13 ms·

Entrepreneur porn is a dangerous fantasy

244 points by williswee 11y ago

amorphid 11y ago
Can confirm. Tried startup. Worked hard. Ran out of money. Ended up homeless. It sucked.
- theseatoms 11y ago
  Sorry to hear it. Have you written about your experience anywhere?
  - amorphid 11y ago
    I haven't written about it in detail, no. It's been long enough that it doesn't hurt when I think about it anymore. Maybe I'll jot some words down and share with them y'all.
- realusername 11y ago
  I would also be interested about your story, what was it about ?
  - amorphid 11y ago
    The short version is that I got hit pretty hard in 2008 when the economy melted down. I was working as a tech recruiter for startups, and I was being referred around by a few venture capitalists. When the VCs stopped investing, their portfolio companies stopped hiring, and my income dried up pretty quickly. Being a savvy and sensible business person, and thinking that I had a surefire idea that was guaranteed to work, I took the money I'd set aside for taxes and seed funded my startup. I learned along the way that building software is hard, expensive, and that my idea wasn't something I could easily execute on. I did bounce back, and now I'm a full time developer with a healthy appreciation for what it actually takes to get a company off the ground :)
- williswee 11y ago
  take it easy, my friend. startup life isn't for everyone. do something that makes you happy.
  - michaelcampbell 11y ago
    Your comment makes it sound like "this wasn't a good fit" for him, or he did something wrong. I'd posit that running out of money and being homeless is not just not for everyone, it's not for anyone.
- SFjulie1 11y ago
  Not alone Made my startup worked hard. Got contracts. Customers forgot to pay. It sucked. And in my country it was normal. It was not Africa. It was France. Big corporations do whatever the fuck want even if it is illegal. Trades dispute are regulated by "peers" tribunal dating from middle age that are crooked. And newspapers, teachers and politics that never had a job were pointing fingers randomly at problems.
  - Mahn 11y ago
    This is why I don't like B2B much; a monolith company can randomly decide to pay 5-10 months late and no one bats an eye because that's the normal thing to do for a company of that size, small entrepreneurs that are barely making it be damned.
    - godzillabrennus 11y ago
      Small startups can leverage a factoring company to handle A/R and do risk assessment for lines of credit with customers before doing work. Definitely a worthwhile service to leverage if you do B2B.
      - SFjulie1 11y ago
        Oh yes. The short list/affacturation scam. Software can only support safely at most 10 providers ... for RA.. facturing ... limitations. Thus I had between 1 and 4 mans in the middle for the purpose of "factoring, risks assessments" and shits. I usually was paid 300€ to 400€ / days when customers were billed between 1000€ and more. Each companies adding delays and free to use and recycle my specs, my codes, my works to compete against me next time. Added value : negative. Have you ever been 38 yo, back at your mum's place, honoring a contract and eating ramen while waiting 18 months for the magic of "affacturation" to work and discovering that the men in the middle are now making money from YOUR creation ? Fuck rotten so called capitalism. Only the kids born rich gets the money and they scam people like me to have the job done. This business is very close to both scam and extortion.
    - robocat 11y ago
- helpfulanon 11y ago
  Same here. Also would add a compounding series of negative results including depression, being almost shadow-banned from the business due to lack of optimism (no joke), then alcohol problems etc I'd take a bet there are many many others on HN that can attest to this outcome, but lurk due to shame or emotional pain. Losing everything because of misjudgment is not an easy thing to admit to publicly, especially in a community so warped with the cult of survivor bias
  - amorphid 11y ago
    Yeah, the downward spiral towards being on the rocks was just as bad, if not worse, than being homeless. Watching your bank account dry up is not fun. Coming to the realization that your friends and family can't, or won't, be able to catch you when you hit bottom is pretty sobering. Not having the skills necessary to negotiate not having a place to live is terrifying. It's weird getting to the point where you might not even be able to pay for your cell phone bill. And being depressed is, well, depressing. I have no intention of ever reliving that experience.
  - cableshaft 11y ago
    I've worked for two failed early startups. Gained a lot of knowledge in a short period of time, wore a lot of hats, did work I was passionate about, but also stressed out about making the right decisions or the company could shut down (the final decisions were made by the management, but I had influence over their decisions), extremely long hours, no social life, rapidly deteriorating health, screwed up my finances, etc. But I'm a few years away from it now, and I don't mind admitting it. The startups failed for reasons outside of me for the most part (although it feels a little funny knowing you're at least partially responsible for a company losing two million dollars), and I don't regret having that experience. If anything, working for a corporation again and working on stuff I'm not too passionate about makes me itch for going back to a small company again, but I still need the stability to get my finances back in order and start losing the weight I put on during that time, plus I have a social life now, which is hard to give all that up for someone else's 'grand vision'. As for misjudgment, from my experience, a lot of the "bad decisions" made in those startups actually made sense at the time and with the information available at the time of the decision. It was only with the benefit of hindsight and perspective that you can see why ultimately they were bad decisions.
- Futurebot 11y ago
  Really sorry to hear that. I didn't wind up homeless (thankfully) when I did it, but I burned through a good portion of my life savings (20+ years worth.) I'm going to write about it at some point, but the short version is that if you don't have any family or anything similar to fall back on other than your savings, you'd better be very sure your idea is a winner in advance (not exactly trivial.) We all know about the magical exceptions, but most of us aren't in a position to take risks like that without losing most or all of what we have, and that fact sucks. People (especially younger ones) are more risk averse for good reason: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-slow-death-of-american-entrepreneurship/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-slow-death-of-americ... http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/29/chart-of-the-day-millennials-are-really-risk-averse/ http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/29/chart-of-the-day-m...
jackarbitrage 11y ago
The worst part is that I don't know if I will be viewing inspiring entrepreneurship stories, or pornography involving entrepreneurs
- surge 11y ago
  "Why not both?"
  - elthran 11y ago
    Entrepreneurship Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition
- mattlutze 11y ago
  Took the risk, it's not actual porn. In all honesty a "safe for work" tag would have been appreciated. The author's conclusion is salient. For years I used this "entrepreneur porn" as a placebo to the general discontent I had at my job. I didn't feel like I was fitting into my role, like I wasn't making the impact I had expected. At some point I found an essay from someone that took the plunge and "made it." That hit was just enough that I spent my free time reading a lot of ultimately hollow how-to's, top 10 lists, blogging adventures, what-have-you instead of actually getting out there and doing something. I see a lot of folks doing the same in various forums and communities. Even HN can be just enough to escape reality.
