221–230 of 317 posts
It takes very little money to start an internet company these days. If you dont have the capital, work and save it. Stop making excuses.
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Thirty-five years back, I went to work as the fourth person in a start-up (that's still in business) and loved the fast-paced environment of a start-up life. Fifteen years ago, I went to work for "BigCo", and while our group was essentially an internally funded start-up, I hated the politics, especially as we acquired other companies and tried to integrate their software products into ours. The good news is that succ…
Do people really believe that their upper-middle class upbringings offered no advantages other than cash?
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> I followed several of the links the article was using to support the Social Darwinism claim. One only was actually making that claim (inc.com) and it was obvious pseudo-science, it has the wonderful line: "Self-employment income is heritable". Your post confuses me, because I think you're lumping two very different -- almost contradictory -- claims together under the vague banner of "Social Darwinism". The inc.com…
Have you heard of Social Darwinism before? Its not a term I made up, and you've succinctly identified the exact reason it's so questionable. From Wikipedia: Social Darwinism is a modern name given to various theories of society that emerged in the United Kingdom, North America, and Western Europe in the 1870s, which claim to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology and p…
You've got it all backwards: The article is ARGUING AGAINST the inc.com thesis of an "entrepreneurship gene", calling it a myth:
> New research out this week [...] found that environmental factors (not genetic) most influenced behavior, pointing to the fact that risk tolerance is conditioned over time (dispelling the myth of an elusive “entrepreneurship gene“).
In other words, starting a business isn't much different than it was in the past - capital and connections are essential. Sure, there're exceptions when someone with little money and hard work managed to grow their business, but they're that - exceptions. The older I am the more I realize how naive thinking "I just need to create something better than my competitors!" really is. You can have a mediocre product but wi…
I think it's quite different in the software startup industry. You usually don't need much capital, it's more that you need to have a failsafe in case you go bust to not end up unemployed and unable to pay bills.
Software is still made by people, and people have basic needs, and if you don't come from a family with sufficient wealth to support you, you have to work your way through.
In the USA, you have to do that in a nation that does not open doors for you based on birth, despite the myth the feudalist-owned media perpetuates. This is a feudalist society, the most feudalist society ever known to man (at least in the preserved history).
I wonder how that explains the fairly high risk averseness in the Scandinavian countries? It's literally safe to fail yet failing is frowned upon. I don't think that article is telling the right story.
Isn't Finland supposed to have a pretty bustling tech scene?
If you are like me, a working class kid interested in technology and startups, it can be tough to see your peers with those breaks.
I’ve had every startup role from individual contributor to VP, CTO, COO and CEO under my belt. My perspective is that you can always go to a few museums, read a few books, and catch up (or surpass) your well healed peers. Take it from a 51 year old -- if you have worked your way through school and can’t afford to found a company in your twenties don’t despair – you’ll have a long life and many chances. But the determination that drove you to work your way through school is something precious and remarkable.
It’s not a deficit at all.
People with more money do more of everything... they have more fun, more sex partners, better sex, more entertaining lives, more meaningful lives, more profound moments, more meaningful relationships, and make more of an impact on humanity. This is not a value judgment. Having access to resources means having more freedom. That's freedom to do what you want, to think about what matters, to exercise, to eat healthy, t…
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There are lot of people who fall for the encouragement from PG and such and take risks without being aware of the expected financial impact. Read through comments here and there are some first hand anecdotes. It is hugely more efficient for someone to take into account this research result, rather than learn that after years of toiling, the hard way. Perhaps, it was not as insightful to you personally. But not every…
I don't see how you can say it offers any value. There are no actionable insights here. You can't change your family, so in the end, every individual still faces exactly the same choice: pursue the entrepreneurial path, or not. What other people did and what their circumstances were is irrelevant. If the article purported to prove that it is impossible to succeed as an entrepreneur without coming from a rich family,…
* Plan that most of my competitors are better funded than I am because of family and social strata.
* Compensate for those deficits before engaging in a startup, either as founder or employee. E.g., look for an angel investor (difficult, because there are none associated with my family or friends).
* Stick to my day job.
* Be open to government policy proposals that would even the playing field - not to take it away from the wealthy, but to provide an on-ramp for the non-wealthy. E.g., regulated monopoly universal internet service. Public housing in my town does not provide internet: those kids can't even do their homework, since the teachers *assume* internet access.Earlier quoted context omitted.
Networking is still invaluable, but capital isn't a necessity in software startups. I do think that either bravery or a nesting egg to fall back on is though.
It depends upon the market. You couldn't really do health-care software without connections or capital, for instance. Same for anything finance related. Also, the markets that require the least capital/connections tend to be low margin and flooded with competition.
Now, you usually would need to work this out in advance with the investor. After they've looked over your deal and poked at you some, tell them that you are going to go get a big customer with the permission to declare that funding is lined up pending contract.
It doesn't seem to take much more time out of your day than doing one after the other, and often the investor will get so distracted by the large pending customer that the due-diligence process becomes a pretty cursory check-box affair.