Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
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Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
1–10 of 55 posts
Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
#2Anyone have the text of the FT article he links to? It points at a paywall for me.
Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
#3I think these things have to be experienced by trying. It's one of those cognitive biases we have - we always think other people are going to fail, not us. So it can't be intellectually internalized, it can only be learned through experience.
Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
#4Anyone have the text of the FT article he links to? It points at a paywall for me.
Search for the title in Google and then click on the link it gives you.
Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
#5Who's supposed to be the gatekeeper for who should be an entrepreneur and who shouldn't? Doesn't the market already do that anyway?
Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
#6Anyone have the text of the FT article he links to? It points at a paywall for me.
If you register (just your email address) the FT gives you 20 articles free per month. Good enough for me.
Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
#7Even beyond this core point (not everyone is cut out for entrpreneurship) lies a more important point: society doesn't need everyone to be an entrepreneur. If we assume that there are roughly 150 million Americans in the workforce, we're not better off with 150 million startups than we are with, say, 1 million startups and 149 million workers. We're not even better off with a substantially larger ratio of small to large businesses than what we have today. An economy too fragmented among millions and millions of small businesses is inherently inefficient and internationally uncompetitive.
We need startups, and we need entrepreneurs, but the idea that everyone's an entrepreneur is an unproductive fantasy. We need to be empowering those cut out for entrepreneurship to succeed -- but we shouldn't be courting widespread economic inefficiency by encouraging or, even subsidizing, everyone to chase pipedreams.
Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
#8One thing I see is a lot of people stressing about starting a company when they are in college or just out of college.
If you're struck dead by the idea for a business in college and is so compelling the idea of working for someone else is absolutely laughable-- then by all means, start a business.
But if an entrepreneur is what you "Want to be" but you're "not quite sure how to get there", or even if you're like me-- and you've been starting businesses since before you were a teenager, but you're not struck dead by a compelling vision of the startup you need to build RIGHT NOW, or if you've been kicking around and things aren't quite coming together-- go pay your dues and work for awhile.
I'm a natural born entrepreneur. I'm the kid who was buying coke wholesale at walmart and selling it to the other kids. In my day the big thing on the school yard was toothpicks soaked in cinnamon oil.
I knew I wanted to start companies, and so when I got out of college, I went to work for a startup. This job, and the ones that followed, taught me a great deal. I worked my way down until I was an earlier and earlier employee-- I've seen lots of startup failure modes. I also did some stints contracting for big tech companies, saw their failure modes too.
It also gave me the opportunity to find what industries worked best, where leverage was, get industry specific experience, find out what I was best at doing, and not doing. So, when it was time to do my own thing, a lot of decisions had already been made or were easily made because I had the practical knowledge and experience.
I think the glamorousness and programs like YC, and the media attention towards Facebook and instagram, etc, gives people the wrong idea.
You don't need to do your startup when you're 20, 25, 30. 35, 40, 45, 50, these are all ages at which great companies have been built.
And believe it or not, experience is a very valuable teacher.
Unlike the article I won't say that some people shouldn't do startups... but I will say that if you're in one of the categories I mentioned above, there's absolutely nothing wrong with spending some time paying dues. In fact, its invaluable.
I would never do a real estate startup because I have no domain expertise there. I wouldn't propose a new alcoholic beverage, because, again, no domain expertise. If it was what I really wanted, I'd still go work for someone for 6 months or a year. (nice thing about being a programmer is- sales offices in both those industries could probably use some help on a contract basis.)
Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
#9First comment on the article is excellent, by Mike Conte CEO & Founder at Stealth Startup
"A banker thinks entrepreneurs should have to take a test first, for the safety of the economy? That's rich. There is no better or faster way for entrepreneurs to learn than to try. Yep lots fail. And some try again and others go to work for other business, together with their hard-won experience and probably do a better job than they would otherwise."
Re: Entrepreneurship's Dirty Little Secret
#10Let's rewrite this: I work with entrepreneurs and have a pretty good window into their world. What I am seeing is too many poorly-skilled young people lacking business acumen and trying their hand at starting their own business, when their time could be much better spent on other pursuits such as learning to code.
I work with developers and have a pretty good window into their world. What I am seeing is too many poorly-skilled young people lacking developer acumen and trying their hand at writing their own code, when their time could be much better spent on other pursuits such as learning a business.
See, it's just as valid either way, in other words it's not specific to entrepreneurship at all. You learn something--whether it's coding or running a business or playing a sport or anything else--by trying and failing, evaluating, and trying again.