6 ms·

When should you start a startup?

31 points by davidbalbert 16y ago

orijing 16y ago
> You don't want to start a startup. I'd like to add "enough" to the end of this option: You don't want to start a startup enough. That's because starting one is just one of your many options--perhaps your current job is paying you a very comfortable salary. You have to compare starting a startup to your best alternative (opportunity cost), and see if you want it enough to justify giving up that alternative.
wpietri 16y ago
Excellent point. It's worth noting that there are a substantial group of people who say they want to do something but never find the time. Writer John Scalzi has an excellent response to that: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/09/16/writing-find-the-time-or-dont/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/09/16/writing-find-the-time-...
- sskates 16y ago
  "This is why I don’t have an acting career, or am a musician — because as much as I’d like those, I somehow stubbornly don’t actually do the things I need to do in order to achieve them." Being an entrepreneur isn't about sitting on a beach enjoying your millions, it's about solving lots of intensely hard (and often frustrating) problems.
jrsmith1279 16y ago
>As you age, you naturally accumulate things that will make >it harder for you to start your startup: a spouse, kids, >aging parents who need care, an expensive lifestyle, a >career, respectability. I have to say I completely agree with this. I'm only 31 and finding it hard to take on much risk given the fact that my family relies on my income very heavily. This leaves me trying to spend time in the evenings and weekends to work a B2B SaaS product idea that I have. I've thought about paying another developer to write it, but it's an app that's targeted towards the IT Services/Managed Services industry and writing it requires some background knowledge of that industry.
- karolist 16y ago
  Sounds like you need a technical co-founder, in this case - someone who's technical and believes in your idea enough to put time developing for it.
  - jrsmith1279 16y ago
    I agree and I've tried that route a bit, but I've had a little bit of trouble conveying the idea to someone else in order to get them to believe in it. I've found that I really need to create a mockup if I'm going to go that route and I just haven't taken the time to do that yet. I also live in an area that's not rich in technical-minded people (Waco, Texas), much less developers. So finding someone locally is almost surely out of the question.
- dutchrapley 16y ago
  There are no excuses. If the it is important and matters, you will always find a way. If you have the know how, start by spending 30 minutes a day on it. Get up 30 minutes earlier. Pack your lunch and work on it then. Small steps are important. Try to make time daily. You're in the process of discovering a product. When you close your eyes, can you see yourself using this product? Do have this feeling that you're using it as if it already exists? Do you find yourself constantly thinking about it? Hiring developers can be toxic - they'll certainly be able bill hours for building features, but would they be able to help you discover your product?
  - jrsmith1279 16y ago
    Not sure why people down voted your comments. I agree with what you're saying and I appreciate the feedback. I work for an IT Services provider as a Level II technician and I am in charge of providing a certain service to our clients on a daily basis. To administer this service I have to take time out of my normal routine of working tickets and sometimes I find it hard to find the time to do that. My app would make administering this service easier for me, but it would also allow me to pass the duties down to a Level I tech who isn't as busy with working tickets. There's not a product on the market that does this and I believe that the market is huge as far as IT Services providers goes. Writing this app is all I can think about. I think about it before I go to sleep every night, I think about it in the shower, I think about it all day at work. I don't think it'll make me rich, but that's really not my goal anyways. It's more about contributing to the industry that I work in to make life easier for techs like myself. I sort of agree with your thoughts on hiring developers, but I have to believe that this isn't the case with all developers. I think it's possible to find a developer to work with me instead of for me and in that case I think they'd play a key role in the discovery of the product.
nir 16y ago
I think the author misses the major argument, which is "I have to make rent". Most startups never get to the point of making a profit. This is why now isn't generally a good time to start a company (unless you are able to raise substantial investment). Now is a great time to get a job at a funded startup, save money, learn skills, make friends - once the bubble pops you'd have the basic ingredients to start your own thing (and - possibly - without a job anyway, so have nothing to lose)
- shazow 16y ago
  I would say that falls under "I have debt." Perhaps better phrased is "I can't afford to bootstrap." At the very least, it limits your options in terms of what kind of startup path you take. If you can't afford to bootstrap, then your only options are either working around a fulltime gig or trying to raise money out the door (from investors or friends/family or loan).
- nicholasjbs 16y ago
  This works well assuming you're disciplined about it. When I graduated, I knew I wanted to start my own startup, but I planned on bootstrapping and needed money. I worked two years exactly, living cheaply and saving as much as I could. My job was comfortable and I really loved it. It would have been very easy to stay. The advice to start "now" is really a reminder that if your answer is always "tomorrow," you'll never get started.
  - karolist 16y ago
