Why Not To Do A Startup

1) Are young and have started or been part of successful startups

2) Have blogs where they exhibit a strong personality through their writings, which are sometimes controversial but always tinged with elitism.*

3) Were/are darlings of Hacker News, with a high percentage of their blog posts making it high on the front page

*Not that there's anything wrong with that

Good post. Having both done a startup that didn't go big and now one that looks like it will turn into something big I thing your points are very well made.

As you say, history is written by the winners and about the outliers and totally glosses over the truth for the average majority (and the destructive lows of the minority).

As all of us know who've done it though, doing a business is something that's just in your blood. Most of us who do it didn't do it because we chose to, only because we had to.

I once asked Marc Hedlund a little about the failure of the startup he did before Wesabe. He said it was bad but on balance he didn't feel he came out too badly since he didn't lose his wife or go bankrupt. Enough said.

The highs are insanely high but it's worth writing about the lows too because there's a whole lot of cult around the startup scene that lures people into decisions that can be destructive.

I found myself at the age of 30 many years into a company I started at 23, and it consumed my entire 20's. Every aspect of my life suffered.

Are people aware of the strange things stress can do to one's body? Look up 'IBS' in google. Try not eating for a year. That's just the stuff I can post.

I missed weddings and funerals. I did things I'm so extremely proud of, and things I'm ashamed of.

Here is the real rub: Once you hire employees, you have an obligation to give them a consistent paycheck. It just happens. This increases 10x when the employees aren't kids in their early twenties working for stock options making peanuts who get 10 job offers a week.

When you have employees who have families that depend on your company, depend on your health plan, your dental plan, your 401k matching funds, the pressure to maintain even when times are tough is huge.

The game can change quickly. Having employees will make it harder to throw up your arms when things get tough and say 'perhaps I don't have a winner here'. You will dig in, and continue the battle, and you are committed until it can survive on it's own. And sometimes that takes a couple years.

Or five.

Or ten.

So a word of caution. Keeping a company alive is tough. Closing down a company is tougher. A fairy tale ending is a pipe dream. Last time I checked, there are a very small number of Mark Cuban's, and this sure ain't 1998. And guess what Jerry Yang is doing: working his ass off to save the soul of his baby. His hugely successful baby.

He doesn't have to be there.

He made his billions. But things aren't right, and he can't sleep at night.

Success is hitting payroll every month. Never ever miss payroll. Any goodness above that is gravy. Anything worse than that is hell.

Would I change it all, and to have just gotten a job out of college, reporting to someone every day of my life? Hell no!! I love it. I could think of no better way to live my life. :)