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Why Should I Start a Startup?

569 points by craigcannon 9y ago

mwseibel 9y ago
Hey folks - happy to answer questions here
- pwh 9y ago
  Great post. Thanks. As CEO of the company how did you deal with the extreme stress during the most difficult days of Justin.TV/Twitch while at the same time keeping the team motivated?
  - mwseibel 9y ago
    Honestly I dont have a good answer - I don't think I dealt with it in the most healthy manner - although my girlfriend (now wife) helped a lot!
    - pwh 9y ago
      Thanks for being honest about it. I think founders are masochists. We have to put up with tons of struggles, uncertainties, rejections, setbacks, hypocrisies, backstabbing, betrayals, slanders, deceptions, agonies, burn-out, blood, sweat, and tears while trying to keep positive tone on the outside to keep the team motivated and stick to the vision and mission and not lose investor's confidence. Just thought I asked if you can share what worked in your experience. Thanks.
- nathan-wailes 9y ago
  It wasn't totally clear to me in the post: did Yale take you back after your stint at UPenn? If so, how did that work? If not, how did you become friends with Justin Kan (who IIRC was at Yale) if you were at UPenn?
  - mwseibel 9y ago
    Yes they did :) - I became friends with Justin during my second senior year
    - justin 9y ago
      Thank God for those senior year World of Warcraft sessions!
- vba 9y ago
  Did anyone ever question your academic background/track record. Did anyone deny you funding and/or not work for you upon inquiring about your track record? In absolute honesty, do you think achieving good grades makes sizable a difference to people wanting to work for you or investing in your company?
  - mwseibel 9y ago
    No one ever asked about my grades - coming from Yale probably helped a bit - but more importantly, Yale allowed me to meet my first co-founders.
- nathan-wailes 9y ago
  Out of curiosity, if you're able to answer it: Does YC now collect, or has it ever collected, (anonymized?) data/survey-responses from founders (YC alums or not) on their original motivations for starting the company, and attempt(ed) to correlate that with outcomes? If so, are you willing/able to reveal any of the things YC learned? If YC hasn't attempted to do this: why not?
  - mwseibel 9y ago
    No but we should - we are actually building a lot more data collection in the next year
    - _uoi8 9y ago
      please do :) P.S. I'd love to see a Q re. motivation and perseverance in the YC application form.
- jpetso 9y ago
  What's the origin of your desire to be better than all of your peers?
  - mwseibel 9y ago
    Because I realized that I could be better
    - tmccrmck 9y ago
      In what ways? Sorry Michael, but I reject the idea that you can be 'better' than another person.
      - mwseibel 9y ago
        I should have said I realized I could be better at the game of high school student looking to get into a good college.
- brucephillips 9y ago
  Your list excludes what is probably the most common reason to start a startup, which is that someone thinks they're more competent than the 90% who fail, so they have a good chance of succeeding and making themselves rich. There is uncertainty in business, but execution matters a lot. If you have good reason to think you can execute better than most, then a startup is probably the quickest route to financial independence.
- yvsong 9y ago
  Years ago I saw a flyer of Justin.tv, thought it's an amateur college student TV project, and didn't see any potential. Now it's one of my favorite startup stories, due to the wild start and huge impact. Live broadcasting has become a red hot social medium, especially in red China.
tristanho 9y ago
Loved this post, thanks! You mentioned the 3 constraints under which you (and many founders) thrive in: * Being the underdog * Hard challenges most people shy away from * Personal responsibility for outcomes Why are some people best under those conditions? Is it something trainable, or inherent?
- BjoernKW 9y ago
  I'd say most people would be. If you don't take responsibility and if you're not challenged, you can hardly expect to excel at anything. Many people either are too comfortable with their lives or are in too precarious a situation to ever get to try. That's probably also why we so rarely hear about rich kids with large trust funds accomplishing anything meaningful.
  - MaxfordAndSons 9y ago
    > That's probably also why we so rarely hear about rich kids with large trust funds accomplishing anything meaningful. Interesting theory... but could perhaps be due to reporting bias? The trust funded who do succeed are unlikely to highlight that fact when telling the story of their success.
- mwseibel 9y ago
  No idea - maybe another way to think about it is im really bad when these constraints aren't in place
abhikandoi2000 9y ago
Should one also do a startup, when a startup seems to be the only possible path to "see something happen"?
yousifa 9y ago
What does your data show regarding success rate for people like you vs those who build companies because of the need to have something exist? What are specific challenges you see in each case?
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agentultra 9y ago
> 1. The vast majority of startups are not successful This alone is why 90% of people will not choose to work at a startup. You will work long hours, for crap pay, and you'll be waiting in line if there is an exit. The odds of there being an exit worth anything to anyone other than a founder are small enough to not even worth considering. If you are a founder you're gambling on your chances. There are ways to mitigate the risk but there's no sure thing. Don't start a startup if you do not have the financial security to basically lose everything you put in. Don't start a startup if you have family that depends on your income. You could choose to eat ramen and sleep on the floor of a college dorm room. Your kids (and CPS) might not appreciate it. I agree the motivation is very important. I disagree that you cannot find the same motivation in a more stable organization (or can't motivate yourself). I recently finished reading, Extreme Ownership [0], and I bring that with me to work. People need to be responsible for outcomes: that's not unique to startups. You can also find that motivation internally and share it with your colleagues as you go. [0] https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs-ebook/dp/B00VE4Y0Z2/ie=UTF8&qid=1486489443&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs-ebook...
- Swizec 9y ago
  If you have the entrepreneurial itch and don't have the financial security to back it up, becoming a bootstrapped micropreneur is a great first choice. Start your business on the side, when it revenue is high enough to live on, make the jump. It's slower than a funded startup, but a lot less risky. Does come with a high social opportunity cost due to lack of time, however. But so does starting a startup. If your sidehustle does well, you can even leverage it later to fund your big startup idea. Or, hell, live a good life on a lifestyle business making a few hundred thousand per year. $150k/year revenue won't get you any headlines, but it's plenty to live on and run a solo business. Get to $500k/year and you prob have a higher expected ROI over N years than any startup founder. Disclaimer: my sidehustle is at the $50k/year level, but that's on 60 hours per month. If I didn't insist on living in SF, I could have a very cushy life back in Europe.
  - el_benhameen 9y ago
    Thanks for sharing. I find stories like yours more inspiring and motivating than the "ramen to unicorn" ones. I have little interest in scaling a business to IPO, but I'm very interested in building something that holds my interest and lets me support my family and an enjoyable lifestyle.
nathan-wailes 9y ago
Great post! I love reading pre-company autobiographical accounts from successful founders, as I find it to be a great way to get ideas for what pre-company experiences might best prepare me to be successful myself. Some additions I would make to Michael's list for "Why to start a start-up": - As a founder you get a level of control over what problem you're solving that you'll rarely have as an employee. - You also get a level of control over who you're working with that you'll rarely have as an employee. - You also escape having your income determined by the market for labor, and instead have it determined by the market for your product. Those three things are very, very important to me, and I suspect also to many other founders.
- fnbr 9y ago
  Well said. I agree with you. Those exact reasons are why entrepreneurship appeals to me.
- mynameisvinn124 9y ago
  "- You also escape having your income determined by the market for labor, and instead have it determined by the market for your product." one of the most insightful comment on the concept of value ive read in my 34+ years.
- cctan 9y ago
  With your income determined by the market, you can scale big, not limited just to your own 24 hours and two hands.
keeptrying 9y ago
You shouldn't .
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rahimshamsy 9y ago
Is the desire to transform as a person a good enough reason? Very few endeavors are as challenging as solving a problem by building a profitable business around it, and having the pleasure of meeting and working with a variety of people.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  The problem is that you are entangling the lives of a lot of other people (your family at the very least, your co-founders, your employees, potentially your customers) in this quest for personal transformation.
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falcolas 9y ago
So, does "personal responsibility for [...] failure" really apply when there is a 90% failure rate? Seems like short of failing to execute, it's more a game of chance than something you can influence. That is, it's seems like its a lot like video poker: you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win. I would also think that getting into an industry with such a high failure rate would be terrible for someone who takes such personal responsibility for the outcome: most of the time they're going to consider themselves a failure. In the worst case, serial failures.
- mwseibel 9y ago
