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Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret

kernelmag.com

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Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret

#51

Post by EREFUNDO »

dkrich wrote: post #13

Without finishing the article, or knowing anything about the author, I knew that this couldn't be somebody who has ever tried his hand at starting a business. The fact that he repeatedly quotes Eric Ries and Steve Blank makes this article a little hilarious to me as well. I for one am only really interested in hearing stories from actual entrepreneurs who have tried and failed or tried and succeeded. Both are equally…

I disagree. Your opinion was largely derived just from your experience. There are reasons why academics and intellectuals are better at explaining phenomena compared to individual experience. They research and aggregate the experiences of hundreds if not thousands of people, thus making their contentions universally applicable.

Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret

#52

Post by dkrich »

EREFUNDO wrote: post #51
dkrich wrote: post #13

Without finishing the article, or knowing anything about the author, I knew that this couldn't be somebody who has ever tried his hand at starting a business. The fact that he repeatedly quotes Eric Ries and Steve Blank makes this article a little hilarious to me as well. I for one am only really interested in hearing stories from actual entrepreneurs who have tried and failed or tried and succeeded. Both are equally…

I disagree. Your opinion was largely derived just from your experience. There are reasons why academics and intellectuals are better at explaining phenomena compared to individual experience. They research and aggregate the experiences of hundreds if not thousands of people, thus making their contentions universally applicable.

Here's my take on it- if you are reading for personal accounts or advice on whether to start a business, the best advice comes from people who have done it. To me, that is the target audience for this author's advice, and precisely the reason I find fault with it.

If you are reading to learn a new skill, then academics are great. For example, if I want to learn how to set up an LLC, the intricacies of employment law, or accounting methods for a small business, learning from academics is the best way.

In either case you are learning from people who know from experience. I tend to take advice from those most experienced in the advice they are offering. Who is this guy to explain the difficulties of starting a business? Would I be qualified to write about the difficulties of becoming a physician if I have never gone through the process myself? Probably not.

To take that a step further, if I am looking to open a bakery, I want to talk to people who have opened bakeries. They know better than anybody what to expect and can paint a vivid picture of what my life will look like if I choose to proceed. What applies to other entrepreneurs in other fields is largely irrelevant. Which is why it is so ridiculous to try to boil something as complicated as starting a business down to "it's really fucking hard and you probably won't succeed, so be realistic." While that may be true, it is not particularly helpful. Nor is advising people to go learn to code.

Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret

#53

Post by its_so_on »

wpietri wrote: post #48
its_so_on wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to say that 90% of what I said applies to the vast majority of startups today, rather than the occassional one that succeeds big. Google is characteristic of a different era and philosophy; I doubt very much that it would be possible for Google to have become Google in today's ethos, and if it did, it would not have created more than a handful of truly rich people.

And what's your basis for saying you have insight into the vast majority of startups today? Because an assertion from an anonymous, semi-coherent commenter isn't doing it for me. As another counterexample, I just checked the YouTube purchase. They started much later than Google. When they sold for $1.6 billion, about 140 million ended up in the hands of the 20 non-founder employees with enough equity to list in the S…

hi, youtube is the same era and was heavily influenced in gearing up, by input from google management. I'm talking about now.

Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret

#54

Post by wpietri »

its_so_on wrote: post #53
wpietri wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what's your basis for saying you have insight into the vast majority of startups today? Because an assertion from an anonymous, semi-coherent commenter isn't doing it for me. As another counterexample, I just checked the YouTube purchase. They started much later than Google. When they sold for $1.6 billion, about 140 million ended up in the hands of the 20 non-founder employees with enough equity to list in the S…

hi, youtube is the same era and was heavily influenced in gearing up, by input from google management. I'm talking about now.

YouTube is definitely not the same era. Google was started in 1998, and was firmly part of Bubble 1.0. YouTube was started in 2005 by former PayPal people. I see no evidence that their early employee equity deals were influenced by Google management; if you have some, please provide it.

I can't, of course, prove anything about this week's equity deals by looking at IPO numbers because median time-to-exit is circa 7 years and we had a long period with few IPOs. But I don't have any reason to think that people today are doing something much different. But these historical numbers seem in line with current advice. E.g.: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/employee-equity-how-much.htm...

You also ignore my request for evidence about your sweeping statements about the current state of things. Unless you have some, I'm going to presume that you're one of the many anonymous disgruntled people on the Internet. If you did get screwed, I'm sorry about that, but I don't think that's reason to go around tarring a whole industry.

Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret

#55

Post by EREFUNDO »

dkrich wrote: post #52
EREFUNDO wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Your opinion was largely derived just from your experience. There are reasons why academics and intellectuals are better at explaining phenomena compared to individual experience. They research and aggregate the experiences of hundreds if not thousands of people, thus making their contentions universally applicable.

Here's my take on it- if you are reading for personal accounts or advice on whether to start a business, the best advice comes from people who have done it. To me, that is the target audience for this author's advice, and precisely the reason I find fault with it. If you are reading to learn a new skill, then academics are great. For example, if I want to learn how to set up an LLC, the intricacies of employment law,…

Well I agree that it's better to talk with people who did the exact same thing you're planning to do. The experience is more detailed. But her article is about entrepreneurship in general, not a specific type of business. That's why one of her advice was to work for a company that specializes on the industry you want to get into.
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