5 ms·

Why are you starting a company?

23 points by wushupork 17y ago

adamloving 17y ago
To get out of a service based profession. To pay my mortgage without having to perform a skill based job.
shiftb 17y ago
To control my own destiny as much as I can. To make a difference in the world. Oh, and money.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
_delirium 17y ago
The general take-away is hard to argue with, I suppose: there are lots of reasons to start a company, and when making decisions, you should take into account which of the reasons are yours instead of just blindly following conventional wisdom. But it does seem like pretty well-trodden ground: surely by now we are all aware that you don't have to go the big-scaling-up/huge-VC-funding/looking-for-an-exit-in-5-yrs route, if you don't want to?
PG-13 17y ago
So I never have to interview for a job. To take over the world. The knowledge that I'm making money from something I created out of air gives me confidence in other areas of life.
- bjelkeman-again 17y ago
  The interview. In the last ten years, or so, I figured that all the companies or organisations that I wanted to work for didn't actually exist, and if they did they wouldn't hire me to run them. So I started my own instead. But several of them have taken outside investment, which means I am doing "job interviews" all the time, but with investors. It feels like investors are pickier than employers. So I am not sure I gained on that one. :) The "take over the world" part is quite interesting, when you find something to work on which is largely virgin territory and it involves a significant part of the world population (in our case 40% or so). You just have to think a bit different. And yes, it gives me a real kick to create something from chicken scratchings on the back of a paper napkin.
strlen 17y ago
First, this is a pointless debate: there's a Russian proverb saying "Don't divide the skin of a bear you haven't killed yet" i.e., starting a company that even gives you the option of liquid equity or profit you can live on is difficult and you'd be lucky to do be in the position to choose. Most don't get to either routes (they fail); others have to choose one over the other due to the nature of their product and market e.g., business software requires long sales cycles and a pipeline that takes many of these cycles to build (before you have any significant traction or equity), "generic" consumer Internet on other can mean sub $1.0 CPMs, requiring immense scale before profit (at which point a "for eye balls" sale sounds lucrative). I also don't think the understands what fuck you money means. To some it may mean "serial enterprise" (and these people have generally built world changing companies as well as invested in others). To others that means enough money to develop your own Lisp dialect at your own pace instead of spending most of your day working only on the sort of software others would pay for (that is, freedom). They're both noble and respectable goals. People who are interested in money for the sake of material wealth typically aren't technology entrepreneurs. I'd argue even Ellison and Gates would be technologists even if it didn't make them wealthy.
- ableal 17y ago
  > there's a Russian proverb saying "Don't divide the skin of a bear you haven't killed yet" I believe the English one is "don't count your chickens before they've hatched" (i.e. don't count unhatched eggs). My local one is about the same, but more graphical: "don't count on the egg in the chicken's ass" ;-) (Yes, I do have a weakness for proverbs.)
mburney 17y ago
"Money, cars and material things won't suddenly make you happy." But what about the freedom to work on things that don't make money? This is the true purpose of seeking out "fuck you" money
- fnid2 17y ago
  You don't need fuck you money to do that. I do that and I don't have fu money. I volunteer lots of time and create websites that don't make money or aren't intended to make money. If you are really productive, live a frugal life, and create a little residual income you can work on whatever you want.
  - semanticist 17y ago
    If you're happy with a frugal life, then your 'little residual income' effectively IS fuck you money. Fuck you money doesn't have to be hundreds of millions of dollars, unless you want to support a wealthy/extravagant lifestyle. Then again, maybe you want an extravagant lifestyle and your own submarine. That's not any better or worse in itself than just wanting a frugal life.
    - deleted 17y ago
      [deleted]
jlees 17y ago
Because I'm unemployable.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- nandemo 17y ago
  Would you mind elaborating? How come you're capable of running a company but cannot find a job? Unless you live in a place with a very high unemployment rate, it doesn't sound right.
  - jlees 17y ago
    Oh, I'm awesome, I just don't like answering to other people and not working to my own schedule.
benologist 17y ago
I'm doing it because I love working for myself and I believe there's an opportunity for what I'm working on to help a lot of people. And get paid.
zhed 17y ago
After working at a number of companies, I realized that the thing that would really suit my talents is to be part of the top management of a reasonably large company. To start my own company were I had a top position by default was way easier and more satisfying than working my way up the ladder in an existing one. I now lead a small startup (bootstrapped, highly profitable) and I'm having the time of my life. The key thing is not money, freedom or some such - but simply the feeling of using my brain in a very efficient way, every day.
- vyrotek 17y ago
  What is the website for your startup?
jmatt 17y ago
I want to add value to the world in the most efficient way possible. For me, that's owning my own company and making customers and/or users happy. I've worked overpaying jobs for large and mid sized companies and it was stifling. Before that I made decent money playing poker and it was unrewarding - I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything. In the end; I agree it's freedom and the drive to create. EDIT: Grammar.
pascalchristian 17y ago
So that I can do things I like, and make money from it
chipsy 17y ago
I feel like being an entrepreneur, even at the small single-developer scale that I'm going for right now, is the most honest way I can attempt to contribute to the world. Employment is essentially the use of my skills as a kind of organizational machinery: sometimes this can be very valuable - more monetarily valuable than things I might do solo - and the work problems can be interesting, but it's not as personally fulfilling, because it's the company that gets to be influential to the world, not me personally, and the work done is usually a "right now" problem that in the very long term has an automated solution. That bugs me to no end. So while I want some of the "lifestyle" business aspects, I also want some kind of ideological power in the long term to help others live a good and productive life. And I want my work to feel intimate, and to be made with artisan craftsmanship. This has led me pretty strongly towards making independent games; they're a great medium of expression and of teaching, and they have a lot of room for aesthetics. The work has essentially no upper limit on challenge and variation, and building with the market in mind is actually a helpful constraint on the "art" side of things. I haven't gotten too far towards specific expression yet, but I think that is really going to come as a cumulation of everything else.
rdl 17y ago
I like starting companies in general because I like: * seeing direct effects from what I do (it's like a game!) * freedom and responsibility to make important decisions, not filling in TPS reports all day * Expressing opinions about what technologies are useful (because they solve problems efficiently), and solving important problems with those technologies * working with people who feel the same way (employees + customers) I am starting my next company (#3) (full-time this summer) because I'd like to see cloud computing/virtualized infrastructure made (more) secure, and applied to hard problems. I'd rather live in a world with this technology. I'm willing to give up fairly comfortable 200-400k/yr. I believe the expected value per year at the startup exceeds that, but that isn't really a factor in my decision. I'd do it for free and wait tables to pay the rent. Doing a startup only because you want the end result (exit) seems like a way to be miserable for most of your life.
known 17y ago
Because I'm a rebel.
Concours 17y ago
I'm in it for the money. I'm introvert, and hate interacting with peoples I can't stand on a day to day basis. Will it make me happier? not sure, but it probably doesn't make me unhappy and I can do whatever I want.