tajen 11y ago
I was under HN influence when I started my solo product. I had designed it as bootstrapped: There is an opportunity, I fulfill it, then I don't go after the x1000 scaling. It worked at the end of year 1, and we're 2.5 years later, and I'm happy, not millionaire, but I have my own work schedule. There are several kinds of startups. The article mentions huge ones. Or you can start a consultancy, very classic business, low risk. Or you can bootstrap[1]. Use the one that fits your profile. Other than that, I approve the cautionary tale of the article. [1] http://37signals.com/bootstrapped http://37signals.com/bootstrapped
- mtberatwork 11y ago
  > Or you can start a consultancy, very classic business, low risk. Low risk? Consultancy/freelance businesses are very high risk. Easy to start, very difficult to maintain.
  - jerguismi 11y ago
    What kind of risk do you mean? At least you don't need capital.
    - rday 11y ago
      I've been running my "consultancy" for over 5 years. Roughly 15% of my annual revenue is lost to non-payment. Customers pay late all the time. Literally. I've never had an invoice paid on time. Customers cancel projects right before they start, or pause projects half way through to focus on other areas. Due to these situations, I try to always have 3 months of salary in the bank. I never do, but I try. If you are paid net 30, and invoice at the end of the January, that check will clear your bank account early March at best. This results in Just In Time mortgage payments. If I were to hire somebody to code, and focus on sales, I'd need even more money in the bank than I have. This leaves me in a bit of a pickle. You need a lot of capital. If 3 months of buffer salary for two employees isn't a lot of capital..... it's time to admit you are in a strong financial position and not everyone can simply be an entrepreneur. (To answer the inevitable "charge more" question, I'm available for hire and I'll charge as much as you'd like :)
padobson 11y ago
2. You don’t need to be Facebook This should be number one - or even just the whole article. Any startup, or a career in general, should not be an end unto itself, but a vehicle to A) fulfill your basic needs and B) get you what you want. While I believe entrepreneurship is often the best way to get both of these, shooting to be the next Facebook is unnecessary. You could keep that corporate job, build your credit, and then buy a McDonald's or a gas station or an apartment building. There's no reason to make a dent in the universe if all you want to do is put your kids through college and travel abroad once a year. 9 out of 10 startups fail. While these odds are better than many other paths to wealth (being born rich, winning the lottery, becoming a rockstar/movie star/pro athlete), you're still likely to fail. If wealth is what you want, you need to ask yourself why you want to be wealthy. If it's because you want nice things or want to travel or even because you want to feed starving people, there's a path to get there that has much better odds than building extreme wealth.
- hawkice 11y ago
  >You could keep that corporate job, build your credit, and then buy a McDonald's or a gas station or an apartment building. There's no reason to make a dent in the universe if all you want to do is put your kids through college and travel abroad once a year. This phrasing I think minimizes the positive impact you can have with those endeavors. Displacing temperamental landlords with professional landlords makes the world a better place, and I've found having property be their only source of income ratchets up the stakes so much that many landlords explode over nothing (I've had a landlord threaten to evict an entire house of unrelated tenants because someone -- unbeknownst to her, her son in the middle of normal maintenance -- had made a very slight mess in the kitchen). More important than "you don't have to be Facebook" (as if everyone who tried could be even if they "had to") is: with proper diligence and care, running a business well DOES make a dent in the universe, with very few exceptions. It makes the lives of yours customers (and vendors, hopefully) better in ways that are tangible and appreciated.
  - padobson 11y ago
    This phrasing I think minimizes the positive impact you can have with those endeavors. This is well put. It's almost as if I'm saying you don't need to make a dent in the universe if you want to make a dent in the universe. Ultimately I'm saying there's no need to build a massive company for the side effects - material wealth, political influence, financial independence. Don't spend all of your time and energy working on something for its side effects.
kelvin0 11y ago
Glad to see this piece posted on HN. I realize now when I first came to HN I felt somewhat 'ashamed' that I was not working towards being the 'next unicorn'. It took some time for me to realize that there are many more avenues that suit me and ultimately will be more fulfilling.
- w1ntermute 11y ago
  > when I first came to HN I felt somewhat 'ashamed' that I was not working towards being the 'next unicorn' HN was created as an interactive advertisement for YC (and startups in general), and it's important to understand that before getting sucked in.
  - headgasket 11y ago
    this bias is something that has been creeping up more and more; if another unbiased forum for hackers-entrepreneurs does emerge I'd love to hear from it. I'm finding myself back on slashdot often these days, which has less of these ("unicorn x" for "<insert ill-defined market that will mushroom here>) story-press releases. Or polemic-y time wasting topics that have nothing to do with hacking.
- geographomics 11y ago
  I find it best to enjoy HN for the technical content and ignore the rather absurd cult-like startup worship.
- Jordrok 11y ago
  Just wanted to say that you're not alone in this. I program and read about tech things because they interest me and have useful applications, but I've never truly felt the drive to make myself into the next Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, etc. It's very easy to get the impression around here that that's the only worthwhile goal.
salmonet 11y ago
For some reason, even when I hear "there are plenty of good businesses that aren't startups and it's ok," those businesses still seem like second class citizens. It's easy to forget that "taking money to grow fast" often means "Try this really risky strategy in a winner take all market where you will most likely die."
ideonexus 11y ago
> 1. It’s almost never rags to riches This is the point that has really started to become clear to me in recent years, and not just for startups but for artists, authors, athletes, and all the other dream jobs we idolize: so many of these people are either (1) not really making that much money or (2) already had a trust-fund or come from a wealthy background so they can spend all of their time writing, painting, or engineering. Most authors make below the poverty line [1], and Facebook's success was the outlier, not the norm. I did the start-up thing in my 20s for about 3-4 years (in the 1990s). My income was about the same as my salary would later be when I went to work for another company, but my stress-levels dropped significantly when I started working for someone else. The constant uncertainty was gone, I was watching my savings grow instead of decline, and I do regret not going for that stability sooner. I see a similarity between tech-kids in their 20s chasing start-up dreams and the poor kids from my old neighborhood chasing hoop-dreams. The tech-kids have better options to fall back on, but the chances of becoming that rockstar million/billionaire CEO/professional athlete are about the same. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/15/income-for-us-authors-falls-below-federal-poverty-line-survey http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/15/income-for-us-a...