    So.. I assume you did start a startup eventually? EDIT: nevermind, looks like you're co-founder with OP.
    - nicholasjbs 16y ago
      Yes. I quit my job last year to start up (and OP is my cofounder).
  - nir 16y ago
    I'm not sure discipline has any place here at all. If there aren't 10 moments every day in your corporate job when you wish you were in a startup and could do things your way, then you probably wouldn't enjoy being in a startup anyway.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
edw519 16y ago
I know OP means well, but there's one piece of advice that's exactly the opposite of my experience. First he says: There is very little you will learn in your current job...that will make you better at starting your own startup. Then: Good ideas only come through trial and error. Both are terrible advice. There is a whole universe of things you can learn in your current job: technique, experience, exposure to different ideas (in practice, not in theory), how to manage projects, how to deal with people, what to look out for in real world situations, and the two most important things: what NOT to do and what people need. I can think of no better way to get good actionable ideas for a startup than from one's job. And for many aspiring entrepreneurs, having a job and learning a few of these things is the single biggest missing piece in their bag of personal assets. If you have a great idea and the wherewithal to start a business, then by all means go for it when you're ready. In the meantime, there's nothing wrong with having a job; it's probably the best thing you could be doing until you're ready.
- karolist 16y ago
  That depends totally on the job. If it's a well paid megacorp job - very safe, but far from something that might spring ideas in your head, you're locked in a little corner doing your thing. Only in small companies the business side of things is transparent enough for the technical people.
  - edw519 16y ago
    If it's a well paid megacorp job - very safe, but far from something that might spring ideas in your head, you're locked in a little corner doing your thing. Only in small companies the business side of things is transparent enough for the technical people. This is exactly the opposite of my experience. The bigger the company, the bigger the problems, in both number and size. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I have worked in many "megacorps" and you'd probably be stunned by the extent of their needs and their difficulty getting them fulfilled. I have hundreds of ideas accumulated over years of enterprise programming that I'll probably never have time to get to. Sometimes I think it would be a great idea to put a tiger team of hungry programmers together with the right enterprise users. But since that rarely happens from within, attacking their problems from the outside is still probably the best approach.
arihelgason 16y ago
Good post. I did my first startup straight out of college, which was great for a couple of reasons. - I was used to living off very little. I didn't develop expensive tastes fueled by a regular paycheck. It helped that I could live at home while bootstrapping. My opportunity cost was getting an entry level job somewhere for decent pay. - I was used to managing my own time and being disciplined about work schedules. This was helped by attending university in the UK where we had 6 hours' obligatory classes per week or less. The rest was optional lectures and self study time.
- davidbalbert 16y ago
  Totally forgot about this point. Starting up right out of college is great because you know how to live like a college student :).
gamble 16y ago
An even better question would be 'what are you willing to give up to start a startup?'. On most measures (experience, contacts, etc) you're better waiting a few years before starting. The trick is that people tend to accumulate personal and financial obligations during that time that make a startup a much bigger sacrifice. If you end up on the spouse->house->kids->midlife-crisis-at-45 track before starting, you'll have a very hard time changing direction.
kirpekar 16y ago
I have had enough of people preaching startup advice. When should you start a startup? When the hell you want to. You have a family, You have a mortgage, You have an aunt that left you $1M, You have no left arm, You are dyslexic, whatever. Just start the damn company when you want to. At some point, stop wasting time on what other people think and think for yourself.
acconrad 16y ago
I agree with the debt reason. I personally want to make sure that if the ship goes down, I'm not stuck with inescapable student loans. Live cheaply, pay off your debts...then you have nothing holding you down from doing what you want!
EricKennedy 16y ago
So true. To all of the people who think you will learn something at a big company, how many of you have founded a startup? Did the processes that you learned at a big company help you run that startup? One of the reasons I decided not to pursue my idea for a Dropbox-like system in 2002 was because I thought I would actually learn something if I took a job at a profitable web commerce company. (See http://erickennedy.org/great-idea-before-Dropbox http://erickennedy.org/great-idea-before-Dropbox the full story.) The only thing I learned at Expedia.com was how hard it is for publicly-traded companies to innovate if it has any threat on their existing business model. They were unwilling to allow their customers to write hotel reviews because they feared it would anger hotel suppliers. They paid advertising to TripAdvisor as it grew that business and only later acquired it. It was pointless innovate within Expedia -- even the CEO (Rich Barton) couldn't get the teams to add reviews. Worse, I bought a condo and a car with debt at Expedia and no longer had the flexiblity to bootstrap a startup. Don't make that mistake. It's fine if you're working at a big company to build up a cushion to start your business, but don't believe that their processes are right for a startup.