23 points by wushupork 17y ago

adamloving 17y ago

To get out of a service based profession. To pay my mortgage without having to perform a skill based job.

shiftb 17y ago

To control my own destiny as much as I can. To make a difference in the world. Oh, and money.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

_delirium 17y ago

The general take-away is hard to argue with, I suppose: there are lots of reasons to start a company, and when making decisions, you should take into account which of the reasons are yours instead of just blindly following conventional wisdom. But it does seem like pretty well-trodden ground: surely by now we are all aware that you don't have to go the big-scaling-up/huge-VC-funding/looking-for-an-exit-in-5-yrs route, if you don't want to?

PG-13 17y ago

So I never have to interview for a job. To take over the world. The knowledge that I'm making money from something I created out of air gives me confidence in other areas of life.

bjelkeman-again 17y ago
The interview. In the last ten years, or so, I figured that all the companies or organisations that I wanted to work for didn't actually exist, and if they did they wouldn't hire me to run them. So I started my own instead. But several of them have taken outside investment, which means I am doing "job interviews" all the time, but with investors. It feels like investors are pickier than employers. So I am not sure I gained on that one. :) The "take over the world" part is quite interesting, when you find something to work on which is largely virgin territory and it involves a significant part of the world population (in our case 40% or so). You just have to think a bit different. And yes, it gives me a real kick to create something from chicken scratchings on the back of a paper napkin.

strlen 17y ago

First, this is a pointless debate: there's a Russian proverb saying "Don't divide the skin of a bear you haven't killed yet" i.e., starting a company that even gives you the option of liquid equity or profit you can live on is difficult and you'd be lucky to do be in the position to choose. Most don't get to either routes (they fail); others have to choose one over the other due to the nature of their product and market e.g., business software requires long sales cycles and a pipeline that takes many of these cycles to build (before you have any significant traction or equity), "generic" consumer Internet on other can mean sub $1.0 CPMs, requiring immense scale before profit (at which point a "for eye balls" sale sounds lucrative). I also don't think the understands what fuck you money means. To some it may mean "serial enterprise" (and these people have generally built world changing companies as well as invested in others). To others that means enough money to develop your own Lisp dialect at your own pace instead of spending most of your day working only on the sort of software others would pay for (that is, freedom). They're both noble and respectable goals. People who are interested in money for the sake of material wealth typically aren't technology entrepreneurs. I'd argue even Ellison and Gates would be technologists even if it didn't make them wealthy.