  "you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win" - I like this - maybe I would restate this as "you can cause yourself to lose, but a lot of things outside of your control need to go right in order to win"
  - porter 9y ago
    or as pg says if you don't want to die then don't quit.
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- keerthiko 9y ago
  Re: A high failure rate, it doesn't necessarily mean game of chance, it could mean a challenging game. I'd compare it more to darts: If 90% of dart throws miss the bullseye it could mean various things: * As you suggest, a game of chance with poor odds, ie 100% of people have roughly the same distribution of shots, landing only ~10% on the bullseye * Only 10% of people have the right confluence of skill, experience and a bit of luck to nail it ~100% of the time to make up for the 90% people who land it ~0% of the time. Secret society knowledge scenario. * Anything in between. It could be 20% of people who land it 25% of the time, and 80% people landing it 6.25% of the time to give you the same output. Some people have figured out some techniques, but can't quite master the challenging problem, and others seem to almost rely on luck. This is where I believe running a company lies. Taking responsibility is different from "being hard and critical of yourself". You can take responsibility and own failure without feeling like a lesser person, it helps to learn from it and improve (if you don't take responsibility and blame "luck", you have lower motivation to take anything away from the failure). It can be paired with the ability to retain self-confidence, inspiration and motivation while learning from your failures. This is the tenacity and refusal to die that I believe VC's talk about being seen in strong founders.
blizkreeg 9y ago
You should not start a startup. I like to think of it differently. It's semantics but I find that it aligns my thinking better. You should start a business if: - you are strongly driven _by the idea_ of doing business, i.e., at some point in your evolution, you become Walt Whitman. A business, which - solves a problem, makes a product, or offers a service, that - you think can you do better and make money while doing so, and - you would rather face the uncertainty of it not working out than be employed working on a thing you are not motivated by. You should not start a startup if things such as exits, raising VC, optics of running a startup, or some such affair is of primary concern to you. They should be in the service of running the business and serving its needs, not the other way around. This is not a script that applies to just some lifestyle, sustainable businesses, in the parlance of SV. This is the same script that even the largest, most profitable, and most impactful companies (cue the disruption adjectives) on the planet have followed.
- CryptoFascist 9y ago
  This! Especially the 'solves a problem or offers a service'. Any company without a viable plan to create surplus is a failure waiting to happen. It's why most startups fail... their purpose is to be a startup first, create a surplus if they luck out, or be flipped into a bubble market.
  - timr 9y ago
    The key word there is "viable plan", and you don't know that you have one until you do it. Many of the biggest, most successful companies are pivots from some lame initial product. There are plenty of bozos who don't try to solve a problem or offer a service, but there are plenty of dead startups who did all of that and still failed.
tanilama 9y ago
The startup starts up because of money is often time uninspiring. It is a good thing that we have fewer startups like that. If you don't have a good problem, plz don't make a startup for it.
- brucephillips 9y ago
  It's impossible to know how many inspiring companies started with a primarily financial motivation. Every company has a bias toward telling a romantic, non-financially motivated founding story, so we can only have a lower bound.
- WWKong 9y ago
  Why so? What if I have an okay solution to a okay problem but see an opportunity to monetize the market gap and band together some folks to create a business around it? Does it have be "inspiring"?
- mwseibel 9y ago
  Our problem was how to create a reality tv show with Justin Kan wearing a camera on his head. Is that a good problem?
  - justin 9y ago
    at least we were solving our own problem....
  - brucephillips 9y ago
    Are you arguing that startups shouldn't ensure they're solving an important problem? Creating a reality show out of Justin's life probably wasn't an important problem to solve, but drawing some conclusion based on the successful Justin.TV -> Twitch pivot would be selection bias.
ensiferum 9y ago
Yawn. Yet another millionaire who lucked out dishing his share of "wisdom".
ashwinaj 9y ago
> I cannot promise that doing a tech startup will make you rich (in fact the odds are against you becoming rich), but I can promise that it is one of the most challenging things you can choose to do. It will push you past your limits, force you to learn faster, and maybe show you that once in a while the impossible is possible. Couldn't have said it better! Bookmarked, thanks for explaining it in simple terms. I find myself fumbling to explain this to my non-startup friends.
rjurney 9y ago
You shouldn't. Work in open source instead. If that project takes off, start a company. This way you benefit everyone instead of just yourself if you fail. Which you probably will.
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Mz 9y ago
He sounds twice exceptional -- gifted, but with some sort of learning disability or handicap of some sort. Twice exceptional people often appear to be "average" but find an "average" or normal life enormously frustrating. Because of having some sort of handicap, it can take a lot to get them going. Once they get going, they often outperform others. Life is vastly better for them when they can create their own niche because they simply do not fit in to normal societal expectations very well, try though they might. No insult intended. I fit that profile, as do both my sons. So, perhaps a good summary is if you are bright, but having trouble finding your niche, then starting your own company is a means to create your own niche. This is exactly what I have always told my oldest son. From an early age, it was clear to me he would not make a good employee. But that doesn't mean he won't eventually be successful. He just needs to grow his own.
- jansho 9y ago
  Your posts always resonate with me, thank you, but I particularly need to hear this one. I will not call myself exceptional, but I often find fitting in almost impossible. Finding a niche and owning it is then survival! Although I'm very aware of the high failure rate with startups, I can't help but keep believing that I can do this thing. Sometimes though I am torn by guilt, that I'm such a snowflake, but I don't know, one thing I know for sure is that if I don't give it a shot, I will regret for the rest of my life. And that is much more unbearable.
  - Mz 9y ago
    It might help to think of yourself as enriching the diverse ecosystem of humans in order to enhance life for all. In nature, monocultures are horribly vulnerable to disease and other problems. In contrast, diverse ecosystems mean that one creature's wastes are another's nutrients and many creatures can co-exist because they aren't direct competitors. They need inherently different things. Taking up some niche no one else wants means you aren't in competition with others and you add life to spaces that would otherwise be dead. There is zero reason humans should all strive to fit the same mold and many reasons to be horrified by the idea.
CryptoFascist 9y ago
This is nothing but a pitch by YCombinator to get rubes to work for pitiful amounts of money and likely fail, so that YCombinator can capture the vast profits from the few that succeed. It's YCombinator's business model.
- steve918 9y ago
  I'm not sure you are in the right place. Is 4chan down?
  - CryptoFascist 9y ago
    I'm serious. It's literally YCombinator's business model. Based on rapid upvotes, quite a few others agree.
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- technotony 9y ago
  I'm not sure you actually read this because it's pretty obvious that it actually tells many people not to do a startup and makes it clear that 'getting rich' or 'succeeding' isn't a very good reason for doing one. It gives three pretty clear criteria for starting a startup that most people won't meet- those that do might be worth considering it.
  - spitfire 9y ago
    That's the sales pitch. "It's too hard, you couldn't do it." Same sales pitch as gym workout programs. "Are you man enough?" and many others. Create an artificial scarcity (a barrier to entry), weed out those who will ask questions. Ideally they're looking for people who seek outside validation - the sort of people who often become doctors or lawyers.
    - mwseibel 9y ago
desireco42 9y ago
Because I can. Also, bootstrap if at all possible. Independence can't be valued enough.
idlewords 9y ago
The casino explains why you should play dice.
- justin 9y ago
  reading comprehension fail
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gaius 9y ago
The only way to win is not to play
jaypaulynice 9y ago
