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Emotional debt in startups

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Re: Emotional debt in startups

#41

Post by dasil003 »

ptrenko wrote: post #34

People give all kinds of wrong advice when you start out: Take risks when you're young. Fail fast, break things. Here's the reality I've experienced as a startup founder. Its not the holy truth, but its been my life and my experiences. If you shoot an arrow even a few degrees off-center, it hits somewhere far from the board. Similarly the decisions you take early on are so much more critical to your life. As an India…

Agree if you want to be a millionaire by your mid-30s then aiming for FAANG and saving most of your salary is the most statistically reliable path for a reasonably smart technically-minded person.

However the next question is whether you are 100% optimizing for money, because there are a lot of other considerations. First of all, working at Google with the best tools, at the largest scale, and the smartest colleagues will teach you a certain way of doing things. What it won't teach you is how to bootstrap a successful business with open source and cheap SaaS components. The type of resourcefulness you learn will be around navigating a specific corporate culture, which is arguably less generally applicable than figuring out how to solve problems in startups or more average companies that aren't funded by insurmountable moats built decades ago for which your impact as a late-stage incoming IC will be negligible. Also if you have a twenty year timeline, realize that these companies' reputations are a lagging indicator and the situation on the ground could change a lot and disrupt many of your assumptions.

But my point is not to endorse an alternate path. If you can enjoy your work and also get paid more, that's the dream. However I would very much caution against slogging through something you hate in the hopes of some distant payoff. Life is about the journey not the destination.

Re: Emotional debt in startups

#42

Post by rudiv »

As someone who works for a startup, I long for the day every jackass and their donkey who sold a company to a tech conglomerate will not rule the minds of other startup founders. Sadly it's more likely that I will witness the heat death of the universe.

Re: Emotional debt in startups

#43

Post by alephu5 »

factsaresacred wrote: post #39
outworlder wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's an enormous opportunity cost. You could be doing somewhere. Yes, that 9 to 5 job at a megacorp sucks. But you are building your 401k. You can turn off after work. If the company has cashflow issues, the worst that could happen is that you might be let go. You are not really on the hook. You are trading that for the chance to strike gold. Which you might do, but more often than not, you won't. And then you mig…

I think this discount the enormous satisfaction that comes with creating your own thing. 9 - 5 working for somebody else can feel a lot longer than 6 - 9 working on your own biz. Especially when you're talking in decades. And striking gold doesn't always have to be the desired outcome. Simply achieving freedom and autonomy is success.

I've heard it's common for people to accept a lower income to live like this and I can understand why. No need for bullshit meetings and you can do things as you think they should be done.

Re: Emotional debt in startups

#44

Post by foreverloop »

cj wrote: post #5

I agree with this article, from a slightly different perspective. I’m a solo founder, company started 2015, went through accelerator, VC funding, etc. There’s a certain level of emotional stress I can handle, and with everything that goes into making a startup succeed, I was right at my limit for multiple years. Looking back (with my startup profitable, stable, running well), the thing I hate thinking about most is s…

hi cj. Look... humbly said... just some thoughts from some experiences:

1. "Friends" can be a very bad influence. It really depends on their quality and most times you don't know that until a decade later. The bad influence can be insidious and barely noticeable but it adds up. The influence is not even intentional, it just comes from the inner insecurities that we all have, it's a human thing. In some cases for me it led me to some dead ends and wasted life opportunities (sometimes even bad situations I had to recover from and took a huge toll on me stress wise). Because I was weak and influential (might not be your case, but it was mine) and just a few words and ideas spoken and planted in my head were enough that in the long run I did not do what I knew inside that I was supposed to do. Sure, that is my own weakness of character at cause, but I'm just saying.

2. I want to strongly emphasize this: you now have a successful business you say. You have something set aside to live off so look at it this way: your life starts.... NOW! From now on you can start dating and "living" without too many worries and you do not depend on anything that much. Now you can date, raise a family and everything without all the stress of also needing to grow a business or climbing the corporate ladder.

3. Do you think that after 4 years of dating you would have "found the one"? I wouldn't be so sure. I've seen young people in long therm relationships ... and most relationships started at that age fell apart by 30. And then? You would have been with no business AND no "the one". Also, before 28.... most guys and girl are still immature. They do not know what they want in life and are not realistic. I've seen marriages fall apart after 4 years in their 20s. Now towards 30s and beyond people are more mature and the quality of dating will be much higher, you will see.

4. You don't have to catch up to anyone. Just do your own thing. You now have the comfort of not worrying about a job, because of your hard work. You are free to go date. 5. Being an independent business owner might be appealing to potential "the one" material ladies, you proved that you can succeed in life.

6. Lastly if you are a bit down because of all the missing out, take some time gather some money, after this corona crisis is over, do some traveling. Go to Europe, go to Japan, spend some time trying new things if you can safely afford it. Or if you are completely worry free financially, maybe enroll in a MSc program at some university and live the campus life.