- porter 11y ago
  The odds of a smart middle class entrepreneur making a successful business are actually way better than making it to the NBA or NFL. To say these are equal odds is misleading.
  - rmk2 11y ago
    A successful middleclass business does not equal billions or necessarily even millions, so I fail to see how the gp's comparison is off? What he is saying is that you are as likely to be the next Bill Gates as you are to be the next Michael Jordan, not that you are just as likely to be the next Bob Smith who runs a 40-people tech consultancy shop.
  - deleted 11y ago
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- AndrewKemendo 11y ago
cm2187 11y ago
In France, the fantasy is civil servant porn... At least this promotes entrepeneurship.
- borplk 11y ago
  can you elaborate on that?
  - cm2187 11y ago
    When I was at university (a few years ago but not that long ago), the majority of the other students only had one idea in mind, becoming a civil servant, doing 9 to 5, job for life, no pressure, lots of holidays and free time to do other things, and early retirement (I am not even kidding, 20yo students looking forward to retirement). Working hard, creating jobs, professional success clearly wasn't on the list. I'd rather be in a society that glorifies entrepreneurship.
    - mgkimsal 11y ago
      The people I know that have fallen in to the "entrepreneurship porn" trap all focus on the "no pressure, free time to other things, early retirement" based on the millions they'll earn. No one who's really fallen hard ("we're gonna be the next Facebook") is heading in that direction because they're interested in "creating jobs". And... they may say "working hard" but often the real hard stuff comes up... they fold anyway. I've also known some successful entrepreneurs who aren't afraid of working hard, but even then, professional curiosity, a bug to 'build' and other factors were at play. No one's stated goals were ever "I want to create jobs". The goal is the business. Couple friends of mine run small businesses pulling in a few million/year. Each would be just as happy if they could do it with 5 employees vs 40 employees - "creating jobs" was not their goal - "solving a need in the market" was.
      - cm2187 11y ago
        Yeah but be your own boss is often at the top of the list for entrepreneur porn. It's not just the money, also the lifestyle.
louprado 11y ago
> If their startup fails, they can go back to their corporate job A major challenge of a start-up founder is managing their own psychology. This much easier to do when you are/were upper-middle class and gives those founders a significant advantage.
jgeada 11y ago
To me, the worst part of the fantasy is that we then consider the people that actually do make it to the "money shot" as if they were management geniuses, instead of lottery winners. Mostly the success has more to do with luck, timing and personal connections than the individual technical merits of the management team, but that is never what you read afterwards. And so you end up with all sorts of ridiculous management, methodology or market segmentation advice that bears little to no chance of ever working again. The same lottery ticket may win again, but it is highly improbable.
- rcarrigan87 11y ago
  In terms of building a fortune 500 company, yes a lot of luck is involved. For mid-sized businesses there are guys who do it over and over again.
  - vonmoltke 11y ago
    In most cases, the reward for building a mid-sized business is not much greater than working your way up the food chain at a large business. It just becomes a question of whether you value independence or not.
  - fulafel 11y ago
    It is still consistent with the luck & connections theory if you allow that you gain a lot of experience and connections from the first successful round.
- gist 11y ago
  > To me, the worst part of the fantasy is that we then consider the people that actually do make it to the "money shot" as if they were management geniuses, instead of lottery winners. This extends to engineers and computer scientists as well. Take Wozniak. Constantly given countless platitudes when he was most likely as qualified as many engineers at HP who never came in contact with Steve Jobs. [1] But the story is always played as "he was Einstein in the Patent office just waiting to be unleashed". Or Marc Andressen. Was he that special when he came up with, as an undergraduate, the Netscape browser? [1] Einstein special or just "special"?. (And of course there was Jim Clark who was there to help him..). Or the google guys as phd students. The list is endless. This is not to take away from anyone's hard work as opposed to others of equal ability that slacked off of course. Credit is due however the over the top hyperbole of the media and bloggers is quite distasteful at times. [1] And of course nearly 100% of what most people know about these people is what is written about them by others..
deleted 11y ago
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ilvnvtoomuch 11y ago
People need to work in industries they enjoy, but, yes, everyone should have a good understanding of the labor market (salaries, demand). Re-location should be an option too. Lower salaries in a low-cost region might work out.
hkmurakami 11y ago
I remember a slew of articles mid 2015 that raised the criticism that founders came from privileged backgrounds. The article also mentioned "the cult of the entrepreneur" and the idolization of these characters. I am born and raised in SV and yet I frankly do not understand the fetishization of entrepreneurs and the idea that this line of work is somehow holier than any other. Isn't that the root of the problem, rather than the privilege of the founders? After all, Wall Street is littered with nepotism and privileged family backgrounds, yet that isn't seen as much of an issue but rather just business as usual. (perhaps the industry attempts to gain good will for its own gain through this portrayal, and this is the price they pay for this deceit though)
- rwhitman 11y ago
  There's a narrative we're told about entrepreneurs that we're not told about Wall St. One of the founding values of America is that anyone with innovative entrepreneurial drive can start their own business and build wealth from nothing. It's what brought so many immigrants to this country, and is even taught to us in school as being the backbone of capitalism. Most people in America have never actually met a successful entrepreneur. The shop keep down the street is usually under water with loans, and the big successes are corporations headquartered far away, the founders living in expensive seclusion. Heck, in my case it wasn't until I arrived in the Bay Area in my early 20's before I actually met someone who ran a successful business in person. The successful entrepreneur is this key person in our social mythology, and stays very much a myth to most people. Their success gets spun into compelling stories that give a lot of hope to those who want a way out of poor circumstances. And in an effort to spin stories that sell, journalists (and PR people) often omit key facts, to match the "Self-Made Man" narrative that the people want to hear. So, learning that yes it indeed is mostly myth and that no, not everyone can get a shot at being "Self-Made" - is pulling the curtains back on a long standing cultural deceit. The truth that success is mostly limited to a tiny subset of the population based on mixed factors like wealth, education, location, social values, generational cohort, parental upbringing etc, is a bitter pill to swallow. Eager, but disadvantaged, entrepreneurs have been entering the tech market with this key information being withheld, aiming their sights on holding out for mega VC rounds when they should have been focused on earning a living. This leads to painful failures that could have been prevented. Had these founders been given the right narrative to begin with, they might have been better aligned to scale of business success that's reasonably within their grasp. That's the issue here