I like this post. I wish I really started a startup in college or right after. A regular corporate job turns you into a zombie and you become out of touch with reality especially if you're well paid and well fed. A lot of people are unprepared for the hard life. If anything, you'll learn more about life in 6 months than you will in decades. It's not just the technical stuff. You'll learn who your real friends are. Being broke and thinking you might go homeless will make you sympathize with the homeless. Co-founders will try to screw you. If you're married, you'll soon find out if your spouse really loves you or just the regular income. Fake people pop up everywhere trying to take credit for your hard work. I think a startup is akin to the street life without the street creds.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  As a counterpoint: My spouse's ongoing education is currently dependent on my regular income. Once she graduates it'll effectively double our collective income and hopefully give her her first good career. I'm not sure how I could sell gambling all of that on a 90% chance of failure even if I wanted to. Sounds like the act of a gambling addict. Also, if you need to gamble your family's livelihood to find out if your spouse really loves you or not, why are you married? Similar sentiment for your friends. Being able to sympathize with the homeless sounds like a horrible return for sacrificing your livelihood. Dealing with backstabbing co-founders doesn't sound all that educational, just miserable. Fake people are a thing in all walks of life. I don't come from the rosiest background in the world, I've had enough severe instability and drama forced upon me in the past to know there's nothing romantic about it. It should be avoided unless there's a tangible payoff, and certainly greater than a 10% chance of success. My regular corporate job is currently giving me a stable platform upon which I can save, build up my household and consider launching a business on my own terms. It's also giving me valuable professional experience as I see how a large company ships product. I'm so glad I didn't go the startup route straight out of college, I've learned so much about business on the job that my engineering degree never remotely touched. It's hardly my dream job but I don't dread my work, nor do I feel like a zombie. In 10 years I'll likely have enough saved up to seriously consider my own business, and enough contacts/professional clout to go back to regular work if it fails. I'll also have 10 more years of business experience to draw on, likely from at least 2 more companies. Why do a startup now, or God forbid right when I graduated, when I have/had the fewest resources and the fewest advantages?
taurath 9y ago
I do find it rather hilarious that he dropped interest in yale for being too academic, but during my (failed) interview as a web developer at Twitch about 5 years ago, the questioning had to do with only academic subjects like graph traversal algorithms - they proudly stated when I applied that 90% of their employees come from an Ivy league background. Here's who I think should start a startup: - People with the backing of their families and resources to get into Yale and every other college other than Harvard (thank god!), and have the means that failure is not so much of a risk. - People who really need to do this thing, and can maintain their passion and drive and make it the largest part of their lives. And if that thing requires a lot of money to do, the ability to raise money, or already have money. Both of the above need to be able to physically and mentally handle the 90% failure chance. The author clearly could.
- aaron-lebo 9y ago
  You don't need money to start a startup. It is only startup culture which emphasizes it. When you've got nothing, you don't have anything to risk, so those people without resources but with drive are as good a place as any. My friends and I are working on something in the garage. It might not turn into anything, but when you only make 40k a year, it doesn't take much to be really successful. The thought of making an extra 20k a year is life changing for me and my friends. For a lot of people with great jobs or who are used to wealth, making less than 120k a year is a sacrifice. That's a huge disadvantage, and it becomes even more so when your entire company is filled with people like that.
  - albertgoeswoof 9y ago
    What are you making in a garage?
  - imhoguy 9y ago
    You don't spend money but you spend your other precious resource which is your private time. With money you can leverage a project by buying somebody else time (employee, partner). Such may be not 1:1 comparison of your own dedication but with fair equity and good match you may get similar drive.
TheAlchemist 9y ago
Very interesting post ! The 3 questions really resonate with me. Usually when talking startups, people talk about changing the world, having and impact etc. Your take seems much more personal, and also that's the way I feel it (although I can't explain that to me rationally). The 3rd is so true - in big corps, you think you're responsible for this and that because you're the tech lead, project manager or whatever. But most of the time, that's not really true - nothing bad will happen to you if you don't deliver. When you're starting a startup you suddenly realize what personal responsibility means. Anyway, thanks for a great post !
carsongross 9y ago
Here is a practical reason to start a startup: You are married to someone who makes enough money to push your marginal tax rate on income to the point (it can hit 55%+ in places like CA) that you might as well take a flier on a startup rather than pulling a W4.
crb002 9y ago
Garage. It worked for Apple, Google, and HP.
throw4141 9y ago
I've tried to start a startup, 2 times. I failed both times. And now I have 0 money left, the family that cannot help me, I don't have a job and can't find one and thankfully I have some friends that are giving me a place to sleep. Should I start another startup? I wish. Will I do it? I don't know how. I wish I had a magic idea and some people to invest in it, but not living in the Valley and not having a clue on how to find great ideas I'm kinda stuck. I'm already looking for a job, the problem is that I have the fear that the more I wait for the next startup and the more it'll be harder to build a product from scratch because the expectation from all markets will be higher. Ideas?
- jventura 9y ago
  I'm just a random guy on the internet, but I would suggest you to fix your life first and then remember the hard lessons you (should) have learned on your two failures if you decide to do it again..
- xiaoma 9y ago
  I'd get a job and go the more conservative "sidehustle" bootstrapping route of making a site or YouTube channel and then selling something for money. Stay focused on your job and don't quit until a sidehustle has momentum. If you have no idea what to sell then just teach everything you know (about one topic), try to make something useful for people and make it in public (e.g sharing your progress on your blog or YT channel). Worst case scenario, you'll have a job, be saving money and build a small audience / reservoir of credibility. Also maybe start hanging out on Indie Hackers instead of here. Edit: as the sibling commenter said, get your life in order. That's number one. Until you find a job and can cover your rent, don't even spend time on news aggregators. I wouldn't worry too much about timing to be a founder. Everyone feels like they're too late and they've missed all the opportunities but there's always a next big thing. Keep your spirits up!
nnd 9y ago
> Do I seek the hard challenges that most people shy away from? Arguably, you can find much harder challenges working for a bigco, at least when it comes to engineering challenges. Also, surprisingly one of the biggest factors involved when it comes to starting a startup is not mentioned: idea itself.
- mwseibel 9y ago
  Engineering challenges I certainly agree. Life challenges though? I think we can have a good argument about that one.
  - nnd 9y ago
    No argument here, I totally agree.
sna1l 9y ago
"About 2 months after being kicked out of school I suddenly felt pissed off again. I realized that my school, some of my friends, and even some of my family members thought I would never graduate from college. My motivation came back instantly." -- this passage seemed kinda weird to me. Seems like he got his motivation back due to spite? His 3 questions at the end also seem to point to him having a chip on his shoulder.
graycat 9y ago
For someone considering a startup, again, once again, yet again, over again, one more time, the probability of being successful in a startup, say, estimated from all the startup efforts, is at best useless and otherwise misleading and, thus, worse. Instead, what matters for an estimate is the conditional probability of success given other information. It's quite possible for the probability of success to be quite low but the conditional probability of success, given other facts, events, situations, etc. that hold, quite high. The OP's nice words about working in a big company are also deceptive. In fact, especially in technology, those jobs can be darned unstable, vulnerable, and short lived. If by then have a house mortgage, three kids on the way to college, maybe some kids who need some help like the author of the OP, getting fired at a big company can be one heck of a bummer. So, ASAP, while young and making good bucks in tech, look all the time for a startup opportunity. Maybe get one going in your house den, basement attic, garage, wherever. Pay attention to, learn about, at least dip toes into startups. Start small, don't invest more than pocket change, and LEARN. Then think of your kids: What are they going to do? Are they going to have to start all over, from zero, like the author of the OP did? Or, pay attention to a family with a good, stable family business (e.g., with a geographical barrier to entry and a very broad customer list), hopefully not much to do with anything unstable like tech, where the kids can learn the business and, thus, at least learn about business and, hopefully, later move into the family business. For having a good life, that can beat the heck out of anything can learn in political science at Yale. With high irony, my experience is that the families that can afford to pay full tuition, room, and board at an Ivy League college didn't go to an Ivy League college and, instead, made their money in small-medium business -- ran 10 McDonald's well, was the leading plumbing supply house for a radius of 50 miles, owned a lot of rental property, had a really good independent insurance agency going where they knew nearly everyone in town relevant to the business, etc. If want a child in law or medicine, likely it helps a lot for at least one parent to be in law or medicine. Startup? Really, in the US, for a full career, there really isn't much alternative but to do a successful startup. The question is not whether but how. So, learn how. If really know how and are determined, then the chances of success should be good, not bad.
jondubois 9y ago
Building a successful tech startup is easy but extremely unlikely.
seddona 9y ago
"there is a certain type of person who only works at their peak capacity when there is no predictable path to follow, the odds of success are low, and they have to take personal responsibility for failure (the opposite of most jobs at a large company)." I have never really stopped to consider my own motivations for doing a startup but this sums it up. Do a startup because you have to, not because you want to.
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andkon 9y ago
