> You're going to end up with a bunch of rich white dudes as founders Why not just say "rich dudes" ? That is the qualifier. The race might be true too, but it's not what defines the argument.
You might get some Asians as well but white households have 10x the wealth of Black households and 8x the wealth of Hispanic households. Restricting to the wealthy will restrict to primarily white and Asian. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/11/01/how-wealth-...
Asians aren't very represented in corporate leadership.
Uh, most parents would take their kids back in the event of financial disaster. That's not even rare. Many folks live with their parents until late 20s / early 30s these days.
There are parents with ample incomes and large comfortable homes that will welcome their child with open arms, proud of them for risking everything on a start up and encouraging them to try again. There are parents with little extra cash and homes without space for permanent guests who are going to accept their children back with some disappointment and disapproval for taking large risks and failing. Children of the…
There are parents with ample incomes and large comfortable homes that will accept their children back with some disappointment and disapproval for taking large risks and failing.
There are parents with little extra cash and homes without space for permanent guests who will welcome their child with open arms, proud of them for risking everything on a start up and encouraging them to try again.
You can absolutely hire a rockstar dev, you need to think in terms of cashflow. You may not be able to pay a full year of salary, but you can still pay their full weekly salary as you go until you either run out of money or produce enough revenue to get to that point.
Agreed, it's not even about the money. My last company had a technical cofounder who by all means was highly sought after and managed a team of 15-20 other developers in their primary dev consulting company meaning not only did they rock technically but also had biz acumen. That individual worked FOR FREE for 3 years 25 hrs/week before collecting any money. Don't ever think you have to pay a developer some market sal…
The only instance in which I would work for free for three years would be if the business was started by a household name for HN regulars and they had a very good track record of successful ventures. Anything less is ridiculous.
yeah a lot people can't do that. Specifically anyone caring for someone, so like 50% of adult population. A huge proportion of adults are caring for a parent or child. Its also impossible if you have any health problems, or need to save for retirement or have student loan debt. Its really only possible if you're young and healthy, so this would filter out probably 80% of adult population
Why not? Lot's of people live off and raise families off of food stamps + medicaid. That's how I was raised. No reason you couldn't also throw building a company in the mix.
Gee why not throw two companies in and another child for good measure?
The point isn't that it's impossible, but it seems like you're advocating strife for strife's sake.
We have a silicon valley success story in our family. His parents were telling me how he built everything up out of nothing, clearly unaware of their own contribution. He could pour all his money into his start-up because if he'd lost every dime he could have moved back in with them. He'd have his own bedroom, bathroom, and a fresh-cooked meal every night. He could have stayed with them as long has he wanted. Very fe…
What sort of joke is this? Having parents with an extra bedroom, once used by kids, is perfectly ordinary.
If the family you'd fall back on lives in Section 8 housing and you don't meet several criteria and become an approved occupant, you can't go back to live with them. If you stay with them, they will lose their housing. This applies to about 1.2 million Americans. The VA and HUD also have rental assistance programs, each of which also has rules about who can live in the rental. Altogether, programs like this serve about 5.2 million Americans. Given that we're predominantly talking about adult children, a larger group is touched by these rules.
Great point. People think a willingness to take extreme financial risks is somehow a useful personality trait when it comes to entrepreneurship because of selection bias. People who take that risk and make it tell that story. People who take that risk and don't make it aren't heard from. People who don't take that risk also aren't heard from. There are lots of people with great ideas and the ability to execute on the…
As one who bootstrapped, took that risk, and lost ... everything ... I've been talking passively about this for a while. I speak with startups who have a product that is poorly differentiated, me-too like, that think they are going to take over the world. The reality, the vicious Darwinian reality, is that you and your team have to bust your collective rear-ends. And get lucky. Really, I hate to deflate many many bub…
But if you're bootstrapping you can just make money doing consulting for a few months each year. Between having a job or having a VC-backed company, bootstrapping seems like arguably the lowest risk option of the three.
Yeah, the idea of creating an environment that only favors young, privileged, unattached folks has always been pretty off-putting for me. Larger checks certainly attract the 'free sabbatical' folks that the author seems to dislike so much, but it also enables entire classes of potential founders to have access to capital that enables them to focus on their business rather than their kids' stomachs.
Counterpoint. As a father of a baby, I have significantly less energy and time for work. With starting a company you tend to have to plow a ton of hours and energy into the endeavor, especially if you want to move at bottleneck speed. With the baby there are many weeks where I have a difficulty working a mere 40 hours. That being said, I have significantly more insight (due to experience) than I did when I was more f…
But that's the thing -- most successful businesses (as opposed to youthful adventures that paint one as 'innovative' on a resume) are started by older founders who have a depth of experience in their field. As parent of a 3-yr old, babyhood goes fast. You'll be sleeping & able to put in extra hours, if you wish, at some point. You'll also notice that your patience for bullshit has decreased, your patience with actual important shit has increased, and by the time the kids in their teens you might be ready to be a founder who doesn't do the hustle-grind-performative-dance and actually... creates a business.
can't really do that if your parents share an 800 square foot public housing apartment with your sister and her kids. or if they're in prison, or dead, or abusive, or they threw you out for not conforming to their religious choices, or disowned you for not being cisgender and heterosexual, or or or
Of course not, and that might be the case for 10-20% of the population. But you don't have to be some privileged trust fund kid for your parents to give you a place to stay in the event of financial hardship. That's not rare and let's hope that never becomes rare because I'd shudder a world where parents by and large would not do this for their kids.
> But you don't have to be some privileged trust fund kid for your parents to give you a place to stay in the event of financial hardship. That's not rare
I think the point is that it is rare for people who don't have this fallback option to put all their time and resources behind entrepreneurship (the same applies to post-secondary education), because to do so is actually risky for them. It's not that they're worse at business or have less ambition, which is an extremely common sentiment expressed widely in the US.
Ahh yes, the famous "pivot" from building a house out of waffles to selling waffles.
Waffle House would probably get great mileage with a publicity stunt building a house made of waffles. Hearken back to Hansel and Gretel, use it to host a waffle-eating contest, donate excess pastries to charity. Could really revitalize the brand.
Y'all are missing the truly horrible part of my idea (though Hansel & Gretel is about the right idea). After the house is built, the customers are intended to eat the house itself. I didn't flesh out the whole idea in my comment, but they should be inside the house while eating it. If it's big enough to warrant the name "house" (not "shack" nor "misshapen pile") then it's big enough for its inevitable collapse to endanger the customers.
Responding further upthread: this is an illustration of a "time waster." They exist on both sides (investors / founders, salespeople / customers, etc) and recognizing them is an important skill. Time is your most valuable resource. Use it wisely.
And often, getting credit card debt is not a material risk, but a minor embarrassment when they ask their family to bail them out and/or move in the guest house for a few months, rent-free. When poorer folk take the "same" risk, they can be ruined for decades.
Here here. When you empty your 401k to build your business, and don't contribute to it for 15 years while you are building, as you simply don't have the cash, and cannot afford it ... Yeah. The implicit assumptions of the "live in poverty" of the OP, are wrong. I'm 54, and I was financially wiped out at 51. I will not ever recover from this. No family wealth to fall back on. I do not believe I will ever be able to re…
Have you blogged or told your story anywhere? I'm curious to learn more!