31 points by davidbalbert 16y ago

> You don't want to start a startup. I'd like to add "enough" to the end of this option: You don't want to start a startup enough. That's because starting one is just one of your many options--perhaps your current job is paying you a very comfortable salary. You have to compare starting a startup to your best alternative (opportunity cost), and see if you want it enough to justify giving up that alternative.

wpietri 16y ago

Excellent point. It's worth noting that there are a substantial group of people who say they want to do something but never find the time. Writer John Scalzi has an excellent response to that: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/09/16/writing-find-the-time-or-dont/ http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/09/16/writing-find-the-time-...

sskates 16y ago
"This is why I don’t have an acting career, or am a musician — because as much as I’d like those, I somehow stubbornly don’t actually do the things I need to do in order to achieve them." Being an entrepreneur isn't about sitting on a beach enjoying your millions, it's about solving lots of intensely hard (and often frustrating) problems.

jrsmith1279 16y ago

>As you age, you naturally accumulate things that will make >it harder for you to start your startup: a spouse, kids, >aging parents who need care, an expensive lifestyle, a >career, respectability. I have to say I completely agree with this. I'm only 31 and finding it hard to take on much risk given the fact that my family relies on my income very heavily. This leaves me trying to spend time in the evenings and weekends to work a B2B SaaS product idea that I have. I've thought about paying another developer to write it, but it's an app that's targeted towards the IT Services/Managed Services industry and writing it requires some background knowledge of that industry.

karolist 16y ago
Sounds like you need a technical co-founder, in this case - someone who's technical and believes in your idea enough to put time developing for it.
- jrsmith1279 16y ago
  I agree and I've tried that route a bit, but I've had a little bit of trouble conveying the idea to someone else in order to get them to believe in it. I've found that I really need to create a mockup if I'm going to go that route and I just haven't taken the time to do that yet. I also live in an area that's not rich in technical-minded people (Waco, Texas), much less developers. So finding someone locally is almost surely out of the question.
dutchrapley 16y ago
There are no excuses. If the it is important and matters, you will always find a way. If you have the know how, start by spending 30 minutes a day on it. Get up 30 minutes earlier. Pack your lunch and work on it then. Small steps are important. Try to make time daily. You're in the process of discovering a product. When you close your eyes, can you see yourself using this product? Do have this feeling that you're using it as if it already exists? Do you find yourself constantly thinking about it? Hiring developers can be toxic - they'll certainly be able bill hours for building features, but would they be able to help you discover your product?
- jrsmith1279 16y ago
  Not sure why people down voted your comments. I agree with what you're saying and I appreciate the feedback. I work for an IT Services provider as a Level II technician and I am in charge of providing a certain service to our clients on a daily basis. To administer this service I have to take time out of my normal routine of working tickets and sometimes I find it hard to find the time to do that. My app would make administering this service easier for me, but it would also allow me to pass the duties down to a Level I tech who isn't as busy with working tickets. There's not a product on the market that does this and I believe that the market is huge as far as IT Services providers goes. Writing this app is all I can think about. I think about it before I go to sleep every night, I think about it in the shower, I think about it all day at work. I don't think it'll make me rich, but that's really not my goal anyways. It's more about contributing to the industry that I work in to make life easier for techs like myself. I sort of agree with your thoughts on hiring developers, but I have to believe that this isn't the case with all developers. I think it's possible to find a developer to work with me instead of for me and in that case I think they'd play a key role in the discovery of the product.

nir 16y ago

I think the author misses the major argument, which is "I have to make rent". Most startups never get to the point of making a profit. This is why now isn't generally a good time to start a company (unless you are able to raise substantial investment). Now is a great time to get a job at a funded startup, save money, learn skills, make friends - once the bubble pops you'd have the basic ingredients to start your own thing (and - possibly - without a job anyway, so have nothing to lose)

shazow 16y ago
I would say that falls under "I have debt." Perhaps better phrased is "I can't afford to bootstrap." At the very least, it limits your options in terms of what kind of startup path you take. If you can't afford to bootstrap, then your only options are either working around a fulltime gig or trying to raise money out the door (from investors or friends/family or loan).
nicholasjbs 16y ago
This works well assuming you're disciplined about it. When I graduated, I knew I wanted to start my own startup, but I planned on bootstrapping and needed money. I worked two years exactly, living cheaply and saving as much as I could. My job was comfortable and I really loved it. It would have been very easy to stay. The advice to start "now" is really a reminder that if your answer is always "tomorrow," you'll never get started.
- karolist 16y ago
  So.. I assume you did start a startup eventually? EDIT: nevermind, looks like you're co-founder with OP.
  - nicholasjbs 16y ago
    Yes. I quit my job last year to start up (and OP is my cofounder).
- nir 16y ago
  I'm not sure discipline has any place here at all. If there aren't 10 moments every day in your corporate job when you wish you were in a startup and could do things your way, then you probably wouldn't enjoy being in a startup anyway.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

