16 ms·

I Don't Want to Be a Founder

• cryptoz 6y ago
  Reacting mostly to the ending/conclusion here. I don't know about other founders, but for me, startups are basically the only vehicle for solving big problems that nobody else will/can solve. Often the reasons that (nearly) nobody else is trying to solve your exact problem are 1) it is risky/unlikely to monetize well, 2) it is hard, grueling, or boring work that may not even function right in the end, 3) might believe it to be impossible or not worth it. But if you have a big problem in front of you and you strongly believe it can be solved and should be solved, then what other choice do you have but to start a startup? There are lots of people (maybe myself? I dunno.) who feel strongly about solving a problem but also feel that they don't have "what it takes" to be a successful startup founder. I have a failed startup in my past. The failure process wrecked me for years, emotionally, socially, financially, the whole thing. I'm okay now, don't worry. But are there any other reasonable options for "trying to solve a big problem that is otherwise being ignored" other than starting a startup? I want to solve big problems I care about. I have that ego discussed in the article; often I find I do believe I have the right combination of things to solve a particular problem better than other people. So I feel like it is my responsibility to do it. But being a startup founder is hard and if your personality or circumstances aren't a good fit, then, what do you do? Just stay frustrated that the problem isn't being solved?
  • deleted 6y ago
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  • rckoepke 6y ago
    This resonates very strongly with me. Everywhere I work, I find really cool things to invent and business process improvements. Sometimes the biggest impacts these have are at the megacorps due to economies of scale. Often though there's so much friction, overhead, and red tape that it's impossible to get buy-in from team members and managers in the megacorps. This happens even in the best cases where everyone is open-minded and supportive. Sometimes large groups just don't have the excess capacity needed to re-tool. In large companies that don't have the best case cultures, it's nearly impossible to implement improvements or use any cross-team resources (human, physical or digital) to bring an invention to life. It seems you're absolutely right that a startup is your only option if your idea is a proposed solution to a problem that is outside the mission/domain of (your/any) current organization, and/or if any organizations which would be interested simply can't devote resources and time to developing, evangelizing, and implementing your solution. However, the risk involved in the process is so damned high. I love working in teams, whether at large megacorps, small contracting groups, or on my own or my friend's startup ideas. I don't love the "burnt relationships, heartache, debt, lawsuits, depression" (as 'irjustin phrased it elsewhere in this thread), that can be associated with startups. Some startups are well-positioned for co-operative mutual interest VC money (repl.it would be a strange thing to bootstrap). Some startups are fantastic for bootstrapping (Sparkfun/Adafruit), and many could probably succeed just fine doing either (mailchimp, bootcamp come to mind). Still others probably best operate via philantrophic arrangements (OpenStax).
  • throwawaygh 6y ago
    > startups are basically the only vehicle for solving big problems that nobody else will/can solve. Yeah the number of 6 mo. old "move fast break things" startups with top-candidate covid vaccines is staggering. What do those idiots who got life sciences phds think they're doing?! /s
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  • mdorazio 6y ago
    Going to disagree with you here. In many (I'll even say most) cases, being an executive or respected consultant at a large company with established resources, staff, and customers will give you significantly better opportunity to actually solve a big problem. The vast majority of startups are not, in fact, solving big problems. They are solving small problems for a small subset of people who need problems solved (usually yuppies) because those are the problems they are able to solve efficiently. What you probably mean is that startups are good at innovating a potential solution to a big problem. But this is an entirely different thing than actually solving it at scale, and is the reason many startups end up getting bought or acquihired before they do anything of large importance.
• imprettycool 6y ago
  Title should be: I don't want to take VC money and I don't think you do either
  • kipply 6y ago
    I am this close to changing it, this is very good
    • fermienrico 6y ago
      I like how according to Silicon Valley, a "Founder" is a person that has borrowed capital from VCs. I live in Silicon Valley and there are more businesses here that are not backed by VCs than otherwise. Tens of thousands of small businesses who work as hard as the top dogs sucking up to VCs, yet they're just businesses with owners, not "Startups" with "Founders". Some people still call Dropbox, Airbnb and Uber as "Startups". I am a little annoyed by this just like I am annoyed by buzzwords of today - AI, crypto (bonus points if you throw in the term - supply-chain), and of course, the new kid on the block - "Quantum". Do you guys not see this and introspect once in a while?
