I hear this exact message a million times on Hacker News: a speech from an entrepreneur discouraging others to be like him/her... unless they are really serious about it. This is played to the point of cliche. For once, I'd love to see an article entitled "don't do it" and really actually mean it.
Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
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Re: Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
#62"A lot of people think that they want to be an entrepreneur because it’s a good way to make money. It just isn’t, that’s just wrong. Depending on how you count, 95% to 99% of companies fail." Excuse me. It is a way to make money. That figure assumes the definition of entrepreneur is only startups as discussed in places like HN, Techcrunch etc. Not only is the figure of 95% or 99% wrong with respect to "entrepreneurs"…
The average expected income from working at a large corporate may well be higher than founding a startup. But there's at least the chance of making a lot of money in a startup. It's very unlikely that you'll stumble into a windfall working for a large corporation.
Its also very unlikely you'll stumble into a windfall founding or working for a startup. Its something some may not want to hear but from a purely financial perspective of startup vs corp, 99% of cases it is always going to be financially better to work for a corp.
If you're working for a startup hopefully you are doing it for better reasons.
Re: Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
#63Ooh, me, me, pick me. Let me guess! Do it because you want to change the world ? It's a laughable, tired cliche now, especially coming from a guy who made the equivalent of a digital hipster moleskine who isn't changing a god damn thing about this world. People are still broke, sick, and starving. But I can take awesome notes on my MacBook Air! The better answer is "because it's interesting and fun and challenging an…
"because it's interesting and fun and challenging and sometimes disappointing and a fantastic learning experience and you might get rich or go broke while experiencing the full, unfiltered range of human emotions and potential" This is one of the best articulations of why I'm an entrepreneur that I've read. Thanks.
Absolutely agreed. All I know is I will COMPLETELY lose my mind if I'm still working for somebody else (as a contractor or employee) in 5 years; his advice to stick with the paying job while figuring out what you want doesn't address what to do when your repeated conclusion after all the thinking is: "work for myself, build out my ideas".
The only way to deal with this conclusion is to act: to go out there and experience working for yourself, and test your instincts and savy against reality. I don't care whether my projects succeed or fail at this point; I'm just happy I'm focused on exploring my potential and my desires.
I still have the day job, for security and capital, and I have only chosen to pursue ideas that DO impact people's lives (otherwise why would people use it?); none of this stuff is mutually exclusive!
Re: Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
The average expected income from working at a large corporate may well be higher than founding a startup. But there's at least the chance of making a lot of money in a startup. It's very unlikely that you'll stumble into a windfall working for a large corporation.
Beware this logic; it leads to playing the lottery.
"You can't win if you don't play" isn't any less true with the lottery, you're just looking at much worse odds than other, more preferable, situations.
Re: Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
#65I love Evernote. It has changed my life. Before, I didn't have anywhere to put all the ideas, insights, jokes, and stories I had in my head. Now, with one key from anywhere I can get it out of my head and the feeling is incredible.
But, fuck the CEO of Evernote. How dare he tell people not to start a company? Not only is it idiotic (I mean, first and foremost, he did it so he's a hypocrit; but secondly, someone started every company that exists. So if people actually followed his advice we'd be stuck with the current crop of companies...forever) but it's downright evil. To discourage people from starting companies is to discourage people from building, from creating, from giving form to their dreams. And that's inexcusable.
tl;dr Evernote is great; the CEO is a fuckwit.
EDIT: I got my first downvote, but I don't care. Discouraging people from creating is evil, and when confronting evil there's no place for 'nice'.
Re: Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
#66If you are trying to change the world for no specific reason, you are probably megalomaniac. You have a much better chance to change the world if you are doing something you love rather than actually trying to change the world, plus you got the "bonus" of being happy. I believe you can do something only for money, just don't waste all your life on it.