helpfulanon 11y ago
I'd add that the industry really does not celebrate nor embrace failure the way that we're told it does. For those of us without the cushion of prior success or financial runway, repeating attempts to "get back on the horse" is an embarrassing exercise in futility. With a failed enterprise, you lower your value in the eyes of many gatekeepers and peers, especially those who never tried running their own business. But after repeatedly attempting to jumpstart businesses without capital, and subsequent failures, eventually you are more or less cast as foolish. And god forbid you start to become pragmatic or slightly cynical in the world of tech startups! Because the moment your idealistic optimism comes into question, your "cultural fit" is permanently deemed negative. And bonus catch-22, having led startups also puts "cultural fit" into question for big cos as well. Basically the personality changes that result from repeated business failure can begin to taint and poison your business relationships, and that can follow you around forever like a little dark cloud you just can't shake. Psychological stamina is something nobody tells you about needing as a prerequisite for being an entrepreneur, but most of us don't learn that lesson until it's far too late...
bobby_9x 11y ago
"Money won’t make you happy" I disagree with this. I've been running my own company for a little over 5 years. Not having to worry about my rent and being able to live a comfortable lifestyle has made me really happy. If I made $100 million and didn't ever have to worry about money again, I definitely would be happier. It's the peace of mind that I'm working toward. But, the money isn't the main thing that makes me happy. The development challenges and systems that I build to run my company is what I really enjoy. The money is just a nice side-effect. I agree with the rest of the article. I had an ex-business partner that got his idea of a startup from the stories he sees online. Everything we did had to 'change the world', regardless of the business model or practicality. I had many hours of discussions about this and had to continually convince him we needed some sort of business model. His response was always: "We will get funding"...with no users, traffic, business model, or a decent MVP. At some point I finally convinced him and as soon as it got down to the hard work, and he didn't see immediate results, he got discouraged. He thought that somehow if we just built something, we would have thousands of users in a couple of weeks. I realized that even if whatever we worked on succeeded, he probably wouldn't be a good fit in the next stage of the company and I would be spending more and more of my time fighting these ideas. I had to end the partnership and he ended up getting a job. Not everyone should own a business.
- NiftyFifty 11y ago
  It's a pretty simple principle between the happy curve and where it intersects with the financial stability curve. However, the opposite can be very true as well. Namely, poverty as it plays out on the social ills that we in the United States have - most notable, are minorities and the lack / motivation of the government to cure this problem. I believe there is some paradigm where happy can be achieved if the work/happy ratio is subsidized through social programs lowering the happy curve (or at least tolerance) because of the work requirements to achieve the financial base to maintain that curve. It's an interesting problem, but overwhelming it causes desperation and by a minor extension drug / alcohol abuse / crime syndication, and violence (domestic abuse and gun deaths in particular). The upward mobility is one thing, but an opposite paradigm is also a very interesting dynamic with respect to if money can or cannot by happiness. However, your example of "owning your own company" is also a self-confidence motivator that is a game changer. :) That's why we need a minority middle class to fix poverty, IMHO.
EGreg 11y ago
Actually, moving to Thailand and sipping mojitos doesn't cost as much as living on your parents' couch in NYC. As that joke goes, the businessman sees the native sitting under a banana tree and asks why he doesn't work, so he can make a lot of money, retire and sit under a banana tree. The natural pleasures in life don't cost that much, with today's technology and productivity. And they will continue to become more affordable. The goal of a startup is to organize people and resources to change the world for the better!
rcarrigan87 11y ago
The most dangerous part of Entrepreneur Porn, especially of the TechCrunch flavor, is the idea funding equates to success. Funding won't fix an unsustainable business model, it will just enable you to waste more time.
- sosborn 11y ago
  > the idea funding equates to success This never made sense to me. I've always viewed funding as a last resort.
vinceguidry 11y ago
I may become an entrepreneur some day, but I will have to have climbed the social ladder to the upper class before I even attempt it. Being middle class in the US in a second-tier city is just totally freaking awesome. The corporate job I have now is night-and-day better than the lifestyle I had in my twenties. Breaking through to the next level is so far down the list of my current priorities that it could never happen and I'd be totally fine with it. What else do I do with my time? Learn to make music. Date. Cultivate good habits. Plan trips abroad. Have dinner with friends. Eat right and lose weight. Actually get better at programming instead of just scrambling to Get Shit Done. Read. Try out hobbies like Rubik's cube. Sit at the coffee shop on weekends and chat with random people. Go to the bar in the evenings and cultivate a social life. Work on myself and become a better person. You want me to throw that all away for a vague promise of more money, sometime in the future? I already have, right now, vastly more options for improving my life right now.
- deleted 11y ago
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  - vinceguidry 11y ago
    > I spend my time working on my company on evenings, week-ends. I could do that. It sounds interesting enough. I do read a lot about startups and business and tech. The friends I have dinner with seem amazed at how much I know about this stuff, despite putting far less time into it. But when I get right down to it, spending all my time trying to squeeze blood from a stone doesn't really hold all that much appeal to me. Now, if I had capital at my disposal, then I could do all that instead of having a job. But a startup would be too much work, so I'd need my own capital. That's why I'd need to be upper class first.
    - r2dnb 11y ago
      I understand the reasoning but the need for capital depends on your situation. For example if you want to start a software business and are a good developer you need no capital. The only thing you need is time to work on your venture. It might look like it's the same because taking time to work on your venture requires to have money but there's a big difference. You might want to read this : http://read.reddy.today/read/4/flexible-revenue-model-vs-mvp-and-the-two-kinds-of-entrepreneurs http://read.reddy.today/read/4/flexible-revenue-model-vs-mvp... Good luck
Mendenhall 11y ago
I knew I was an entrepreneur when I realized I would starve to death, suffer great pain and be a social outcast rather than simply work for someone else.
greggarious 11y ago
"Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million." - Arnold Schwarzenegger