7. Now you can focus on a partner when you find one, much more that people (like me :) ) who also have to focus on career at the same time. Find someone with the same life goals as you.

Re: Emotional debt in startups

#45

Post by mnky9800n »

nkozyra wrote: post #9

There's a cost of ownership here and it's bigger than most people think. You see the success stories, the dramatizations ... Very few entrepreneurs are able to let go. At 5 p.m. At 3 a.m. On the weekends. On your wedding day. It can consume you, particularly if you've tied its success directly to your ego. Hard for me to not think about the late nights with the laptop. Even after getting married. Even after having a…

There's a reason that faculty have much higher divorce rates than the general population. Throwing yourself into a job is rather personally rewarding but it's not effective at relationships where you are expecting to give up something for the other person.

Re: Emotional debt in startups

#46

Post by mnky9800n »

cj wrote: post #5

I agree with this article, from a slightly different perspective. I’m a solo founder, company started 2015, went through accelerator, VC funding, etc. There’s a certain level of emotional stress I can handle, and with everything that goes into making a startup succeed, I was right at my limit for multiple years. Looking back (with my startup profitable, stable, running well), the thing I hate thinking about most is s…

Tbh you don't really want to get married so early anyways. My wife and I both agree we got married too early and we were about your age. Now we are in our 30s and feel closer to actually being ready to get married even though we been married ten years now. But we did phds and are academic scientists instead of startup founder. But to be a successful scientist isn't a job where you get a lot of free time for friends and family.

Re: Emotional debt in startups

#47

Post by pinkbeanz »

alephu5 wrote: post #43
factsaresacred wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this discount the enormous satisfaction that comes with creating your own thing. 9 - 5 working for somebody else can feel a lot longer than 6 - 9 working on your own biz. Especially when you're talking in decades. And striking gold doesn't always have to be the desired outcome. Simply achieving freedom and autonomy is success.

I've heard it's common for people to accept a lower income to live like this and I can understand why. No need for bullshit meetings and you can do things as you think they should be done.

if you think there’s no bullshit meeting as a founder, think again. think how many meetings you need to do to raise funding, meet with prospects, network. very quickly your ability to do things as you think they should be done diminishes as you hire people who you hopefully trust to do things as they think should be done.

Re: Emotional debt in startups

#48

Post by pinkbeanz »

nkozyra wrote: post #9

There's a cost of ownership here and it's bigger than most people think. You see the success stories, the dramatizations ... Very few entrepreneurs are able to let go. At 5 p.m. At 3 a.m. On the weekends. On your wedding day. It can consume you, particularly if you've tied its success directly to your ego. Hard for me to not think about the late nights with the laptop. Even after getting married. Even after having a…

these stories are more common than not too and not exclusive to startups. look at any high level executive at a bank and they’re working 6-9, sacrificing time with their spouse and their kids, to build a career.

i’ve worked with founders who would check slack on their honeymoon, who has their wife begging them not to go in a holiday, and who took a whopping two weeks off (i.e. working from home) to help their wife after their first child was born.

but i also know founders who have found work life balance and have made sure their employees have it too.

Re: Emotional debt in startups

#49

Post by ptrenko »

dasil003 wrote: post #41
ptrenko wrote: post #34

People give all kinds of wrong advice when you start out: Take risks when you're young. Fail fast, break things. Here's the reality I've experienced as a startup founder. Its not the holy truth, but its been my life and my experiences. If you shoot an arrow even a few degrees off-center, it hits somewhere far from the board. Similarly the decisions you take early on are so much more critical to your life. As an India…

Agree if you want to be a millionaire by your mid-30s then aiming for FAANG and saving most of your salary is the most statistically reliable path for a reasonably smart technically-minded person. However the next question is whether you are 100% optimizing for money, because there are a lot of other considerations. First of all, working at Google with the best tools, at the largest scale, and the smartest colleagues…

Yeah I've learned a lot about boostrapping working at a startup in college. The physics is completely different.

You have to be very very efficient. You understand why Heroku costs 3x of AWS. You understand that raising money is not necessary for every project. For most tourist entrepreneurs its just cargo culting.

But now I think I wanna spend a good 10 years in corporate before even thinking of doing anything else. Make that moolah first.

Re: Emotional debt in startups

#50

Post by cercatrova »

pinkbeanz wrote: post #47
alephu5 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've heard it's common for people to accept a lower income to live like this and I can understand why. No need for bullshit meetings and you can do things as you think they should be done.

if you think there’s no bullshit meeting as a founder, think again. think how many meetings you need to do to raise funding, meet with prospects, network. very quickly your ability to do things as you think they should be done diminishes as you hire people who you hopefully trust to do things as they think should be done.

If you are building a B2B VC backed startup. There are many who simply run bootstrapped business making 5 figures a month. See https://www.indiehackers.com/products
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