      • thecleaner 6y ago
        A "Founder" is someone who creates their own company with or without VC money. If VC money was a pre requisite then Jeff Bezos wont be a founder.
      • slap_shot 6y ago
        I hear this come up so much and it's just trite. I don't think anybody in Silicon Valley would say the _definition_ of a Founder is someone who takes VC money. All companies require capital to operate. All capital has a cost. In many high growth companies, the amount of time it takes to build a product and go to market has a significant effect of how much market share that company can acquire. Selling equity or taking on debt is how many companies can reduce that time and acquire more market share. It just happens to be that the companies Silicon Valley is most interested in are companies that have to raise capital this way, with very very few exceptions. Now more than ever, VCs will happily tell a a founder "your business is not a business that fits with the VC model well, don't raise VC money." The VCs who say that do not think the people they are are saying that to "aren't founders" - their business just doesn't need VC investment.
• irjustin 6y ago
  Dave McClure had a pretty aggressive talk about why not to do a startup[0] back in 2012 and it resonates with what's written here. Startups are hard and we love to parade those who made it, struck it rich, but the reality is the vast majority don't. It also requires a skillset/discipline/constitution that is very different than what most people want to do. In the very large group who don't make it, lies burnt relationships, heartache, debt, lawsuits, depression, even suicide/death. Which on closer inspection, the success group has a lot of the same traits. Only they made it out with IPO, sale, merger, self sustaining business to show for it. It is scary. It is hard. But to me, you won't know until you know. And if you want to know, the only way is to try. That is reason enough. [0] https://vimeo.com/15799330 https://vimeo.com/15799330
  • throwawaygh 6y ago
    Who is we, and who's paying for the parade?
  • mettamage 6y ago
    IMO, damned if you do damned if you don’t. Before covid it took me 12 months to find a job. I applied to 100 companies. Ironically, got a job during covid and the job is pretty relaxing compared to the job hunt. During the hunt I thought: society is kinda forcing my hand here. Also: a lot of knowledge workers have to work a lot of hours and keep on learning (e.g. doctors or programmers). To me, it feels much more like a pick your poison type of thing.
    • wutbrodo 6y ago
      > To me, it feels much more like a pick your poison type of thing. The way out is consistently living way under your means (if possible). If you don't live in poverty, this is likely possible in the general case; just pretend you make XX% less aftertax and voila, you have an %XX savings rate. There are non-monetary costs to doing this, but there are also benefits, and the freedom is really hard to beat. ...though I've heard that that doesn't apply to having a family. I don't know exactly this wouldn't generalize to having a family, but I don't currently have dependents, so this blind spot is likely the reason. The main thing I can think of is how expensive schooling is (via or not via housing prices), and the understandable desire to max out the quality of your kids' schooling (my mom took a super-shitty job as a teacher to get my sister and I free private school tuitions, with a bitch of a commute, until we were old enough to get scholarships).
• rickdangerous1 6y ago
  My take on this is: the only people who should become a founder are the people who can't bear the thought of not doing it. Anyone with less than "Give me libertly or give me death" levels of commitment should not even bother.
  • take_a_breath 6y ago
    This seems like an unnecessary barrier to new ideas and innovation. So many of the businesses we rely on started as simple hobbies or games.
    • rickdangerous1 6y ago
      But of course there are obvious exceptions
• sf_sugar_daddy 6y ago
  I'm not sure I understand the post, what's wrong about getting rich?
• conceptnotion 6y ago
  I think what most of us want is to be free of the tyranny of employment. And I don’t think founding a company is best way to mitigate that if you aren’t completely into it, you could just go become a freelancer or start a small services Center in your locality.
  • gkoberger 6y ago
    If that's the case, definitely don't start a company. Instead of being beholden to one manager, you're all of a sudden beholden to dozens... employees, investors, board, customers, etc. Being a founder is just a job.
    • chii 6y ago
      > Being a founder is just a job a founder has the power to make changes to his job. An employee doesn't. Even tho a founder is beholden to their investors, board and customers, the founder is also empowered (after all, he/she calls the shots). An employee is beholden to his/her manager, but cannot "call the shots" but simply takes orders.
      • eropple 6y ago
        > An employee is beholden to his/her manager, but cannot "call the shots" but simply takes orders. This is true only insofar as the value you bring to the company cannot be outweighed by the shots you want to call. If you are, for lack of a better term, that good (and while I have a dim view of VC-silly startups, the successful ones I know really are that good), that can be a very wide remit. It very well might be "wide enough," even, and it's worth considering.