I'd like to fill out the "maybe" part of his "If you answer yes three times, then maybe starting a startup is for you" bit. I answer a very strong yes to all three of those. Always have. But a startup, despite my always having worked in them and run one of my own for three years, was resolutely not a good idea for me. It took a lot of self-discovery to see myself not as an entrepreneur, but as an artist, and it's frustrating, because it sure took me a while to admit it. I spent all my time and money and effort trying to be successful as a startup founder, and expecting that I'd eventually feel the spark that I know can drive me. But now I look at the creative work I do on my own, even though I still have a full-time job, and I feel the same connection that Michael describes here, which I had chased for so long. The irony is that pretty much every idea I have uses the technical skills i built as a startup founder. But hey. Time to do what I always should have.
- danek 9y ago
  I feel the same way (though I never ran my own startup). On the surface it would make sense for me to start companies. I tick most of the boxes, but at heart I'm more of an artist. Maybe 10 years ago I'd be interested in spending five years of my life for a 1% chance of getting better returns than working for a regular salary. Also I'm no longer in my 20s, not independently wealthy, and most importantly I don't want the stress of being responsible for a company. But that's just where I'm at right now...
  - Fifer82 9y ago
    You seem a little more confident than me but otherwise we are fairly alike. Maybe the desire comes later in life?
  - nnd 9y ago
    To make it as an artist appears to be much harder than to create a successful business, at least from the outsiders perspective.
- agogolev 9y ago
  Thanks for your replay. What kind of art do you do and can I look at it somewhere online?
polpenn 9y ago
Okay! Let's do it! I want to start a start-up. What do I do?
- mindcrime 9y ago
  Read The Four Steps to the Ephiphany by Steve Blank, and The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki for starters...
  - polpenn 9y ago
    Thanks! Noted.
  - mindcrime 9y ago
    "Epiphany". Grrr... I hate that you can only edit HN posts for a short period of time. :-(
- tr1ck5t3r 9y ago
  Depends on you what you plan to do. You need to do the boring stuff, plan and research your products/services, identify trends which you can be one of the first to surf, or find new ways to offer the same for less in existing markets. Not everything is about cost, (think rich people buying bespoke or low production run highly innovative products or services), but mass market is about doing the most with less, economies of scale & efficiency. Some of it is also about building a relationship with the customer, you might be the best rock star hacker around but if you have no ability to be nice to customers with all that being nice entails, who will put up with you for long, so presentation and reputation can also be key if its not essential like choosing your electricity provider. If you plan on getting into mass market, look at your competitors, find out if the market share is dominated by a few key players with huge profits and see if you can undercut them by taking less profit, even when some global companies can offshore profits putting the country & country restricted business rivals at a disadvantage. If you come up with something innovative, novelty can also draw in new customers (think kids crazes like these fidget spinners currently, or yoyo's in the past) so look at ways to lock them in, either contractually or with reward schemes if you can even lock in a trend or craze! Look at ways you can get customers to market you where possible (brand awareness, bragging rights, trends & crazes), but some companies wont want to give away what they see as a competitive advantage which can make breaking into a market harder, things like trademarks, patents, manufacturing processes, but some patents can also be misdirection to hide what the real trick is. Some business adventures do not need a lot of money to get going with, think window cleaning business, but others do, like building an electric car or developing a new drug for some specific illness like a specific Cancer. You will also find, no company will ever admit liability which is what courts are for, but being able to recognise when a business is wrong and putting it right in the most cost effective manner to damage limit is also key. This is where some companies can and do fail, its usually ignorance of sorts which causes this, so recognising your strengths and weaknesses is also useful. What you dont know but need, can you bring in from outside the company at the right price? So hopefully you can see that there is a lot of work involved in starting up a business, and whilst you might be lucky and wing it on an "event driven" basis, tackling problems when they arise, you still need to be sure you dont get caught up firefighting all the time. If you do, bring someone in to do the problem solving for you whilst you concentrate on bringing the money in. At the end of the day its about getting the balance right, your time & effort for the money you get back. Get that wrong and your startup will fail quickly, get it right when considering all the other variables that exist which the above has just scraped the surface of, and you could go on to be quite successful, but its all about the balance between money & quality of life. Some people value security for their family over riches, which can be useful for choosing employees, so identifying who you may also choose to work with as an employee or contractor can also help. And finally, just remember everyone has an opinion, and they might not be right all of the time. Dont get your confirmation bias from family and friends, get it from those who hand the money over to you, but find the best way to put yourself in front of those people because it is just a numbers game.
embulldogs99 9y ago
It takes a certain person to say there is always a guarantee for success, a predictable path to follow, and no need to take personal responsibility at a large company.
embulldogs99 9y ago
It takes a certain kind of person to say there is a guarentee for success, no reason to take personal responsibility, and predictable path to follow working at a large corporation
gravyboat 9y ago
I would rather just run small businesses and side projects. Still a pretty high chance of failing, but if they do fail you still learn and it doesn't impact your bottom line that badly.
nurettin 9y ago
Why create a startup? Because you have a product and the development and marketing skills to persuade people to keep on using it. It's easy to get sidetracked with colorful terminology and complex definitions.
jokoon 9y ago
Didn't bill gates say something like "startups are needed, because you need failure so that some startups can succeed".
known 9y ago
When you can/will dismantle a "Pyramid scheme"
_ao789 9y ago
Fucking great post man. Really hits home.
sophiamstg 9y ago
Well, this is so motivating for a specific population, but I don't think majority thinks this way... after all paying bills come first..
quadcore 9y ago
I like it. Though I don't think that's the answer I would give. From my experience, I wanted to start a startup because it was like god himself gave me a mission. And I couldn't turn away from that responsibility. I fucking deeply cared about what I was gonna do. It was so much more important than everything else for me. I was freaking Frodo bringing the ring to mordor. So yeah, everything he said, plus the quest.
elmar 9y ago
Why Most Startups Fail and How To Avoid The Same Fate http://www.brianhonigman.com/why-startups-fail/ http://www.brianhonigman.com/why-startups-fail/
zentlim 9y ago
Good article. Yes. Yes. And yes. (1) Do I like being the underdog? (2) Do I seek the hard challenges that most people shy away from? (3) Do I thrive when I take personal responsibility for success or failure? The founders i've met have main two triggers. (1) they want to solve a problem that they have encountered personally. (2) they want more income for their family. But as the article mentioned (and from my personal experience and my immediate circle's experience as well), more money for the family is probably a large mismatch for building a startup. This write up articulates something very difficult to say very well.
raresp 9y ago
If you're asking yourself the question "Why Should I Start a Startup?" than you sholdn't start a startup.
jcroll 9y ago
> I cannot promise that doing a tech startup will make you rich (in fact the odds are against you becoming rich) Ok, so what path has the least resistance for getting rich for a skilled developer?
- jerrre 9y ago
  depends on your definition of rich
  - jcroll 9y ago
    $1m/yr
    - globuous 9y ago
      If you want to remain an employee maybe some hedge fund / investment bank quants ? A (senior) partner at mckinsey ? something like that maybe ? But yeah, 1m/yr is hard if you don't own stakes in the business. And if you make that much as a partner at mc or EY for instance, it's because you have boughts shares of the firm when entering the partnership and that you've worked looong hours for over a decade. Maybe being super high up at big tech firms through earned stocks ? Well, once you've had a high position at a big tech firm, you can easily go into consulting / start doing conferences and start making real cash. But that'll hardly be before 35-45 years old I don't think.
eriktrautman 9y ago
A lot of replies are focusing on the outcomes implied by the OP's checklist -- if you answer "yes" on all, you'll be more likely to succeed financially. As a founder, I think it's far more important to focus on the journey aspects of it. Meaning, if you check the boxes, just maybe you have the mindset that will make you happiest when you're in the midst of all that hustling and struggling in the game. That mindset is what keeps you in it... if you're reward-focused, then you're going to burn out and lose direction. So let's reframe the discussion from "do you have what it takes to be successful in a startup?" to "do you have what it takes to love the sufferfest grind of each day along the way so the outcome is just a nice reward at the end?"
Windson 9y ago
This article got so many upvotes just because it's wrotten by Twitch's founder.
basic1point0 9y ago
I really like the way intellect is defined in this post. It's mostly persistence that guides you to success.

