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Why Should I Start a Startup?

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#151

Post by rralian »

Mz wrote: post #136
jansho wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your posts always resonate with me, thank you, but I particularly need to hear this one. I will not call myself exceptional, but I often find fitting in almost impossible. Finding a niche and owning it is then survival! Although I'm very aware of the high failure rate with startups, I can't help but keep believing that I can do this thing. Sometimes though I am torn by guilt, that I'm such a snowflake, but I don't kn…

It might help to think of yourself as enriching the diverse ecosystem of humans in order to enhance life for all. In nature, monocultures are horribly vulnerable to disease and other problems. In contrast, diverse ecosystems mean that one creature's wastes are another's nutrients and many creatures can co-exist because they aren't direct competitors. They need inherently different things. Taking up some niche no one…

> In contrast, diverse ecosystems mean that one creatures wastes are another's nutrients

Wow. This is so insightful. When applying this lense to one's failures or struggles or disappointments... this really clicked with me to put it all in perspective. Thank you!

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#152

Post by [deleted] »

falcolas wrote: post #18

So, does "personal responsibility for [...] failure" really apply when there is a 90% failure rate? Seems like short of failing to execute, it's more a game of chance than something you can influence. That is, it's seems like its a lot like video poker: you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win. I would also think that getting into an industry with such a high failure rate would be terrible for…

[deleted]

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#153

Post by andkon »

I'd like to fill out the "maybe" part of his "If you answer yes three times, then maybe starting a startup is for you" bit.

I answer a very strong yes to all three of those. Always have. But a startup, despite my always having worked in them and run one of my own for three years, was resolutely not a good idea for me.

It took a lot of self-discovery to see myself not as an entrepreneur, but as an artist, and it's frustrating, because it sure took me a while to admit it. I spent all my time and money and effort trying to be successful as a startup founder, and expecting that I'd eventually feel the spark that I know can drive me. But now I look at the creative work I do on my own, even though I still have a full-time job, and I feel the same connection that Michael describes here, which I had chased for so long.

The irony is that pretty much every idea I have uses the technical skills i built as a startup founder. But hey. Time to do what I always should have.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#154

Post by hkmurakami »

taurath wrote: post #77

I do find it rather hilarious that he dropped interest in yale for being too academic, but during my (failed) interview as a web developer at Twitch about 5 years ago, the questioning had to do with only academic subjects like graph traversal algorithms - they proudly stated when I applied that 90% of their employees come from an Ivy league background. Here's who I think should start a startup: - People with the back…

Frankly one of the main responsibilities of CEO is money. Have it, and/or Raise it, and/or sell for it.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#155

Post by porter »

mwseibel wrote: post #55
falcolas wrote: post #18

So, does "personal responsibility for [...] failure" really apply when there is a 90% failure rate? Seems like short of failing to execute, it's more a game of chance than something you can influence. That is, it's seems like its a lot like video poker: you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win. I would also think that getting into an industry with such a high failure rate would be terrible for…

"you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win" - I like this - maybe I would restate this as "you can cause yourself to lose, but a lot of things outside of your control need to go right in order to win"

or as pg says if you don't want to die then don't quit.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#156

Post by [deleted] »

mwseibel wrote: post #55
falcolas wrote: post #18

So, does "personal responsibility for [...] failure" really apply when there is a 90% failure rate? Seems like short of failing to execute, it's more a game of chance than something you can influence. That is, it's seems like its a lot like video poker: you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win. I would also think that getting into an industry with such a high failure rate would be terrible for…

"you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win" - I like this - maybe I would restate this as "you can cause yourself to lose, but a lot of things outside of your control need to go right in order to win"

[deleted]

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#157

Post by jaypaulynice »

scottLobster wrote: post #95
jaypaulynice wrote: post #76

I like this post. I wish I really started a startup in college or right after. A regular corporate job turns you into a zombie and you become out of touch with reality especially if you're well paid and well fed. A lot of people are unprepared for the hard life. If anything, you'll learn more about life in 6 months than you will in decades. It's not just the technical stuff. You'll learn who your real friends are. Be…