      • deleted 6y ago
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      • AmericanChopper 6y ago
        This seems like a rather naive view to me (and one that I also used to have). As a business owner you are far more accountable to a far greater number of people than you ever will be as an employee. You have the authority to make more decisions, but it’s hardly a “whatever you like” sort of situation. Nearly all of the decisions you make will just be about balancing all the responsibilities you have to other people. As a business owner you might have more authority, but there are many areas where an employee would typically have more freedom. An employee has the freedom to leave all their work problems at the office and go home at the end of the day, or take a vacation. An employee has the freedom to leave the moment a better opportunity comes along. An employee has the freedom to only worry about the problems they’re specifically employed to solve. A business owner would not be expected to have any of that. If your primary concern is a greater level of autonomy at work, then you’d typically be better off seeking and employer who will give you more autonomy than you would be owning a business.
• deleted 6y ago
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• jarsbe 6y ago
  Why is it that starting a tech start up is seen as an uber difficult task often resulting in burnout while starting a business in a technical occupation such as electrical or refrigeration is (seemingly) less risque? Surely there are a plenty of opportunities where rather boring software can be applied to business problems. Does it always need to be a monumental technical accomplishment to create a success?
  • klodolph 6y ago
    It's the difference between R&D and other forms of labor. One tech startup might capture the entire market, but one electrician can't.
  • chii 6y ago
    starting a startup is not the same as starting a business. By definition a startup is a type of business whose business model is not yet proven. So you end up with 2 types of risks in a startup - the normal risk of starting a business (like the electrical engineer), as well as business model risk where the model may prove to be unprofitable.
    • andi999 6y ago
      Thanks. This is the most useful concept I heard so far.
  • esperent 6y ago
    If you're starting an electrical company, you're probably using off the shelf components and using tried and trusted techniques to install them. A tech startup is more closely equivalent to a company designing new electrical components. I wonder how many of those fail?
  • mdorazio 6y ago
    The difference is in the HN-style (and Bay Area) understanding of the word "startup", which is focused on hyper growth at all costs or bust. Starting a small business in something like HVAC is very different in that you typically start small, with relatively low ambition, and grow the business organically over a long period of time. The latter is definitely difficult and sometimes stressful, but not in the same way as when you have investors pushing you to bump your revenue up by 10x in the next year or gtfo.
• lacker 6y ago
  For me, the way I thought about it was a bit different. When I did YC I had already worked at Google for a while, and the question I was asking myself was less "do I want to be a founder?" and more "is starting a company something I ever want to try out, in a career that will probably span decades?" If you've had jobs you liked in the past, and you figure that you can probably find those jobs again, and you don't immediately need the big company salary, what is a startup really risking? The worst case is that you work on it for a year or so, it goes nowhere, and you go back to work somewhere else. You miss out on some money but you're going to learn something new in any case.
  • 8f2ab37a-ed6c 6y ago
    Same here. I wanted to know what it was like to have all of that responsibility on my shoulders. I felt like my career was moving at a snail pace within BigTechCo and I was capable of much more. There's no real risk in that situation, unless you're borderline destitute, have dependents who need you, have a serious medical condition that requires a high end employer to support you etc. Even if you fail, you will have learned many valuable skills and perspectives, and might get hired at your previous employer with a better title.