569 points by craigcannon 9y ago

mwseibel 9y ago

Hey folks - happy to answer questions here

pwh 9y ago
Great post. Thanks. As CEO of the company how did you deal with the extreme stress during the most difficult days of Justin.TV/Twitch while at the same time keeping the team motivated?
- mwseibel 9y ago
  Honestly I dont have a good answer - I don't think I dealt with it in the most healthy manner - although my girlfriend (now wife) helped a lot!
  - pwh 9y ago
    Thanks for being honest about it. I think founders are masochists. We have to put up with tons of struggles, uncertainties, rejections, setbacks, hypocrisies, backstabbing, betrayals, slanders, deceptions, agonies, burn-out, blood, sweat, and tears while trying to keep positive tone on the outside to keep the team motivated and stick to the vision and mission and not lose investor's confidence. Just thought I asked if you can share what worked in your experience. Thanks.
nathan-wailes 9y ago
It wasn't totally clear to me in the post: did Yale take you back after your stint at UPenn? If so, how did that work? If not, how did you become friends with Justin Kan (who IIRC was at Yale) if you were at UPenn?
- mwseibel 9y ago
  Yes they did :) - I became friends with Justin during my second senior year
  - justin 9y ago
    Thank God for those senior year World of Warcraft sessions!
vba 9y ago
Did anyone ever question your academic background/track record. Did anyone deny you funding and/or not work for you upon inquiring about your track record? In absolute honesty, do you think achieving good grades makes sizable a difference to people wanting to work for you or investing in your company?
- mwseibel 9y ago
  No one ever asked about my grades - coming from Yale probably helped a bit - but more importantly, Yale allowed me to meet my first co-founders.
nathan-wailes 9y ago
Out of curiosity, if you're able to answer it: Does YC now collect, or has it ever collected, (anonymized?) data/survey-responses from founders (YC alums or not) on their original motivations for starting the company, and attempt(ed) to correlate that with outcomes? If so, are you willing/able to reveal any of the things YC learned? If YC hasn't attempted to do this: why not?
- mwseibel 9y ago
  No but we should - we are actually building a lot more data collection in the next year
  - _uoi8 9y ago
    please do :) P.S. I'd love to see a Q re. motivation and perseverance in the YC application form.
jpetso 9y ago
What's the origin of your desire to be better than all of your peers?
- mwseibel 9y ago
  Because I realized that I could be better
  - tmccrmck 9y ago
    In what ways? Sorry Michael, but I reject the idea that you can be 'better' than another person.
    - mwseibel 9y ago
      I should have said I realized I could be better at the game of high school student looking to get into a good college.
brucephillips 9y ago
Your list excludes what is probably the most common reason to start a startup, which is that someone thinks they're more competent than the 90% who fail, so they have a good chance of succeeding and making themselves rich. There is uncertainty in business, but execution matters a lot. If you have good reason to think you can execute better than most, then a startup is probably the quickest route to financial independence.
yvsong 9y ago
Years ago I saw a flyer of Justin.tv, thought it's an amateur college student TV project, and didn't see any potential. Now it's one of my favorite startup stories, due to the wild start and huge impact. Live broadcasting has become a red hot social medium, especially in red China.

tristanho 9y ago

Loved this post, thanks! You mentioned the 3 constraints under which you (and many founders) thrive in: * Being the underdog * Hard challenges most people shy away from * Personal responsibility for outcomes Why are some people best under those conditions? Is it something trainable, or inherent?

BjoernKW 9y ago
I'd say most people would be. If you don't take responsibility and if you're not challenged, you can hardly expect to excel at anything. Many people either are too comfortable with their lives or are in too precarious a situation to ever get to try. That's probably also why we so rarely hear about rich kids with large trust funds accomplishing anything meaningful.
- MaxfordAndSons 9y ago
  > That's probably also why we so rarely hear about rich kids with large trust funds accomplishing anything meaningful. Interesting theory... but could perhaps be due to reporting bias? The trust funded who do succeed are unlikely to highlight that fact when telling the story of their success.
mwseibel 9y ago
No idea - maybe another way to think about it is im really bad when these constraints aren't in place

abhikandoi2000 9y ago

Should one also do a startup, when a startup seems to be the only possible path to "see something happen"?

yousifa 9y ago

What does your data show regarding success rate for people like you vs those who build companies because of the need to have something exist? What are specific challenges you see in each case?

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agentultra 9y ago

> 1. The vast majority of startups are not successful This alone is why 90% of people will not choose to work at a startup. You will work long hours, for crap pay, and you'll be waiting in line if there is an exit. The odds of there being an exit worth anything to anyone other than a founder are small enough to not even worth considering. If you are a founder you're gambling on your chances. There are ways to mitigate the risk but there's no sure thing. Don't start a startup if you do not have the financial security to basically lose everything you put in. Don't start a startup if you have family that depends on your income. You could choose to eat ramen and sleep on the floor of a college dorm room. Your kids (and CPS) might not appreciate it. I agree the motivation is very important. I disagree that you cannot find the same motivation in a more stable organization (or can't motivate yourself). I recently finished reading, Extreme Ownership [0], and I bring that with me to work. People need to be responsible for outcomes: that's not unique to startups. You can also find that motivation internally and share it with your colleagues as you go. [0] https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs-ebook/dp/B00VE4Y0Z2/ie=UTF8&qid=1486489443&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs-ebook...

Swizec 9y ago
If you have the entrepreneurial itch and don't have the financial security to back it up, becoming a bootstrapped micropreneur is a great first choice. Start your business on the side, when it revenue is high enough to live on, make the jump. It's slower than a funded startup, but a lot less risky. Does come with a high social opportunity cost due to lack of time, however. But so does starting a startup. If your sidehustle does well, you can even leverage it later to fund your big startup idea. Or, hell, live a good life on a lifestyle business making a few hundred thousand per year. $150k/year revenue won't get you any headlines, but it's plenty to live on and run a solo business. Get to $500k/year and you prob have a higher expected ROI over N years than any startup founder. Disclaimer: my sidehustle is at the $50k/year level, but that's on 60 hours per month. If I didn't insist on living in SF, I could have a very cushy life back in Europe.
- el_benhameen 9y ago
  Thanks for sharing. I find stories like yours more inspiring and motivating than the "ramen to unicorn" ones. I have little interest in scaling a business to IPO, but I'm very interested in building something that holds my interest and lets me support my family and an enjoyable lifestyle.

nathan-wailes 9y ago

Great post! I love reading pre-company autobiographical accounts from successful founders, as I find it to be a great way to get ideas for what pre-company experiences might best prepare me to be successful myself. Some additions I would make to Michael's list for "Why to start a start-up": - As a founder you get a level of control over what problem you're solving that you'll rarely have as an employee. - You also get a level of control over who you're working with that you'll rarely have as an employee. - You also escape having your income determined by the market for labor, and instead have it determined by the market for your product. Those three things are very, very important to me, and I suspect also to many other founders.

fnbr 9y ago
Well said. I agree with you. Those exact reasons are why entrepreneurship appeals to me.
mynameisvinn124 9y ago
"- You also escape having your income determined by the market for labor, and instead have it determined by the market for your product." one of the most insightful comment on the concept of value ive read in my 34+ years.
cctan 9y ago
With your income determined by the market, you can scale big, not limited just to your own 24 hours and two hands.

keeptrying 9y ago

You shouldn't .

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rahimshamsy 9y ago

Is the desire to transform as a person a good enough reason? Very few endeavors are as challenging as solving a problem by building a profitable business around it, and having the pleasure of meeting and working with a variety of people.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
The problem is that you are entangling the lives of a lot of other people (your family at the very least, your co-founders, your employees, potentially your customers) in this quest for personal transformation.