As a counterpoint: My spouse's ongoing education is currently dependent on my regular income. Once she graduates it'll effectively double our collective income and hopefully give her her first good career. I'm not sure how I could sell gambling all of that on a 90% chance of failure even if I wanted to. Sounds like the act of a gambling addict. Also, if you need to gamble your family's livelihood to find out if your…

You don't think financing your spouse education is a gamble? Who is to say you won't get divorced right after she's done? That's honorable, but at the same time a huge risk.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#158

Post by vabmit »

guimarin wrote: post #121
vabmit wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there's some truth to the family support part of this. I was just racking my brain trying to think of any founder I knew (and I know a ton of them) that was in the position of "success or potentially homeless". But, I can't. I think there's some variable confounding going on when YC and others talk about people in their early 20's being better positioned to do startups because they're less risk averse due to…

My dad was not a successful founder. He quit his job at 40 or so to start a company. He failed miserably, and despite us being fairly well off, went into a downward spiral. He is divorced, alone, and living in a trailer park. Every time I visit him in his doublewide in Campbell, still same furniture as person who died in it had, I expect him to be hanging from the rafters. He was a serial startup employee with over 2…

Something similar happened to my dad. He had a pretty successful company providing security guard services mostly on government contracts. It wasn't very lucrative. He wasn't rich. But, it paid the mortgage and the bills and my siblings and I were well taken care of. Then, when I was around 9 or 10 or so, Wackenhut kind of raised a lot of money and became the Amazon of security guard services. They Amazon'd his company and everything he built just kind of slowly disappeared over the next couple years. He could have done OK getting a job as a security guard himself and working his way up or even changing careers (he was reasonably intelligent). But, something about his company failing broke him and he just kind of never did anything after that. My teen years were absolute chaos until I dropped out of high school and got a job driving a fork lift around 17 and moved out. I remember there being absolutely no food in the house for days and days. It was crazy.

I've had a bunch of friends/acquaintances that killed themselves (hung/shot/jumped off the GG) after their start-ups failed. But, they all did it during the first boom (90's). I haven't personally known anyone that's done it during this boom, yet. I think the difference might be that the bubble hasn't popped yet this time. People who fail can still easily go find work. Back then all the companies were laying people off. So, if your start-up failed there was basically no where to go but back home. Probably the majority of the people I knew in SFBA back when the bubble popped did that. It was crazy how suddenly highways that were packed with traffic could just be cruised down at the speed limit during rush hour with out touching your breaks until you got to your exit. It seemed surreal.

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#159

Post by justin »

mwseibel wrote: post #42
nathan-wailes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't totally clear to me in the post: did Yale take you back after your stint at UPenn? If so, how did that work? If not, how did you become friends with Justin Kan (who IIRC was at Yale) if you were at UPenn?

Yes they did :) - I became friends with Justin during my second senior year

Thank God for those senior year World of Warcraft sessions!

Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?

#160

Post by aphextron »

scottLobster wrote: post #95
jaypaulynice wrote: post #76

I like this post. I wish I really started a startup in college or right after. A regular corporate job turns you into a zombie and you become out of touch with reality especially if you're well paid and well fed. A lot of people are unprepared for the hard life. If anything, you'll learn more about life in 6 months than you will in decades. It's not just the technical stuff. You'll learn who your real friends are. Be…

As a counterpoint: My spouse's ongoing education is currently dependent on my regular income. Once she graduates it'll effectively double our collective income and hopefully give her her first good career. I'm not sure how I could sell gambling all of that on a 90% chance of failure even if I wanted to. Sounds like the act of a gambling addict. Also, if you need to gamble your family's livelihood to find out if your…

>In 10 years I'll likely have enough saved up to seriously consider my own business, and enough contacts/professional clout to go back to regular work if it fails. I'll also have 10 more years of business experience to draw on, likely from at least 2 more companies. Why do a startup now, or God forbid right when I graduated, when I have/had the fewest resources and the fewest advantages?

You'll also be a decade older, probably with children, a mortgage, and a bad back. Business opportunities prime for the taking now will be saturated. There's a trade off to everything. Young, single people willing to accept risk have a lot of intangible advantages.

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