244 points by williswee 11y ago

amorphid 11y ago

Can confirm. Tried startup. Worked hard. Ran out of money. Ended up homeless. It sucked.

theseatoms 11y ago
Sorry to hear it. Have you written about your experience anywhere?
- amorphid 11y ago
  I haven't written about it in detail, no. It's been long enough that it doesn't hurt when I think about it anymore. Maybe I'll jot some words down and share with them y'all.
realusername 11y ago
I would also be interested about your story, what was it about ?
- amorphid 11y ago
  The short version is that I got hit pretty hard in 2008 when the economy melted down. I was working as a tech recruiter for startups, and I was being referred around by a few venture capitalists. When the VCs stopped investing, their portfolio companies stopped hiring, and my income dried up pretty quickly. Being a savvy and sensible business person, and thinking that I had a surefire idea that was guaranteed to work, I took the money I'd set aside for taxes and seed funded my startup. I learned along the way that building software is hard, expensive, and that my idea wasn't something I could easily execute on. I did bounce back, and now I'm a full time developer with a healthy appreciation for what it actually takes to get a company off the ground :)
williswee 11y ago
take it easy, my friend. startup life isn't for everyone. do something that makes you happy.
- michaelcampbell 11y ago
  Your comment makes it sound like "this wasn't a good fit" for him, or he did something wrong. I'd posit that running out of money and being homeless is not just not for everyone, it's not for anyone.
SFjulie1 11y ago
Not alone Made my startup worked hard. Got contracts. Customers forgot to pay. It sucked. And in my country it was normal. It was not Africa. It was France. Big corporations do whatever the fuck want even if it is illegal. Trades dispute are regulated by "peers" tribunal dating from middle age that are crooked. And newspapers, teachers and politics that never had a job were pointing fingers randomly at problems.
- Mahn 11y ago
  This is why I don't like B2B much; a monolith company can randomly decide to pay 5-10 months late and no one bats an eye because that's the normal thing to do for a company of that size, small entrepreneurs that are barely making it be damned.
  - godzillabrennus 11y ago
    Small startups can leverage a factoring company to handle A/R and do risk assessment for lines of credit with customers before doing work. Definitely a worthwhile service to leverage if you do B2B.
    - SFjulie1 11y ago
      Oh yes. The short list/affacturation scam. Software can only support safely at most 10 providers ... for RA.. facturing ... limitations. Thus I had between 1 and 4 mans in the middle for the purpose of "factoring, risks assessments" and shits. I usually was paid 300€ to 400€ / days when customers were billed between 1000€ and more. Each companies adding delays and free to use and recycle my specs, my codes, my works to compete against me next time. Added value : negative. Have you ever been 38 yo, back at your mum's place, honoring a contract and eating ramen while waiting 18 months for the magic of "affacturation" to work and discovering that the men in the middle are now making money from YOUR creation ? Fuck rotten so called capitalism. Only the kids born rich gets the money and they scam people like me to have the job done. This business is very close to both scam and extortion.
  - robocat 11y ago
helpfulanon 11y ago
Same here. Also would add a compounding series of negative results including depression, being almost shadow-banned from the business due to lack of optimism (no joke), then alcohol problems etc I'd take a bet there are many many others on HN that can attest to this outcome, but lurk due to shame or emotional pain. Losing everything because of misjudgment is not an easy thing to admit to publicly, especially in a community so warped with the cult of survivor bias
- amorphid 11y ago
  Yeah, the downward spiral towards being on the rocks was just as bad, if not worse, than being homeless. Watching your bank account dry up is not fun. Coming to the realization that your friends and family can't, or won't, be able to catch you when you hit bottom is pretty sobering. Not having the skills necessary to negotiate not having a place to live is terrifying. It's weird getting to the point where you might not even be able to pay for your cell phone bill. And being depressed is, well, depressing. I have no intention of ever reliving that experience.
- cableshaft 11y ago
  I've worked for two failed early startups. Gained a lot of knowledge in a short period of time, wore a lot of hats, did work I was passionate about, but also stressed out about making the right decisions or the company could shut down (the final decisions were made by the management, but I had influence over their decisions), extremely long hours, no social life, rapidly deteriorating health, screwed up my finances, etc. But I'm a few years away from it now, and I don't mind admitting it. The startups failed for reasons outside of me for the most part (although it feels a little funny knowing you're at least partially responsible for a company losing two million dollars), and I don't regret having that experience. If anything, working for a corporation again and working on stuff I'm not too passionate about makes me itch for going back to a small company again, but I still need the stability to get my finances back in order and start losing the weight I put on during that time, plus I have a social life now, which is hard to give all that up for someone else's 'grand vision'. As for misjudgment, from my experience, a lot of the "bad decisions" made in those startups actually made sense at the time and with the information available at the time of the decision. It was only with the benefit of hindsight and perspective that you can see why ultimately they were bad decisions.
Futurebot 11y ago
Really sorry to hear that. I didn't wind up homeless (thankfully) when I did it, but I burned through a good portion of my life savings (20+ years worth.) I'm going to write about it at some point, but the short version is that if you don't have any family or anything similar to fall back on other than your savings, you'd better be very sure your idea is a winner in advance (not exactly trivial.) We all know about the magical exceptions, but most of us aren't in a position to take risks like that without losing most or all of what we have, and that fact sucks. People (especially younger ones) are more risk averse for good reason: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-slow-death-of-american-entrepreneurship/ http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-slow-death-of-americ... http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/29/chart-of-the-day-millennials-are-really-risk-averse/ http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/29/chart-of-the-day-m...

jackarbitrage 11y ago

The worst part is that I don't know if I will be viewing inspiring entrepreneurship stories, or pornography involving entrepreneurs

surge 11y ago
"Why not both?"
- elthran 11y ago
  Entrepreneurship Illustrated: Swimsuit Edition
mattlutze 11y ago
Took the risk, it's not actual porn. In all honesty a "safe for work" tag would have been appreciated. The author's conclusion is salient. For years I used this "entrepreneur porn" as a placebo to the general discontent I had at my job. I didn't feel like I was fitting into my role, like I wasn't making the impact I had expected. At some point I found an essay from someone that took the plunge and "made it." That hit was just enough that I spent my free time reading a lot of ultimately hollow how-to's, top 10 lists, blogging adventures, what-have-you instead of actually getting out there and doing something. I see a lot of folks doing the same in various forums and communities. Even HN can be just enough to escape reality.

