Hey folks - happy to answer questions here
What's the origin of your desire to be better than all of your peers?
Because I realized that I could be better
Why Should I Start a Startup?
41–50 of 304 posts
Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?
#42Hey folks - happy to answer questions here
It wasn't totally clear to me in the post: did Yale take you back after your stint at UPenn? If so, how did that work? If not, how did you become friends with Justin Kan (who IIRC was at Yale) if you were at UPenn?
Yes they did :) - I became friends with Justin during my second senior year
Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?
#43> 1. The vast majority of startups are not successful This alone is why 90% of people will not choose to work at a startup. You will work long hours, for crap pay, and you'll be waiting in line if there is an exit. The odds of there being an exit worth anything to anyone other than a founder are small enough to not even worth considering. If you are a founder you're gambling on your chances. There are ways to mitigat…
> Don't start a startup if you have family that depends on your income.
This one deserves to be called out. You can make a perfectly respectable living starting a company (perhaps not saving as much), and if it doesn't work out and you're savvy you'll have a job in no-time. Especially if you're an engineer in the bay area.
Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
The odds of there being an exit worth anything to anyone other than a founder are small enough to not even worth considering. So if you go to work for a startup, you should demand substantially more money than with an established company. It didn't used to be that way. It used to be that the first dozen or so employees of a successful startup did very well, and the first hundred or so did OK.
> So if you go to work for a startup, you should demand substantially more money than with an established company. The problem is that most startups can't match, much less beat, established companies on salary, and they'll just turn you down. It's not even malice or greed on their part, it's just that they have a finite runway and a few tens of thousands of dollars a year on a single person can mean the difference be…
The megacorp economy requires people to accept the likelihood of crushing institutionalized misery in exchange for a chance at being able to sustain a high salary long enough that the accumulated pile of cash after you finally quit will allow you to live a good enough life to make up for all that lost time and deferred happiness. I decided not to play along with that and will never again work for a megacorp, because life is short and I want to enjoy mine. It is, as you say, up to each individual!
Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?
#45You shouldn't. Work in open source instead. If that project takes off, start a company. This way you benefit everyone instead of just yourself if you fail. Which you probably will.
Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?
#46[deleted]
Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?
#47Hey folks - happy to answer questions here
Great post. Thanks. As CEO of the company how did you deal with the extreme stress during the most difficult days of Justin.TV/Twitch while at the same time keeping the team motivated?
Honestly I dont have a good answer - I don't think I dealt with it in the most healthy manner - although my girlfriend (now wife) helped a lot!
Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?
#48Hey folks - happy to answer questions here
Your list excludes what is probably the most common reason to start a startup, which is that someone thinks they're more competent than the 90% who fail, so they have a good chance of succeeding and making themselves rich.
There is uncertainty in business, but execution matters a lot. If you have good reason to think you can execute better than most, then a startup is probably the quickest route to financial independence.
Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd argue that if you're thinking in these terms, you're probably not the startup type. There was an interesting RibbonFarm essay on "guardian" vs. "commerce" syndrome that really crystallized this for me: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/06/04/saints-and-traders-the... Entrepreneurs are the ultimate in "commerce" types, but beyond that, his key point was about bulletpoint #2, "exert prowess" vs. "compete". For most p…
Sure. This is a nice dichotomy. Until you add "living out of a car with your pregnant wife and 2 year old child" to the things you have organized your life to do. Humans are very adverse to ruin, and this has nothing to do with what they want to do or achieve. It has to do with what they do not want to experience or put others through.
I've lived in my car to start a company. I've also failed with a one month old baby in the NICU. It's not the end of the world. You can always go back to having a job.
Re: Why Should I Start a Startup?
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd argue that if you're thinking in these terms, you're probably not the startup type. There was an interesting RibbonFarm essay on "guardian" vs. "commerce" syndrome that really crystallized this for me: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2014/06/04/saints-and-traders-the... Entrepreneurs are the ultimate in "commerce" types, but beyond that, his key point was about bulletpoint #2, "exert prowess" vs. "compete". For most p…
Sure. This is a nice dichotomy. Until you add "living out of a car with your pregnant wife and 2 year old child" to the things you have organized your life to do. Humans are very adverse to ruin, and this has nothing to do with what they want to do or achieve. It has to do with what they do not want to experience or put others through.
I did my startup while taking care of my parents and briefly paying ourselves very little. It sounded illogical to a lot of people. One of my friends honestly asked me if I'm doing the startup because I couldn't find a regular job (???). After a nice exit a large part of me is still itching to try again.