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Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

paulgraham.com

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Re: Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

#183
Good article with few wisdoms.

It is all about mind over matter.... good or bad.... A positive minds looks at problems as opportunities and other mind vice versa...

As you mentioned the success or failure depends on founders rather than outside....

Re: Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

#184
post #103

pg was a lot more fun when he used to talk about other things than making money all the time.

One of the strange consequences of writing about several mostly unrelated topics is that you pick up readers with quite different interests. Then whatever you write next, the ones not interested in that topic complain that you've jumped the shark. I doubt I've written a single essay since about 2002 when someone didn't say something of the form "pg was ok when he was writing about x, but I wish he would stop writing…

Incidentally, if you had to pick a single rubric by which you could gauge the eventual interestingness of an agent of change, you could do a lot worse than profitability.

I'm guessing a lot of the revolutionaries in the Industrial Revolution weren't thinking so much about causing a revolution. They were "just" trying to get rich.

Re: Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy

#188
I just went ahead and did it, irrespective of what the economy was doing. Twice, no four times. On two continents. Damn the torpedoes and all that. OK, I did niche consulting and picked a business model which very much tried to save the client money. Problem is that niches come and go, and the challenge now is to find a new racket.

I suppose I could try inventing something new. Now is a great time to do it. Of course, I will probably fail, but so what. If I make time to do it, I will certainly have at least a bit more time to ride my bike around and stall that looming congestive heart failure.

But seriously, if you have a little bit of cash, or better, still have a bit of cash coming in, extra help won't get any cheaper than it is now. If I'm in Europe, I'll outsource to the USA.

We never tried to make money - it just happened. Sure, it was much closer to Stallman than Billy Goat, but it paid for the house and will send my kid to MIT.

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