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falcolas 9y ago

So, does "personal responsibility for [...] failure" really apply when there is a 90% failure rate? Seems like short of failing to execute, it's more a game of chance than something you can influence. That is, it's seems like its a lot like video poker: you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win. I would also think that getting into an industry with such a high failure rate would be terrible for someone who takes such personal responsibility for the outcome: most of the time they're going to consider themselves a failure. In the worst case, serial failures.

mwseibel 9y ago
"you can cause yourself to lose, but you can't make yourself win" - I like this - maybe I would restate this as "you can cause yourself to lose, but a lot of things outside of your control need to go right in order to win"
- porter 9y ago
  or as pg says if you don't want to die then don't quit.
- deleted 9y ago
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keerthiko 9y ago
Re: A high failure rate, it doesn't necessarily mean game of chance, it could mean a challenging game. I'd compare it more to darts: If 90% of dart throws miss the bullseye it could mean various things: * As you suggest, a game of chance with poor odds, ie 100% of people have roughly the same distribution of shots, landing only ~10% on the bullseye * Only 10% of people have the right confluence of skill, experience and a bit of luck to nail it ~100% of the time to make up for the 90% people who land it ~0% of the time. Secret society knowledge scenario. * Anything in between. It could be 20% of people who land it 25% of the time, and 80% people landing it 6.25% of the time to give you the same output. Some people have figured out some techniques, but can't quite master the challenging problem, and others seem to almost rely on luck. This is where I believe running a company lies. Taking responsibility is different from "being hard and critical of yourself". You can take responsibility and own failure without feeling like a lesser person, it helps to learn from it and improve (if you don't take responsibility and blame "luck", you have lower motivation to take anything away from the failure). It can be paired with the ability to retain self-confidence, inspiration and motivation while learning from your failures. This is the tenacity and refusal to die that I believe VC's talk about being seen in strong founders.

blizkreeg 9y ago

You should not start a startup. I like to think of it differently. It's semantics but I find that it aligns my thinking better. You should start a business if: - you are strongly driven _by the idea_ of doing business, i.e., at some point in your evolution, you become Walt Whitman. A business, which - solves a problem, makes a product, or offers a service, that - you think can you do better and make money while doing so, and - you would rather face the uncertainty of it not working out than be employed working on a thing you are not motivated by. You should not start a startup if things such as exits, raising VC, optics of running a startup, or some such affair is of primary concern to you. They should be in the service of running the business and serving its needs, not the other way around. This is not a script that applies to just some lifestyle, sustainable businesses, in the parlance of SV. This is the same script that even the largest, most profitable, and most impactful companies (cue the disruption adjectives) on the planet have followed.

CryptoFascist 9y ago
This! Especially the 'solves a problem or offers a service'. Any company without a viable plan to create surplus is a failure waiting to happen. It's why most startups fail... their purpose is to be a startup first, create a surplus if they luck out, or be flipped into a bubble market.
- timr 9y ago
  The key word there is "viable plan", and you don't know that you have one until you do it. Many of the biggest, most successful companies are pivots from some lame initial product. There are plenty of bozos who don't try to solve a problem or offer a service, but there are plenty of dead startups who did all of that and still failed.

tanilama 9y ago

The startup starts up because of money is often time uninspiring. It is a good thing that we have fewer startups like that. If you don't have a good problem, plz don't make a startup for it.

brucephillips 9y ago
It's impossible to know how many inspiring companies started with a primarily financial motivation. Every company has a bias toward telling a romantic, non-financially motivated founding story, so we can only have a lower bound.
WWKong 9y ago
Why so? What if I have an okay solution to a okay problem but see an opportunity to monetize the market gap and band together some folks to create a business around it? Does it have be "inspiring"?
mwseibel 9y ago
Our problem was how to create a reality tv show with Justin Kan wearing a camera on his head. Is that a good problem?
- justin 9y ago
  at least we were solving our own problem....
- brucephillips 9y ago
  Are you arguing that startups shouldn't ensure they're solving an important problem? Creating a reality show out of Justin's life probably wasn't an important problem to solve, but drawing some conclusion based on the successful Justin.TV -> Twitch pivot would be selection bias.

ensiferum 9y ago

Yawn. Yet another millionaire who lucked out dishing his share of "wisdom".

ashwinaj 9y ago

> I cannot promise that doing a tech startup will make you rich (in fact the odds are against you becoming rich), but I can promise that it is one of the most challenging things you can choose to do. It will push you past your limits, force you to learn faster, and maybe show you that once in a while the impossible is possible. Couldn't have said it better! Bookmarked, thanks for explaining it in simple terms. I find myself fumbling to explain this to my non-startup friends.

rjurney 9y ago

You shouldn't. Work in open source instead. If that project takes off, start a company. This way you benefit everyone instead of just yourself if you fail. Which you probably will.

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Mz 9y ago

He sounds twice exceptional -- gifted, but with some sort of learning disability or handicap of some sort. Twice exceptional people often appear to be "average" but find an "average" or normal life enormously frustrating. Because of having some sort of handicap, it can take a lot to get them going. Once they get going, they often outperform others. Life is vastly better for them when they can create their own niche because they simply do not fit in to normal societal expectations very well, try though they might. No insult intended. I fit that profile, as do both my sons. So, perhaps a good summary is if you are bright, but having trouble finding your niche, then starting your own company is a means to create your own niche. This is exactly what I have always told my oldest son. From an early age, it was clear to me he would not make a good employee. But that doesn't mean he won't eventually be successful. He just needs to grow his own.

jansho 9y ago
Your posts always resonate with me, thank you, but I particularly need to hear this one. I will not call myself exceptional, but I often find fitting in almost impossible. Finding a niche and owning it is then survival! Although I'm very aware of the high failure rate with startups, I can't help but keep believing that I can do this thing. Sometimes though I am torn by guilt, that I'm such a snowflake, but I don't know, one thing I know for sure is that if I don't give it a shot, I will regret for the rest of my life. And that is much more unbearable.
- Mz 9y ago
  It might help to think of yourself as enriching the diverse ecosystem of humans in order to enhance life for all. In nature, monocultures are horribly vulnerable to disease and other problems. In contrast, diverse ecosystems mean that one creature's wastes are another's nutrients and many creatures can co-exist because they aren't direct competitors. They need inherently different things. Taking up some niche no one else wants means you aren't in competition with others and you add life to spaces that would otherwise be dead. There is zero reason humans should all strive to fit the same mold and many reasons to be horrified by the idea.

CryptoFascist 9y ago

This is nothing but a pitch by YCombinator to get rubes to work for pitiful amounts of money and likely fail, so that YCombinator can capture the vast profits from the few that succeed. It's YCombinator's business model.

steve918 9y ago
I'm not sure you are in the right place. Is 4chan down?
- CryptoFascist 9y ago
  I'm serious. It's literally YCombinator's business model. Based on rapid upvotes, quite a few others agree.
  - deleted 9y ago
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technotony 9y ago
I'm not sure you actually read this because it's pretty obvious that it actually tells many people not to do a startup and makes it clear that 'getting rich' or 'succeeding' isn't a very good reason for doing one. It gives three pretty clear criteria for starting a startup that most people won't meet- those that do might be worth considering it.
- spitfire 9y ago
  That's the sales pitch. "It's too hard, you couldn't do it." Same sales pitch as gym workout programs. "Are you man enough?" and many others. Create an artificial scarcity (a barrier to entry), weed out those who will ask questions. Ideally they're looking for people who seek outside validation - the sort of people who often become doctors or lawyers.
  - mwseibel 9y ago

desireco42 9y ago

Because I can. Also, bootstrap if at all possible. Independence can't be valued enough.

idlewords 9y ago

The casino explains why you should play dice.

justin 9y ago
reading comprehension fail

deleted 9y ago

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gaius 9y ago

The only way to win is not to play

jaypaulynice 9y ago

I like this post. I wish I really started a startup in college or right after. A regular corporate job turns you into a zombie and you become out of touch with reality especially if you're well paid and well fed. A lot of people are unprepared for the hard life. If anything, you'll learn more about life in 6 months than you will in decades. It's not just the technical stuff. You'll learn who your real friends are. Being broke and thinking you might go homeless will make you sympathize with the homeless. Co-founders will try to screw you. If you're married, you'll soon find out if your spouse really loves you or just the regular income. Fake people pop up everywhere trying to take credit for your hard work. I think a startup is akin to the street life without the street creds.