edw519 16y ago

I know OP means well, but there's one piece of advice that's exactly the opposite of my experience. First he says: There is very little you will learn in your current job...that will make you better at starting your own startup. Then: Good ideas only come through trial and error. Both are terrible advice. There is a whole universe of things you can learn in your current job: technique, experience, exposure to different ideas (in practice, not in theory), how to manage projects, how to deal with people, what to look out for in real world situations, and the two most important things: what NOT to do and what people need. I can think of no better way to get good actionable ideas for a startup than from one's job. And for many aspiring entrepreneurs, having a job and learning a few of these things is the single biggest missing piece in their bag of personal assets. If you have a great idea and the wherewithal to start a business, then by all means go for it when you're ready. In the meantime, there's nothing wrong with having a job; it's probably the best thing you could be doing until you're ready.

karolist 16y ago
That depends totally on the job. If it's a well paid megacorp job - very safe, but far from something that might spring ideas in your head, you're locked in a little corner doing your thing. Only in small companies the business side of things is transparent enough for the technical people.
- edw519 16y ago
  If it's a well paid megacorp job - very safe, but far from something that might spring ideas in your head, you're locked in a little corner doing your thing. Only in small companies the business side of things is transparent enough for the technical people. This is exactly the opposite of my experience. The bigger the company, the bigger the problems, in both number and size. It may seem counter-intuitive, but I have worked in many "megacorps" and you'd probably be stunned by the extent of their needs and their difficulty getting them fulfilled. I have hundreds of ideas accumulated over years of enterprise programming that I'll probably never have time to get to. Sometimes I think it would be a great idea to put a tiger team of hungry programmers together with the right enterprise users. But since that rarely happens from within, attacking their problems from the outside is still probably the best approach.

arihelgason 16y ago

Good post. I did my first startup straight out of college, which was great for a couple of reasons. - I was used to living off very little. I didn't develop expensive tastes fueled by a regular paycheck. It helped that I could live at home while bootstrapping. My opportunity cost was getting an entry level job somewhere for decent pay. - I was used to managing my own time and being disciplined about work schedules. This was helped by attending university in the UK where we had 6 hours' obligatory classes per week or less. The rest was optional lectures and self study time.

davidbalbert 16y ago
Totally forgot about this point. Starting up right out of college is great because you know how to live like a college student :).

gamble 16y ago

An even better question would be 'what are you willing to give up to start a startup?'. On most measures (experience, contacts, etc) you're better waiting a few years before starting. The trick is that people tend to accumulate personal and financial obligations during that time that make a startup a much bigger sacrifice. If you end up on the spouse->house->kids->midlife-crisis-at-45 track before starting, you'll have a very hard time changing direction.

kirpekar 16y ago

I have had enough of people preaching startup advice. When should you start a startup? When the hell you want to. You have a family, You have a mortgage, You have an aunt that left you $1M, You have no left arm, You are dyslexic, whatever. Just start the damn company when you want to. At some point, stop wasting time on what other people think and think for yourself.

acconrad 16y ago

I agree with the debt reason. I personally want to make sure that if the ship goes down, I'm not stuck with inescapable student loans. Live cheaply, pay off your debts...then you have nothing holding you down from doing what you want!

EricKennedy 16y ago

So true. To all of the people who think you will learn something at a big company, how many of you have founded a startup? Did the processes that you learned at a big company help you run that startup? One of the reasons I decided not to pursue my idea for a Dropbox-like system in 2002 was because I thought I would actually learn something if I took a job at a profitable web commerce company. (See http://erickennedy.org/great-idea-before-Dropbox http://erickennedy.org/great-idea-before-Dropbox the full story.) The only thing I learned at Expedia.com was how hard it is for publicly-traded companies to innovate if it has any threat on their existing business model. They were unwilling to allow their customers to write hotel reviews because they feared it would anger hotel suppliers. They paid advertising to TripAdvisor as it grew that business and only later acquired it. It was pointless innovate within Expedia -- even the CEO (Rich Barton) couldn't get the teams to add reviews. Worse, I bought a condo and a car with debt at Expedia and no longer had the flexiblity to bootstrap a startup. Don't make that mistake. It's fine if you're working at a big company to build up a cushion to start your business, but don't believe that their processes are right for a startup.