ableal 17y ago
> there's a Russian proverb saying "Don't divide the skin of a bear you haven't killed yet" I believe the English one is "don't count your chickens before they've hatched" (i.e. don't count unhatched eggs). My local one is about the same, but more graphical: "don't count on the egg in the chicken's ass" ;-) (Yes, I do have a weakness for proverbs.)

mburney 17y ago

"Money, cars and material things won't suddenly make you happy." But what about the freedom to work on things that don't make money? This is the true purpose of seeking out "fuck you" money

fnid2 17y ago
You don't need fuck you money to do that. I do that and I don't have fu money. I volunteer lots of time and create websites that don't make money or aren't intended to make money. If you are really productive, live a frugal life, and create a little residual income you can work on whatever you want.
- semanticist 17y ago
  If you're happy with a frugal life, then your 'little residual income' effectively IS fuck you money. Fuck you money doesn't have to be hundreds of millions of dollars, unless you want to support a wealthy/extravagant lifestyle. Then again, maybe you want an extravagant lifestyle and your own submarine. That's not any better or worse in itself than just wanting a frugal life.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]

jlees 17y ago

Because I'm unemployable.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
nandemo 17y ago
Would you mind elaborating? How come you're capable of running a company but cannot find a job? Unless you live in a place with a very high unemployment rate, it doesn't sound right.
- jlees 17y ago
  Oh, I'm awesome, I just don't like answering to other people and not working to my own schedule.

benologist 17y ago

I'm doing it because I love working for myself and I believe there's an opportunity for what I'm working on to help a lot of people. And get paid.

zhed 17y ago

After working at a number of companies, I realized that the thing that would really suit my talents is to be part of the top management of a reasonably large company. To start my own company were I had a top position by default was way easier and more satisfying than working my way up the ladder in an existing one. I now lead a small startup (bootstrapped, highly profitable) and I'm having the time of my life. The key thing is not money, freedom or some such - but simply the feeling of using my brain in a very efficient way, every day.

vyrotek 17y ago
What is the website for your startup?

jmatt 17y ago

I want to add value to the world in the most efficient way possible. For me, that's owning my own company and making customers and/or users happy. I've worked overpaying jobs for large and mid sized companies and it was stifling. Before that I made decent money playing poker and it was unrewarding - I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything. In the end; I agree it's freedom and the drive to create. EDIT: Grammar.

pascalchristian 17y ago

So that I can do things I like, and make money from it

chipsy 17y ago

I feel like being an entrepreneur, even at the small single-developer scale that I'm going for right now, is the most honest way I can attempt to contribute to the world. Employment is essentially the use of my skills as a kind of organizational machinery: sometimes this can be very valuable - more monetarily valuable than things I might do solo - and the work problems can be interesting, but it's not as personally fulfilling, because it's the company that gets to be influential to the world, not me personally, and the work done is usually a "right now" problem that in the very long term has an automated solution. That bugs me to no end. So while I want some of the "lifestyle" business aspects, I also want some kind of ideological power in the long term to help others live a good and productive life. And I want my work to feel intimate, and to be made with artisan craftsmanship. This has led me pretty strongly towards making independent games; they're a great medium of expression and of teaching, and they have a lot of room for aesthetics. The work has essentially no upper limit on challenge and variation, and building with the market in mind is actually a helpful constraint on the "art" side of things. I haven't gotten too far towards specific expression yet, but I think that is really going to come as a cumulation of everything else.

rdl 17y ago

I like starting companies in general because I like: * seeing direct effects from what I do (it's like a game!) * freedom and responsibility to make important decisions, not filling in TPS reports all day * Expressing opinions about what technologies are useful (because they solve problems efficiently), and solving important problems with those technologies * working with people who feel the same way (employees + customers) I am starting my next company (#3) (full-time this summer) because I'd like to see cloud computing/virtualized infrastructure made (more) secure, and applied to hard problems. I'd rather live in a world with this technology. I'm willing to give up fairly comfortable 200-400k/yr. I believe the expected value per year at the startup exceeds that, but that isn't really a factor in my decision. I'd do it for free and wait tables to pay the rent. Doing a startup only because you want the end result (exit) seems like a way to be miserable for most of your life.

known 17y ago

Because I'm a rebel.

Concours 17y ago

I'm in it for the money. I'm introvert, and hate interacting with peoples I can't stand on a day to day basis. Will it make me happier? not sure, but it probably doesn't make me unhappy and I can do whatever I want.