tajen 11y ago

I was under HN influence when I started my solo product. I had designed it as bootstrapped: There is an opportunity, I fulfill it, then I don't go after the x1000 scaling. It worked at the end of year 1, and we're 2.5 years later, and I'm happy, not millionaire, but I have my own work schedule. There are several kinds of startups. The article mentions huge ones. Or you can start a consultancy, very classic business, low risk. Or you can bootstrap[1]. Use the one that fits your profile. Other than that, I approve the cautionary tale of the article. [1] http://37signals.com/bootstrapped http://37signals.com/bootstrapped

mtberatwork 11y ago
> Or you can start a consultancy, very classic business, low risk. Low risk? Consultancy/freelance businesses are very high risk. Easy to start, very difficult to maintain.
- jerguismi 11y ago
  What kind of risk do you mean? At least you don't need capital.
  - rday 11y ago
    I've been running my "consultancy" for over 5 years. Roughly 15% of my annual revenue is lost to non-payment. Customers pay late all the time. Literally. I've never had an invoice paid on time. Customers cancel projects right before they start, or pause projects half way through to focus on other areas. Due to these situations, I try to always have 3 months of salary in the bank. I never do, but I try. If you are paid net 30, and invoice at the end of the January, that check will clear your bank account early March at best. This results in Just In Time mortgage payments. If I were to hire somebody to code, and focus on sales, I'd need even more money in the bank than I have. This leaves me in a bit of a pickle. You need a lot of capital. If 3 months of buffer salary for two employees isn't a lot of capital..... it's time to admit you are in a strong financial position and not everyone can simply be an entrepreneur. (To answer the inevitable "charge more" question, I'm available for hire and I'll charge as much as you'd like :)

padobson 11y ago

2. You don’t need to be Facebook This should be number one - or even just the whole article. Any startup, or a career in general, should not be an end unto itself, but a vehicle to A) fulfill your basic needs and B) get you what you want. While I believe entrepreneurship is often the best way to get both of these, shooting to be the next Facebook is unnecessary. You could keep that corporate job, build your credit, and then buy a McDonald's or a gas station or an apartment building. There's no reason to make a dent in the universe if all you want to do is put your kids through college and travel abroad once a year. 9 out of 10 startups fail. While these odds are better than many other paths to wealth (being born rich, winning the lottery, becoming a rockstar/movie star/pro athlete), you're still likely to fail. If wealth is what you want, you need to ask yourself why you want to be wealthy. If it's because you want nice things or want to travel or even because you want to feed starving people, there's a path to get there that has much better odds than building extreme wealth.

hawkice 11y ago
>You could keep that corporate job, build your credit, and then buy a McDonald's or a gas station or an apartment building. There's no reason to make a dent in the universe if all you want to do is put your kids through college and travel abroad once a year. This phrasing I think minimizes the positive impact you can have with those endeavors. Displacing temperamental landlords with professional landlords makes the world a better place, and I've found having property be their only source of income ratchets up the stakes so much that many landlords explode over nothing (I've had a landlord threaten to evict an entire house of unrelated tenants because someone -- unbeknownst to her, her son in the middle of normal maintenance -- had made a very slight mess in the kitchen). More important than "you don't have to be Facebook" (as if everyone who tried could be even if they "had to") is: with proper diligence and care, running a business well DOES make a dent in the universe, with very few exceptions. It makes the lives of yours customers (and vendors, hopefully) better in ways that are tangible and appreciated.
- padobson 11y ago
  This phrasing I think minimizes the positive impact you can have with those endeavors. This is well put. It's almost as if I'm saying you don't need to make a dent in the universe if you want to make a dent in the universe. Ultimately I'm saying there's no need to build a massive company for the side effects - material wealth, political influence, financial independence. Don't spend all of your time and energy working on something for its side effects.

kelvin0 11y ago

Glad to see this piece posted on HN. I realize now when I first came to HN I felt somewhat 'ashamed' that I was not working towards being the 'next unicorn'. It took some time for me to realize that there are many more avenues that suit me and ultimately will be more fulfilling.

w1ntermute 11y ago
> when I first came to HN I felt somewhat 'ashamed' that I was not working towards being the 'next unicorn' HN was created as an interactive advertisement for YC (and startups in general), and it's important to understand that before getting sucked in.
- headgasket 11y ago
  this bias is something that has been creeping up more and more; if another unbiased forum for hackers-entrepreneurs does emerge I'd love to hear from it. I'm finding myself back on slashdot often these days, which has less of these ("unicorn x" for "<insert ill-defined market that will mushroom here>) story-press releases. Or polemic-y time wasting topics that have nothing to do with hacking.
geographomics 11y ago
I find it best to enjoy HN for the technical content and ignore the rather absurd cult-like startup worship.
Jordrok 11y ago
Just wanted to say that you're not alone in this. I program and read about tech things because they interest me and have useful applications, but I've never truly felt the drive to make myself into the next Gates, Jobs, Zuckerberg, etc. It's very easy to get the impression around here that that's the only worthwhile goal.

salmonet 11y ago

For some reason, even when I hear "there are plenty of good businesses that aren't startups and it's ok," those businesses still seem like second class citizens. It's easy to forget that "taking money to grow fast" often means "Try this really risky strategy in a winner take all market where you will most likely die."

ideonexus 11y ago

> 1. It’s almost never rags to riches This is the point that has really started to become clear to me in recent years, and not just for startups but for artists, authors, athletes, and all the other dream jobs we idolize: so many of these people are either (1) not really making that much money or (2) already had a trust-fund or come from a wealthy background so they can spend all of their time writing, painting, or engineering. Most authors make below the poverty line [1], and Facebook's success was the outlier, not the norm. I did the start-up thing in my 20s for about 3-4 years (in the 1990s). My income was about the same as my salary would later be when I went to work for another company, but my stress-levels dropped significantly when I started working for someone else. The constant uncertainty was gone, I was watching my savings grow instead of decline, and I do regret not going for that stability sooner. I see a similarity between tech-kids in their 20s chasing start-up dreams and the poor kids from my old neighborhood chasing hoop-dreams. The tech-kids have better options to fall back on, but the chances of becoming that rockstar million/billionaire CEO/professional athlete are about the same. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/15/income-for-us-authors-falls-below-federal-poverty-line-survey http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/15/income-for-us-a...