scottLobster 9y ago
As a counterpoint: My spouse's ongoing education is currently dependent on my regular income. Once she graduates it'll effectively double our collective income and hopefully give her her first good career. I'm not sure how I could sell gambling all of that on a 90% chance of failure even if I wanted to. Sounds like the act of a gambling addict. Also, if you need to gamble your family's livelihood to find out if your spouse really loves you or not, why are you married? Similar sentiment for your friends. Being able to sympathize with the homeless sounds like a horrible return for sacrificing your livelihood. Dealing with backstabbing co-founders doesn't sound all that educational, just miserable. Fake people are a thing in all walks of life. I don't come from the rosiest background in the world, I've had enough severe instability and drama forced upon me in the past to know there's nothing romantic about it. It should be avoided unless there's a tangible payoff, and certainly greater than a 10% chance of success. My regular corporate job is currently giving me a stable platform upon which I can save, build up my household and consider launching a business on my own terms. It's also giving me valuable professional experience as I see how a large company ships product. I'm so glad I didn't go the startup route straight out of college, I've learned so much about business on the job that my engineering degree never remotely touched. It's hardly my dream job but I don't dread my work, nor do I feel like a zombie. In 10 years I'll likely have enough saved up to seriously consider my own business, and enough contacts/professional clout to go back to regular work if it fails. I'll also have 10 more years of business experience to draw on, likely from at least 2 more companies. Why do a startup now, or God forbid right when I graduated, when I have/had the fewest resources and the fewest advantages?

taurath 9y ago

I do find it rather hilarious that he dropped interest in yale for being too academic, but during my (failed) interview as a web developer at Twitch about 5 years ago, the questioning had to do with only academic subjects like graph traversal algorithms - they proudly stated when I applied that 90% of their employees come from an Ivy league background. Here's who I think should start a startup: - People with the backing of their families and resources to get into Yale and every other college other than Harvard (thank god!), and have the means that failure is not so much of a risk. - People who really need to do this thing, and can maintain their passion and drive and make it the largest part of their lives. And if that thing requires a lot of money to do, the ability to raise money, or already have money. Both of the above need to be able to physically and mentally handle the 90% failure chance. The author clearly could.

aaron-lebo 9y ago
You don't need money to start a startup. It is only startup culture which emphasizes it. When you've got nothing, you don't have anything to risk, so those people without resources but with drive are as good a place as any. My friends and I are working on something in the garage. It might not turn into anything, but when you only make 40k a year, it doesn't take much to be really successful. The thought of making an extra 20k a year is life changing for me and my friends. For a lot of people with great jobs or who are used to wealth, making less than 120k a year is a sacrifice. That's a huge disadvantage, and it becomes even more so when your entire company is filled with people like that.
- albertgoeswoof 9y ago
  What are you making in a garage?
- imhoguy 9y ago
  You don't spend money but you spend your other precious resource which is your private time. With money you can leverage a project by buying somebody else time (employee, partner). Such may be not 1:1 comparison of your own dedication but with fair equity and good match you may get similar drive.

TheAlchemist 9y ago

Very interesting post ! The 3 questions really resonate with me. Usually when talking startups, people talk about changing the world, having and impact etc. Your take seems much more personal, and also that's the way I feel it (although I can't explain that to me rationally). The 3rd is so true - in big corps, you think you're responsible for this and that because you're the tech lead, project manager or whatever. But most of the time, that's not really true - nothing bad will happen to you if you don't deliver. When you're starting a startup you suddenly realize what personal responsibility means. Anyway, thanks for a great post !

carsongross 9y ago

Here is a practical reason to start a startup: You are married to someone who makes enough money to push your marginal tax rate on income to the point (it can hit 55%+ in places like CA) that you might as well take a flier on a startup rather than pulling a W4.

crb002 9y ago

Garage. It worked for Apple, Google, and HP.

throw4141 9y ago

I've tried to start a startup, 2 times. I failed both times. And now I have 0 money left, the family that cannot help me, I don't have a job and can't find one and thankfully I have some friends that are giving me a place to sleep. Should I start another startup? I wish. Will I do it? I don't know how. I wish I had a magic idea and some people to invest in it, but not living in the Valley and not having a clue on how to find great ideas I'm kinda stuck. I'm already looking for a job, the problem is that I have the fear that the more I wait for the next startup and the more it'll be harder to build a product from scratch because the expectation from all markets will be higher. Ideas?

jventura 9y ago
I'm just a random guy on the internet, but I would suggest you to fix your life first and then remember the hard lessons you (should) have learned on your two failures if you decide to do it again..
xiaoma 9y ago
I'd get a job and go the more conservative "sidehustle" bootstrapping route of making a site or YouTube channel and then selling something for money. Stay focused on your job and don't quit until a sidehustle has momentum. If you have no idea what to sell then just teach everything you know (about one topic), try to make something useful for people and make it in public (e.g sharing your progress on your blog or YT channel). Worst case scenario, you'll have a job, be saving money and build a small audience / reservoir of credibility. Also maybe start hanging out on Indie Hackers instead of here. Edit: as the sibling commenter said, get your life in order. That's number one. Until you find a job and can cover your rent, don't even spend time on news aggregators. I wouldn't worry too much about timing to be a founder. Everyone feels like they're too late and they've missed all the opportunities but there's always a next big thing. Keep your spirits up!

nnd 9y ago

> Do I seek the hard challenges that most people shy away from? Arguably, you can find much harder challenges working for a bigco, at least when it comes to engineering challenges. Also, surprisingly one of the biggest factors involved when it comes to starting a startup is not mentioned: idea itself.

mwseibel 9y ago
Engineering challenges I certainly agree. Life challenges though? I think we can have a good argument about that one.
- nnd 9y ago
  No argument here, I totally agree.

sna1l 9y ago

"About 2 months after being kicked out of school I suddenly felt pissed off again. I realized that my school, some of my friends, and even some of my family members thought I would never graduate from college. My motivation came back instantly." -- this passage seemed kinda weird to me. Seems like he got his motivation back due to spite? His 3 questions at the end also seem to point to him having a chip on his shoulder.

graycat 9y ago

For someone considering a startup, again, once again, yet again, over again, one more time, the probability of being successful in a startup, say, estimated from all the startup efforts, is at best useless and otherwise misleading and, thus, worse. Instead, what matters for an estimate is the conditional probability of success given other information. It's quite possible for the probability of success to be quite low but the conditional probability of success, given other facts, events, situations, etc. that hold, quite high. The OP's nice words about working in a big company are also deceptive. In fact, especially in technology, those jobs can be darned unstable, vulnerable, and short lived. If by then have a house mortgage, three kids on the way to college, maybe some kids who need some help like the author of the OP, getting fired at a big company can be one heck of a bummer. So, ASAP, while young and making good bucks in tech, look all the time for a startup opportunity. Maybe get one going in your house den, basement attic, garage, wherever. Pay attention to, learn about, at least dip toes into startups. Start small, don't invest more than pocket change, and LEARN. Then think of your kids: What are they going to do? Are they going to have to start all over, from zero, like the author of the OP did? Or, pay attention to a family with a good, stable family business (e.g., with a geographical barrier to entry and a very broad customer list), hopefully not much to do with anything unstable like tech, where the kids can learn the business and, thus, at least learn about business and, hopefully, later move into the family business. For having a good life, that can beat the heck out of anything can learn in political science at Yale. With high irony, my experience is that the families that can afford to pay full tuition, room, and board at an Ivy League college didn't go to an Ivy League college and, instead, made their money in small-medium business -- ran 10 McDonald's well, was the leading plumbing supply house for a radius of 50 miles, owned a lot of rental property, had a really good independent insurance agency going where they knew nearly everyone in town relevant to the business, etc. If want a child in law or medicine, likely it helps a lot for at least one parent to be in law or medicine. Startup? Really, in the US, for a full career, there really isn't much alternative but to do a successful startup. The question is not whether but how. So, learn how. If really know how and are determined, then the chances of success should be good, not bad.

jondubois 9y ago

Building a successful tech startup is easy but extremely unlikely.

