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Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

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Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#171

Post by bdcravens »

truth_sentinell wrote: post #139
bdcravens wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you were faced with a nice fat exit, or could continue running the company with the day to day grind, would you continue to pick the journey over the destination?

You may want to look up Gary Vaynerchuck on youtube for that

I'm well aware of Gary's attitudes on the subject, but I wasn't looking for general thoughts, but what an individual thinks. In general, I've found that that those critical of the financial rewards typically sing a different tune once success becomes an option.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#172

Post by vintermann »

__mbm__ wrote: post #62
matrix wrote: post #54

While the author does quote the very low odds of success, I think he does readers a disservice by minimizing that risk. Very few people have the right disposition, the right partners, the right idea, and the right skill set to launch a startup. Being a freshly minted PhD doesn't change that. Failing at a startup sucks, and sucks really hard. But of course, its not in a VC's interest to tell you the pain that comes wi…

> Failing at a startup sucks This. I have a PhD and a failed startup. It felt real bad, and I didn't get that far with it (9 months before calling it quits). Creating a successful startup requires significantly more energy and stress than most science jobs, even for pre-tenure professors. It requires different skills than science. Few introverts will succeed at founding a company, for example. Moreover, you have to p…

> Few introverts will succeed at founding a company, for example.

This is comically obvious when you look at some successful startups... My brother joined one (not technically as a founder, but he left the same company as them to join as a day 1 employee). They occasionally post PR pictures of themselves. They all look ridiculously like successful, smiling, talented and dynamic people, the kind of people a VC probably likes to see. Except my brother, who looks totally like the bookish introvert that he is.

Well well, I figure smart VCs knew that they have good reasons to have that one guy around.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#173

Post by andkon »

j7ake wrote: post #165
andkon wrote: post #163

TLDR: start a startup if you are in such a terrible job market that you have, by default, a 95% chance of failure.

But the 1/20 that do "succeed" get a salary of ~$150000 over ~30 years, which is worth $2-4 million today dollars depending on how you set your interest rates. Are 1 in 20 founders today exiting with $2-4 million in their pockets?

No.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#174

Post by ginger_beer_m »

jedberg wrote: post #95
monkmartinez wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does a startup have? Proposals and Stress = Check low success rates and intense competition = Check Need for sales = Check I can't help but think you essentially have the same situation in academia as one has in a startup, only "it's different." The difference to me is the illusion of control. One may think that they are in control of the startup vs. the bureaucracy of government/academia/established business. I posi…

Chance of extremely high returns = Check (not so much in academia)

Yeah, working in academia, with its endless proposals and grant applications, is a bit like running a start-up that never succeeds.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#175

Post by ginger_beer_m »

kayhi wrote: post #43

I completed a PhD in chemistry and went straight into the start up world in 2008. I focused on building tools that would have been helpful in my research lab[1]. My feeling was I can work a lot of hours for little pay and questionable benefits as a post doc or start my own thing. I use 'start my own thing' since I hadn't ever heard of doing a start-up being in the Midwest. [1] https://labspend.com/

Do you get enough paying customers for your startup? I imagine labs tend to be hesitant before they approach startups for solutions to their problems..

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#177

Post by collyw »

hvidgaard wrote: post #168
brightball wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hear things like this about Zuckerberg all the time and he did one singular thing that made Facebook take off more than all of the other social networks that were out there at the time (Classmates, High School Alumni, My Space, etc). He made it exclusive. You had to have a .edu address to sign up so the people ON the network were initially only your peer group. You couldn't get in without that .edu address and ther…

Tell me again how exclusivity helped Google+ take off. What he did right, was providing something that no other service did.

Funny that, because I was signed up to two or three other services at the time that seemed to be doing the same thing when Facebook appeared on my radar. Facebook seemed to gain a larger share of my friends which had a snowballing effect.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#178

Post by collyw »

wolfgke wrote: post #117
xj9 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same way all skills are acquired: practice.

Practicing does not help for me. I am rather a lone wolf, but not because I want to be, but because I simply fail completely, so I find it a little bit unfair to downvote the above post.

I was pretty shy / introverted in my early 20's. Got a job as a whitewater rafting guide, where I had to interact with new people every day (in a foreign language). It quickly goes away.

Another friend was terrified of public speaking so started doing stand up comedy, and now helps run one of the regular shows in a pub here.

You have to put in the hours to an extent, it's not just a case of trying a couple of times and giving up. Alcohol helps to a degree, but obviously don't go crazy with it. Probably hanging out with extroverts and taking note of what they do helps as well.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#179

Post by Ma8ee »

beachy wrote: post #98
pb wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many of the most successful founders are introverts. Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, Bill Gates, none of them are very extroverted, but they've started some of the most valuable companies in the world. Of course if you are so introverted that you are unable to make eye contact or talk to people it will be a problem, but most of us are not that extreme.

Introverts often perform brilliantly when pitching or persuading. Being out in front of others is not their relaxing place, so they focus, pour their energy into it and succeed at it. Then they withdraw to some solitude to recharge.

Or they panic, or blank out, or more likely, find a way not to be in front of others in the first place.

Re: Why building a startup is probably your most sensible career path

#180

Post by lsc »

eh, I am in infrastructure, not science, but looking back, I have a really hard time coming up with something that I might have done (I mean, something that the person I was in my 20s would likely have done.) that could have caused me more financial damage than starting a company did.

On top of that, nobody tells you, but when you go to get a real job after starting a company? If you didn't have big-name VC, "Oh, that was your company?" the interviewer asks... but what the interviewer clearly means is actually "Oh, so you were unemployed"

I mean, I'm not saying that you shouldn't start a company, I'm just saying that you need to be mindful of the risks. Yes, you feel free when you are young, but any money you put into retirement then is extremely impactful. The same is true of anything you put into covering your long-term housing short.

Even if I could talk to myself in my early 20s, I probably could not talk him out of starting a company, but... i would be way better off now if he could have been talked into being more conservative... into maxing out all available tax-deferred retirement options, into limiting the amount of money and the amount of my self that I was willing to sink into the thing. Into buying a fucking condo, at least. Something.

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