porter 11y ago
The odds of a smart middle class entrepreneur making a successful business are actually way better than making it to the NBA or NFL. To say these are equal odds is misleading.
- rmk2 11y ago
  A successful middleclass business does not equal billions or necessarily even millions, so I fail to see how the gp's comparison is off? What he is saying is that you are as likely to be the next Bill Gates as you are to be the next Michael Jordan, not that you are just as likely to be the next Bob Smith who runs a 40-people tech consultancy shop.
- deleted 11y ago
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AndrewKemendo 11y ago

cm2187 11y ago

In France, the fantasy is civil servant porn... At least this promotes entrepeneurship.

borplk 11y ago
can you elaborate on that?
- cm2187 11y ago
  When I was at university (a few years ago but not that long ago), the majority of the other students only had one idea in mind, becoming a civil servant, doing 9 to 5, job for life, no pressure, lots of holidays and free time to do other things, and early retirement (I am not even kidding, 20yo students looking forward to retirement). Working hard, creating jobs, professional success clearly wasn't on the list. I'd rather be in a society that glorifies entrepreneurship.
  - mgkimsal 11y ago
    The people I know that have fallen in to the "entrepreneurship porn" trap all focus on the "no pressure, free time to other things, early retirement" based on the millions they'll earn. No one who's really fallen hard ("we're gonna be the next Facebook") is heading in that direction because they're interested in "creating jobs". And... they may say "working hard" but often the real hard stuff comes up... they fold anyway. I've also known some successful entrepreneurs who aren't afraid of working hard, but even then, professional curiosity, a bug to 'build' and other factors were at play. No one's stated goals were ever "I want to create jobs". The goal is the business. Couple friends of mine run small businesses pulling in a few million/year. Each would be just as happy if they could do it with 5 employees vs 40 employees - "creating jobs" was not their goal - "solving a need in the market" was.
    - cm2187 11y ago
      Yeah but be your own boss is often at the top of the list for entrepreneur porn. It's not just the money, also the lifestyle.

louprado 11y ago

> If their startup fails, they can go back to their corporate job A major challenge of a start-up founder is managing their own psychology. This much easier to do when you are/were upper-middle class and gives those founders a significant advantage.

jgeada 11y ago

To me, the worst part of the fantasy is that we then consider the people that actually do make it to the "money shot" as if they were management geniuses, instead of lottery winners. Mostly the success has more to do with luck, timing and personal connections than the individual technical merits of the management team, but that is never what you read afterwards. And so you end up with all sorts of ridiculous management, methodology or market segmentation advice that bears little to no chance of ever working again. The same lottery ticket may win again, but it is highly improbable.

rcarrigan87 11y ago
In terms of building a fortune 500 company, yes a lot of luck is involved. For mid-sized businesses there are guys who do it over and over again.
- vonmoltke 11y ago
  In most cases, the reward for building a mid-sized business is not much greater than working your way up the food chain at a large business. It just becomes a question of whether you value independence or not.
- fulafel 11y ago
  It is still consistent with the luck & connections theory if you allow that you gain a lot of experience and connections from the first successful round.
gist 11y ago
> To me, the worst part of the fantasy is that we then consider the people that actually do make it to the "money shot" as if they were management geniuses, instead of lottery winners. This extends to engineers and computer scientists as well. Take Wozniak. Constantly given countless platitudes when he was most likely as qualified as many engineers at HP who never came in contact with Steve Jobs. [1] But the story is always played as "he was Einstein in the Patent office just waiting to be unleashed". Or Marc Andressen. Was he that special when he came up with, as an undergraduate, the Netscape browser? [1] Einstein special or just "special"?. (And of course there was Jim Clark who was there to help him..). Or the google guys as phd students. The list is endless. This is not to take away from anyone's hard work as opposed to others of equal ability that slacked off of course. Credit is due however the over the top hyperbole of the media and bloggers is quite distasteful at times. [1] And of course nearly 100% of what most people know about these people is what is written about them by others..

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ilvnvtoomuch 11y ago

People need to work in industries they enjoy, but, yes, everyone should have a good understanding of the labor market (salaries, demand). Re-location should be an option too. Lower salaries in a low-cost region might work out.

hkmurakami 11y ago

I remember a slew of articles mid 2015 that raised the criticism that founders came from privileged backgrounds. The article also mentioned "the cult of the entrepreneur" and the idolization of these characters. I am born and raised in SV and yet I frankly do not understand the fetishization of entrepreneurs and the idea that this line of work is somehow holier than any other. Isn't that the root of the problem, rather than the privilege of the founders? After all, Wall Street is littered with nepotism and privileged family backgrounds, yet that isn't seen as much of an issue but rather just business as usual. (perhaps the industry attempts to gain good will for its own gain through this portrayal, and this is the price they pay for this deceit though)

rwhitman 11y ago
There's a narrative we're told about entrepreneurs that we're not told about Wall St. One of the founding values of America is that anyone with innovative entrepreneurial drive can start their own business and build wealth from nothing. It's what brought so many immigrants to this country, and is even taught to us in school as being the backbone of capitalism. Most people in America have never actually met a successful entrepreneur. The shop keep down the street is usually under water with loans, and the big successes are corporations headquartered far away, the founders living in expensive seclusion. Heck, in my case it wasn't until I arrived in the Bay Area in my early 20's before I actually met someone who ran a successful business in person. The successful entrepreneur is this key person in our social mythology, and stays very much a myth to most people. Their success gets spun into compelling stories that give a lot of hope to those who want a way out of poor circumstances. And in an effort to spin stories that sell, journalists (and PR people) often omit key facts, to match the "Self-Made Man" narrative that the people want to hear. So, learning that yes it indeed is mostly myth and that no, not everyone can get a shot at being "Self-Made" - is pulling the curtains back on a long standing cultural deceit. The truth that success is mostly limited to a tiny subset of the population based on mixed factors like wealth, education, location, social values, generational cohort, parental upbringing etc, is a bitter pill to swallow. Eager, but disadvantaged, entrepreneurs have been entering the tech market with this key information being withheld, aiming their sights on holding out for mega VC rounds when they should have been focused on earning a living. This leads to painful failures that could have been prevented. Had these founders been given the right narrative to begin with, they might have been better aligned to scale of business success that's reasonably within their grasp. That's the issue here

