.
If you look at the Forbes 400 richest list with tech CEO's, we see Bill Gates, who was born with a million dollar trust fund, Larry Page, whose father was a professor, Mark Zuckerberg, who went to Phillips Exeter Academy etc. These are are all white, male people born on third base, or at least second base. You look at Silicon Valley CEO's and you see people whose success was shaped to a large extent before they were born. Why have they succeeded whereas some black kid, whose family moved from Mississippi to Oakland in 1947, did not? Or maybe some Ohlone's whose families "owned" large tracts of lands in the Bay Area before whites came and stole it?
It's a self-serving narrative that people succeed solely due to initiative, hard work, flexibility etc. Are white males from upper middle class families the only people who possess these traits? Of course for the self-serving narrative to be tautological, there will always be murmurs among those people that that is so. Of course once in a while a white woman from an upper class familiy will slip through, or someone from a wealthy Brahmin immigrant family, but that should go without saying.
If one brother sacrifices in a family so that another can have success, the successful person will often have a wife and kids with a vain attitude that they're better than the sacrificer and his family. The repayment for the sacrifice is contempt that they're now better than the sacrificer, and that the poorer family has some innate flaws, are uncouth and so forth. If they feel some resentment toward that, they go on HN and whine how their family resents them driving around in a flashy sports car. The only real excuse the golden child has is he has no knowledge of what went on in the years before he was born.
I know a few (computer-interested) people who went to expensive private prep schools as their families are rich. They really live in a complete bubble. In the documentary "Born Rich", one of the rich kids talks about how much of a bubble his parents live in when he introduced his normal, middle class friend to them and they ask him "where did you summer last year?" This is certainly the case, these people have no idea how the average American worker lives. It's kind of like Mitt Romney, whose father was a CEO and who went to the exclusive Cranbrook prep school blathering on how 47% of Americans are dependents who see themselves as victims. Americans were smart enough to throw him to the curb. These people who are born to the manor, and who live off the wealth they expropriate from the workers who create that wealth, are ever increasingly disconnected from the real world and reality. Why shouldn't they hold themselves in ever high regard? Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette did in the years before they wer
Re: Entrepreneurs anonymous
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you're awake at 4 AM because of anxiety about growth rate and lack of capital, make some hot cocoa and then thank God you don't have real problems. I'm not saying this to be snide. Those problems feel real and scary enough. But as the other replies to this comment demonstrate, there is a vast spectrum of human misery that we live on the far end of. Anything you can do to remain mindful of that will have the side e…
I don't disagree, but when you're growing and responsible for the economic livelihoods of several households, it's hard to write your anxieties off as first world. Because it's not really about you anymore, and a "whatever, I'll be fine in the end" attitude just feels, selfish? Irresponsible? I think a great many of us would sleep just fine if we only bore responsibility for ourselves. I'm not arguing that anyone sho…
Ironically, a lot of the stress that some founders experience comes from their own lack of transparency with employees. I don't doubt that many founders care deeply about their teams, but many are also so mortified at the thought of not being able to recruit and retain that they try to paint the most favorable picture of the startup's current state, conveniently ignoring facts that aren't so favorable.
Obviously, the information that founders can reasonably share with employees changes over time as a company grows, but at an early-stage startup, there's really no excuse for anything less than full disclosure. As the founder of such a startup, you must accept that you can't guarantee your employees continued employment, but you can promise them that you'll be honest about the company's state.