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Before you start a company, answer these questions

venturebeat.com

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Re: Before you start a company, answer these questions

#21

Post by epynonymous »

i've got a really cushy job making great money, and the work life balance is tolerable, but i feel that it's not that exciting. i have had lots of ideas, but i finally think that i've figured out what i really enjoy which is sports and technology. i have been working on madsportslab.com for about a year now, i taught myself golang and swift as part of the process and have released my app to the appstore, now just have to start the marketing part.

the cmo definitely agrees in theory that she can deal with me going full time on this, but i seriously doubt that and think it would make things really bad.

financially i could easily live a few years without salary, but i need to support my daughter so this makes things difficult where i live.

i am thinking of leveraging kickstarter and will continue to work on this as a side hobby, but once i see any traction, i may seriously consider taking the plunge

Re: Before you start a company, answer these questions

#22

Post by [deleted] »

91bananas wrote: post #8
welanes wrote: post #5

> Will your spouse/significant other be OK if you spend three nights a week at hacker meetups? The ideal spouse/significant other would be one that asks why you're hanging out at hacker meetups every other night when you've just quit your job.

The ideal one would know why you were there if this was truly a passion of yours that you wanted to pursue.

[deleted]

Re: Before you start a company, answer these questions

#23

Post by lafay »

welanes wrote: post #5

> Will your spouse/significant other be OK if you spend three nights a week at hacker meetups? The ideal spouse/significant other would be one that asks why you're hanging out at hacker meetups every other night when you've just quit your job.

No, no -- the ideal spouse / SO writes half the code, is your co-founder, and joins you at the meetups.

Re: Before you start a company, answer these questions

#24

Post by jroseattle »

welanes wrote: post #5

> Will your spouse/significant other be OK if you spend three nights a week at hacker meetups? The ideal spouse/significant other would be one that asks why you're hanging out at hacker meetups every other night when you've just quit your job.

This is true, but don't take the comment so literally.

The real question is: will your SO be supportive of you needing to do whatever it takes to keep your initiative moving forward?

Re: Before you start a company, answer these questions

#25

Post by sokoloff »

rsp1984 wrote: post #20
adventured wrote: post #18

"Are you motivated by the prospect of getting rich?" ... " These are perfectly normal human emotions but horrible reasons on their own to start a business." Being motivated to get rich is an extremely good reason to start a business. In fact it's one of the few reasons to do so. It's very difficult to get rich if you don't own generative assets (short of being a radiologist and plowing your after taxes/expenses salar…

100x This. As a corollary: If you're not motivated by getting rich a job at a big tech firm will probably satisfy most of your non-monetary motivations while at the same time giving you more impact and a much easier life than going the startup route.

A job at a big tech firm, reasonable spending habits, and 20 years investing in the markets is likely to make you extremely comfortable financially. With almost perfect certainty.

It's not going to be private jet money, but it's going to be easily flying first class money.

Re: Before you start a company, answer these questions

#26

Post by dbancajas »

ChristopherM wrote: post #6

I started a company, by myself, November 2012. I'm still in business but haven't released the original intended product. 1) What was my motivation? I was tired of working for someone else, I'd had it with commuting, working with people that kept bringing diseases from their kids in daycare and hence getting colds and flus mutliple times per year, living in a state with absurd taxes and cost of living. Working hard to…

what's your email?

Re: Before you start a company, answer these questions

#28

Post by harryfcallahan »

ChristopherM wrote: post #6

I started a company, by myself, November 2012. I'm still in business but haven't released the original intended product. 1) What was my motivation? I was tired of working for someone else, I'd had it with commuting, working with people that kept bringing diseases from their kids in daycare and hence getting colds and flus mutliple times per year, living in a state with absurd taxes and cost of living. Working hard to…

Hi, my e-mail is harry.f.callahan@gmail.com

Please tell me more about your business and philosophy because this feels very similar to my own journey. I quit my job in october 2016 and try to build html/mobile gaming stuff. My plan assume make 10 000$-15 000$ in this year.

Re: Before you start a company, answer these questions

#29

Post by Ntrails »

civilian wrote: post #7
welanes wrote: post #5

> Will your spouse/significant other be OK if you spend three nights a week at hacker meetups? The ideal spouse/significant other would be one that asks why you're hanging out at hacker meetups every other night when you've just quit your job.

lol, yeah. I don't think that if I was a founder I'd be at hacker meetups? I don't get great coding done there. I'd rather come home, have a simple dinner, and then put a few hours in after catching up with the fam. If I was trying to hire I would go to hacker meetups, but I think you can filter for meetups that have high-quality candidates and a good engineers::non-techies ratio. And of course, only stay for the fir…

I read comments like this "I want a couple of hours after work to see people I love before I get back to the very important task of more work" and cannot decide if I'm lazy, or the average startup'r is a bit mad.

Doing a 10-12 hour day every now and again because there's a deadline is fine, planning ahead for that to be an average day boggles my mind.

Re: Before you start a company, answer these questions

#30

Post by brianwawok »

Ntrails wrote: post #29
civilian wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

lol, yeah. I don't think that if I was a founder I'd be at hacker meetups? I don't get great coding done there. I'd rather come home, have a simple dinner, and then put a few hours in after catching up with the fam. If I was trying to hire I would go to hacker meetups, but I think you can filter for meetups that have high-quality candidates and a good engineers::non-techies ratio. And of course, only stay for the fir…

I read comments like this "I want a couple of hours after work to see people I love before I get back to the very important task of more work" and cannot decide if I'm lazy, or the average startup'r is a bit mad. Doing a 10-12 hour day every now and again because there's a deadline is fine, planning ahead for that to be an average day boggles my mind.

Sounds like you don't pass the founder test ')
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