Re: Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
#67"I think you know what it is: it’s to change the world" This is such hogwash and brainwashing. People have to earn money and make a living. Nothing wrong with that at all. And if you want to change the world you have a better chance after earning a load of money. There are people who have gone into medicine to make money (and not better the world and save lives) and are great physicians and provide a service. And the…
Nowhere in the article was "earning money" chastised as being bad. It just suggested there are better options if that is your main goal. "If you’re smart enough, if you’re talented enough, if you have the drive, if you have the ability, and you’re motivated by making money, then you should just get a real job instead, like become a banker or an investor or a consultant or something. You’ll be much more likely to make…
That final statement is unfounded. If you have all those things, you're far more likely to make more money (and faster money) by building your own business.
You cannot escape this simple fact: if you're an employee, you are only getting a portion of the value you can and do generate. The only remaining question is whether you have the resources and environment to capture the value you can generate directly, without being the employee, to receive a larger slice of the value. (If you're, e.g. a doctor it's much more difficult than if you're a software developer; good thing I'm the latter.)
Re: Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
#68"A lot of people think that they want to be an entrepreneur because it’s a good way to make money. It just isn’t, that’s just wrong. Depending on how you count, 95% to 99% of companies fail." Excuse me. It is a way to make money. That figure assumes the definition of entrepreneur is only startups as discussed in places like HN, Techcrunch etc. Not only is the figure of 95% or 99% wrong with respect to "entrepreneurs"…
> Not only is the figure of 95% or 99% wrong with respect to "entrepreneurs" I believe he's quoting numbers from Shikhar Ghosh at HBS. Here's one article that google brought up with a little more detail about how "failure" is defined: The statistics are disheartening no matter how an entrepreneur defines failure. If failure means liquidating all assets, with investors losing most or all the money they put into the co…
I don't follow this logic as a valid reason not to become an entrepreneur.
1. The 90..95% definition is stupid. Projections are irrelevant other than for purposes of planning, appeasing investors and roughly determining whether the business model is viable. Depending on the entrepreneur's goals, actual long-term ROI is all that matters.
2. In that respect, 70 to 80% failure to generate projected ROI is not bad. I've never been in the 80-percentile of anything of I've done, therefore these statistics are actually pretty encouraging to me.
Re: Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Not only is the figure of 95% or 99% wrong with respect to "entrepreneurs" I believe he's quoting numbers from Shikhar Ghosh at HBS. Here's one article that google brought up with a little more detail about how "failure" is defined: The statistics are disheartening no matter how an entrepreneur defines failure. If failure means liquidating all assets, with investors losing most or all the money they put into the co…
Yup. But I'd like to see the numbers for second or third try entrepreneurs. of all types. If my first three goes tank it, but the fourth one makes it, OHBOYOHBOYOHBOY!. Then I've got a 75% fail rate, but I'm still a success. (insert inspirational "fall down seven times, stand up eight",I havent failed, I just found 99 ways that don't work" etc...)
Don't know why people are voting you down. I'd rather hit middle-age penniless but full of experience and no regret, than look back and say "Well, I sure managed to scrape by in life without taking any chances or attempting any of my dreams!" There are plenty of stories of people who didn't start successful business until their 40s but the net effect of the preceding 20/30 years gave them a massive boost (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duncan_Bannatyne).
Re: Evernote CEO to entrepreneurs: "don't do it"
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
The average expected income from working at a large corporate may well be higher than founding a startup. But there's at least the chance of making a lot of money in a startup. It's very unlikely that you'll stumble into a windfall working for a large corporation.
Its also very unlikely you'll stumble into a windfall founding or working for a startup. Its something some may not want to hear but from a purely financial perspective of startup vs corp, 99% of cases it is always going to be financially better to work for a corp. If you're working for a startup hopefully you are doing it for better reasons.
There's nothing stopping you from hedging your bets. I work full-time and put away 60%+ of it. This is capital for whatever investments I make, including into my own startup that I work on when I get home. Fact is I get paid what I do by the corp because I'm worth at least that much. As a single, unmarried software developer there's nothing stopping me from exploiting my value generating capabilities directly, so not attempting a startup is nonsensical IMO.