helpfulanon 11y ago

I'd add that the industry really does not celebrate nor embrace failure the way that we're told it does. For those of us without the cushion of prior success or financial runway, repeating attempts to "get back on the horse" is an embarrassing exercise in futility. With a failed enterprise, you lower your value in the eyes of many gatekeepers and peers, especially those who never tried running their own business. But after repeatedly attempting to jumpstart businesses without capital, and subsequent failures, eventually you are more or less cast as foolish. And god forbid you start to become pragmatic or slightly cynical in the world of tech startups! Because the moment your idealistic optimism comes into question, your "cultural fit" is permanently deemed negative. And bonus catch-22, having led startups also puts "cultural fit" into question for big cos as well. Basically the personality changes that result from repeated business failure can begin to taint and poison your business relationships, and that can follow you around forever like a little dark cloud you just can't shake. Psychological stamina is something nobody tells you about needing as a prerequisite for being an entrepreneur, but most of us don't learn that lesson until it's far too late...

bobby_9x 11y ago

"Money won’t make you happy" I disagree with this. I've been running my own company for a little over 5 years. Not having to worry about my rent and being able to live a comfortable lifestyle has made me really happy. If I made $100 million and didn't ever have to worry about money again, I definitely would be happier. It's the peace of mind that I'm working toward. But, the money isn't the main thing that makes me happy. The development challenges and systems that I build to run my company is what I really enjoy. The money is just a nice side-effect. I agree with the rest of the article. I had an ex-business partner that got his idea of a startup from the stories he sees online. Everything we did had to 'change the world', regardless of the business model or practicality. I had many hours of discussions about this and had to continually convince him we needed some sort of business model. His response was always: "We will get funding"...with no users, traffic, business model, or a decent MVP. At some point I finally convinced him and as soon as it got down to the hard work, and he didn't see immediate results, he got discouraged. He thought that somehow if we just built something, we would have thousands of users in a couple of weeks. I realized that even if whatever we worked on succeeded, he probably wouldn't be a good fit in the next stage of the company and I would be spending more and more of my time fighting these ideas. I had to end the partnership and he ended up getting a job. Not everyone should own a business.

NiftyFifty 11y ago
It's a pretty simple principle between the happy curve and where it intersects with the financial stability curve. However, the opposite can be very true as well. Namely, poverty as it plays out on the social ills that we in the United States have - most notable, are minorities and the lack / motivation of the government to cure this problem. I believe there is some paradigm where happy can be achieved if the work/happy ratio is subsidized through social programs lowering the happy curve (or at least tolerance) because of the work requirements to achieve the financial base to maintain that curve. It's an interesting problem, but overwhelming it causes desperation and by a minor extension drug / alcohol abuse / crime syndication, and violence (domestic abuse and gun deaths in particular). The upward mobility is one thing, but an opposite paradigm is also a very interesting dynamic with respect to if money can or cannot by happiness. However, your example of "owning your own company" is also a self-confidence motivator that is a game changer. :) That's why we need a minority middle class to fix poverty, IMHO.

EGreg 11y ago

Actually, moving to Thailand and sipping mojitos doesn't cost as much as living on your parents' couch in NYC. As that joke goes, the businessman sees the native sitting under a banana tree and asks why he doesn't work, so he can make a lot of money, retire and sit under a banana tree. The natural pleasures in life don't cost that much, with today's technology and productivity. And they will continue to become more affordable. The goal of a startup is to organize people and resources to change the world for the better!

rcarrigan87 11y ago

The most dangerous part of Entrepreneur Porn, especially of the TechCrunch flavor, is the idea funding equates to success. Funding won't fix an unsustainable business model, it will just enable you to waste more time.

sosborn 11y ago
> the idea funding equates to success This never made sense to me. I've always viewed funding as a last resort.

vinceguidry 11y ago

I may become an entrepreneur some day, but I will have to have climbed the social ladder to the upper class before I even attempt it. Being middle class in the US in a second-tier city is just totally freaking awesome. The corporate job I have now is night-and-day better than the lifestyle I had in my twenties. Breaking through to the next level is so far down the list of my current priorities that it could never happen and I'd be totally fine with it. What else do I do with my time? Learn to make music. Date. Cultivate good habits. Plan trips abroad. Have dinner with friends. Eat right and lose weight. Actually get better at programming instead of just scrambling to Get Shit Done. Read. Try out hobbies like Rubik's cube. Sit at the coffee shop on weekends and chat with random people. Go to the bar in the evenings and cultivate a social life. Work on myself and become a better person. You want me to throw that all away for a vague promise of more money, sometime in the future? I already have, right now, vastly more options for improving my life right now.

deleted 11y ago
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- vinceguidry 11y ago
  > I spend my time working on my company on evenings, week-ends. I could do that. It sounds interesting enough. I do read a lot about startups and business and tech. The friends I have dinner with seem amazed at how much I know about this stuff, despite putting far less time into it. But when I get right down to it, spending all my time trying to squeeze blood from a stone doesn't really hold all that much appeal to me. Now, if I had capital at my disposal, then I could do all that instead of having a job. But a startup would be too much work, so I'd need my own capital. That's why I'd need to be upper class first.
  - r2dnb 11y ago
    I understand the reasoning but the need for capital depends on your situation. For example if you want to start a software business and are a good developer you need no capital. The only thing you need is time to work on your venture. It might look like it's the same because taking time to work on your venture requires to have money but there's a big difference. You might want to read this : http://read.reddy.today/read/4/flexible-revenue-model-vs-mvp-and-the-two-kinds-of-entrepreneurs http://read.reddy.today/read/4/flexible-revenue-model-vs-mvp... Good luck

Mendenhall 11y ago

I knew I was an entrepreneur when I realized I would starve to death, suffer great pain and be a social outcast rather than simply work for someone else.

greggarious 11y ago

"Money doesn't make you happy. I now have $50 million but I was just as happy when I had $48 million." - Arnold Schwarzenegger