seddona 9y ago

"there is a certain type of person who only works at their peak capacity when there is no predictable path to follow, the odds of success are low, and they have to take personal responsibility for failure (the opposite of most jobs at a large company)." I have never really stopped to consider my own motivations for doing a startup but this sums it up. Do a startup because you have to, not because you want to.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

andkon 9y ago

I'd like to fill out the "maybe" part of his "If you answer yes three times, then maybe starting a startup is for you" bit. I answer a very strong yes to all three of those. Always have. But a startup, despite my always having worked in them and run one of my own for three years, was resolutely not a good idea for me. It took a lot of self-discovery to see myself not as an entrepreneur, but as an artist, and it's frustrating, because it sure took me a while to admit it. I spent all my time and money and effort trying to be successful as a startup founder, and expecting that I'd eventually feel the spark that I know can drive me. But now I look at the creative work I do on my own, even though I still have a full-time job, and I feel the same connection that Michael describes here, which I had chased for so long. The irony is that pretty much every idea I have uses the technical skills i built as a startup founder. But hey. Time to do what I always should have.

danek 9y ago
I feel the same way (though I never ran my own startup). On the surface it would make sense for me to start companies. I tick most of the boxes, but at heart I'm more of an artist. Maybe 10 years ago I'd be interested in spending five years of my life for a 1% chance of getting better returns than working for a regular salary. Also I'm no longer in my 20s, not independently wealthy, and most importantly I don't want the stress of being responsible for a company. But that's just where I'm at right now...
- Fifer82 9y ago
  You seem a little more confident than me but otherwise we are fairly alike. Maybe the desire comes later in life?
- nnd 9y ago
  To make it as an artist appears to be much harder than to create a successful business, at least from the outsiders perspective.
agogolev 9y ago
Thanks for your replay. What kind of art do you do and can I look at it somewhere online?

polpenn 9y ago

Okay! Let's do it! I want to start a start-up. What do I do?

mindcrime 9y ago
Read The Four Steps to the Ephiphany by Steve Blank, and The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki for starters...
- polpenn 9y ago
  Thanks! Noted.
- mindcrime 9y ago
  "Epiphany". Grrr... I hate that you can only edit HN posts for a short period of time. :-(
tr1ck5t3r 9y ago
Depends on you what you plan to do. You need to do the boring stuff, plan and research your products/services, identify trends which you can be one of the first to surf, or find new ways to offer the same for less in existing markets. Not everything is about cost, (think rich people buying bespoke or low production run highly innovative products or services), but mass market is about doing the most with less, economies of scale & efficiency. Some of it is also about building a relationship with the customer, you might be the best rock star hacker around but if you have no ability to be nice to customers with all that being nice entails, who will put up with you for long, so presentation and reputation can also be key if its not essential like choosing your electricity provider. If you plan on getting into mass market, look at your competitors, find out if the market share is dominated by a few key players with huge profits and see if you can undercut them by taking less profit, even when some global companies can offshore profits putting the country & country restricted business rivals at a disadvantage. If you come up with something innovative, novelty can also draw in new customers (think kids crazes like these fidget spinners currently, or yoyo's in the past) so look at ways to lock them in, either contractually or with reward schemes if you can even lock in a trend or craze! Look at ways you can get customers to market you where possible (brand awareness, bragging rights, trends & crazes), but some companies wont want to give away what they see as a competitive advantage which can make breaking into a market harder, things like trademarks, patents, manufacturing processes, but some patents can also be misdirection to hide what the real trick is. Some business adventures do not need a lot of money to get going with, think window cleaning business, but others do, like building an electric car or developing a new drug for some specific illness like a specific Cancer. You will also find, no company will ever admit liability which is what courts are for, but being able to recognise when a business is wrong and putting it right in the most cost effective manner to damage limit is also key. This is where some companies can and do fail, its usually ignorance of sorts which causes this, so recognising your strengths and weaknesses is also useful. What you dont know but need, can you bring in from outside the company at the right price? So hopefully you can see that there is a lot of work involved in starting up a business, and whilst you might be lucky and wing it on an "event driven" basis, tackling problems when they arise, you still need to be sure you dont get caught up firefighting all the time. If you do, bring someone in to do the problem solving for you whilst you concentrate on bringing the money in. At the end of the day its about getting the balance right, your time & effort for the money you get back. Get that wrong and your startup will fail quickly, get it right when considering all the other variables that exist which the above has just scraped the surface of, and you could go on to be quite successful, but its all about the balance between money & quality of life. Some people value security for their family over riches, which can be useful for choosing employees, so identifying who you may also choose to work with as an employee or contractor can also help. And finally, just remember everyone has an opinion, and they might not be right all of the time. Dont get your confirmation bias from family and friends, get it from those who hand the money over to you, but find the best way to put yourself in front of those people because it is just a numbers game.

embulldogs99 9y ago

It takes a certain person to say there is always a guarantee for success, a predictable path to follow, and no need to take personal responsibility at a large company.

embulldogs99 9y ago

It takes a certain kind of person to say there is a guarentee for success, no reason to take personal responsibility, and predictable path to follow working at a large corporation

gravyboat 9y ago

I would rather just run small businesses and side projects. Still a pretty high chance of failing, but if they do fail you still learn and it doesn't impact your bottom line that badly.

nurettin 9y ago

Why create a startup? Because you have a product and the development and marketing skills to persuade people to keep on using it. It's easy to get sidetracked with colorful terminology and complex definitions.

jokoon 9y ago

Didn't bill gates say something like "startups are needed, because you need failure so that some startups can succeed".

known 9y ago

When you can/will dismantle a "Pyramid scheme"

_ao789 9y ago

Fucking great post man. Really hits home.

sophiamstg 9y ago

Well, this is so motivating for a specific population, but I don't think majority thinks this way... after all paying bills come first..

quadcore 9y ago

I like it. Though I don't think that's the answer I would give. From my experience, I wanted to start a startup because it was like god himself gave me a mission. And I couldn't turn away from that responsibility. I fucking deeply cared about what I was gonna do. It was so much more important than everything else for me. I was freaking Frodo bringing the ring to mordor. So yeah, everything he said, plus the quest.

elmar 9y ago

Why Most Startups Fail and How To Avoid The Same Fate http://www.brianhonigman.com/why-startups-fail/ http://www.brianhonigman.com/why-startups-fail/

zentlim 9y ago

Good article. Yes. Yes. And yes. (1) Do I like being the underdog? (2) Do I seek the hard challenges that most people shy away from? (3) Do I thrive when I take personal responsibility for success or failure? The founders i've met have main two triggers. (1) they want to solve a problem that they have encountered personally. (2) they want more income for their family. But as the article mentioned (and from my personal experience and my immediate circle's experience as well), more money for the family is probably a large mismatch for building a startup. This write up articulates something very difficult to say very well.

raresp 9y ago

If you're asking yourself the question "Why Should I Start a Startup?" than you sholdn't start a startup.

jcroll 9y ago

> I cannot promise that doing a tech startup will make you rich (in fact the odds are against you becoming rich) Ok, so what path has the least resistance for getting rich for a skilled developer?

jerrre 9y ago
depends on your definition of rich
- jcroll 9y ago
  $1m/yr
  - globuous 9y ago
    If you want to remain an employee maybe some hedge fund / investment bank quants ? A (senior) partner at mckinsey ? something like that maybe ? But yeah, 1m/yr is hard if you don't own stakes in the business. And if you make that much as a partner at mc or EY for instance, it's because you have boughts shares of the firm when entering the partnership and that you've worked looong hours for over a decade. Maybe being super high up at big tech firms through earned stocks ? Well, once you've had a high position at a big tech firm, you can easily go into consulting / start doing conferences and start making real cash. But that'll hardly be before 35-45 years old I don't think.

eriktrautman 9y ago

A lot of replies are focusing on the outcomes implied by the OP's checklist -- if you answer "yes" on all, you'll be more likely to succeed financially. As a founder, I think it's far more important to focus on the journey aspects of it. Meaning, if you check the boxes, just maybe you have the mindset that will make you happiest when you're in the midst of all that hustling and struggling in the game. That mindset is what keeps you in it... if you're reward-focused, then you're going to burn out and lose direction. So let's reframe the discussion from "do you have what it takes to be successful in a startup?" to "do you have what it takes to love the sufferfest grind of each day along the way so the outcome is just a nice reward at the end?"

Windson 9y ago

This article got so many upvotes just because it's wrotten by Twitch's founder.

basic1point0 9y ago

I really like the way intellect is defined in this post. It's mostly persistence that guides you to success.