• gkoberger 6y ago
  I remember as I was starting my company, I reached out to a founder of a company you've likely heard of for advice. We grabbed drinks, and he practically begged me to not start a company, for my own sake. I thought he was a dick. But he wasn't wrong. Write down a list of why you want to start a company. I bet the list involves things like "building something nobody else has," "getting to program and design and do a bit of business-y stuff" or "freedom to work on what I want". That's only true when you start. Pretty soon, you're spending all day in meetings, and only a small portion of your time will go to the things you currently enjoy doing... and you'll feel guilty because there's something more important you should be doing. (Me? I'm currently procrastinating on an investor update, an H1B application and two performance reviews.) You'll spend more time writing emails than writing code. You end up bogged down in organizational issues, not dreaming up cool new features. Rather than having one boss, you now have dozens... investors, customers, employees, etc. Oh, and the rejection. The non stop rejection. Every single day, hour, minute. Investors, customers, employees, potential employees. It's not personal, but it sure feels personal. Even when things are going great, there's tons of little micro-rejections, non-stop. I wish someone told me that. It's really hard. I don't know a single founder who hasn't had relationship problems because of their company, or suffered from depression. Hanging out with founders is less like the TV show Silicon Valley, and more like group therapy. This isn't to say you shouldn't do it. But just be prepared for what being a founder actually entails. Talk to a few founders of medium sized companies about how they're doing. If you're still on board, then maybe you're right for the job. For me, I wouldn't change a thing... I love it. It's incredibly hard, but there's a reason I haven't even thought of leaving. If you're the same way, then go for it! But don't do it because you want to do it. Do it because you literally can't imagine not doing it. (If you're doing it now and things are getting hard and you need someone to talk to, my email is in my bio :) )
  • fancyfish 6y ago
    Do you think some of these issues could be ameliorated by setting out guidelines in the very beginning such as sticking to a simple business model, saying you won’t scale past a small size, and outsourcing business-related work to 3rd party services? Many engineers probably identify with your quotes about “building something no one else has” and “freedom to work on what I want.” I think many of us would find guidelines like that useful! Because to a corporate engineer drone like myself, starting something small like Pinboard sounds rewarding.
• sepranu 6y ago
  The commitment point is very true, and extends to employees and clients if you're in certain spaces and want to maintain a clean record in civil or moral court. The rest of these arguments seem like bad framing. From a certain school of thought, entire point of a startup is to leverage your risk taking ability relative to incumbents in the market and your economic peers. Working at a startup forces you to learn more, faster; and you're challenged by real market factors, not artificial incentive structures created by a large org or academic institution. You also wear a ton of hats that you have no access to early in your career at larger orgs or in academia. Hiring, management, sales, accounting, taxes, finance, product ideation and refinement, etc - early years at FAANG or medium sized orgs will not expose you to all of these. Even an experimental team that lets you play with cool technological toys. "Not being at school" is an silly way to describe, "4 years of school is sometimes a poor choice of use of the best risk-taking opportunities of a person's life". "Your VC is not the one at risk here" is a reason to avoid VC, subvert some of the incentives that VCs give you, or ignore a subset of the advice they they give you, not a reason to avoid risky ventures. It's important to note that the author here is an 18 year old and has no significant real-life perspective on either running a company or being part of a larger org. Nothing about that affects their ability to accurately pontificate on the pros and cons of running a startup, but there also isn't a lot of skin in the game or experience to back up that perspective. The bayesian prior here is negative. If you're partway through a uni degree or similar learning program, or an incumbent engineer at a small or large org, then you should look at starting or joining an early-stage startup as a great way to take risks that you will be less able to every year (because of increasing costs of living, commitments to a new generation of your family if you marry and have children, incentives to purchase real estate, etc). The payoff will hopefully be huge and will be distributed across potential exits, experience, and personal growth.
• caleblloyd 6y ago
  Title is a bit misleading, 3/4 of the arguments against being a founder in the article are conditions that may not apply. 1. Reliance on a co-founder is stressful 2. VC vs founder risk profile 3. Don't dropout to found a company I think these all apply more to the "get rich quick" approach and sure, I agree that is a bit of a moonshot. But instead of writing off founding, why not look at ways to mitigate risk? Complete an education, spend some years working in an industry, or start a bootstrapped company in a niche that you learn from the industry. Or any combination of those that fits your risk profile. And have an exit plan in mind, for either the success story or the failure. That solves the sense of self- a calculated business plan that didn't work out does not have to be devestating.
  • senojretep356 6y ago
    Yes, I always think working in business for a while is useful because you see so many inefficiencies that give you ideas. Like the guys that made millions on ski resort management software. Who knew that was even a thing!?
• aabhay 6y ago
  This article has such a strong mental bias towards the Bay Area worldview. It assumes so deeply that the two types of people in the world are VC-backed startup founders and engineers at top tier tech companies. This is so completely off. Many people (including me) decided to start bootstrapped companies that are profitable on day 1 (or soon thereafter), with richly rewarding work. Many folks literally can’t get a job because they have no marketable skills and their only solution is to create something brand new. Other folks just want to have a good story to tell about trying to change the world. It’s really in this small bubble that you can create an equivalence between tech founder and tech employee.
  • kipply 6y ago
    This is correct (am author), bad oversight. Opinions were only applicable towards the scope you described
    • aabhay 6y ago
      Hm okay, thanks for acknowledging! I guess the reason I had strong words for this was that the mental bias I observed is actually extremely pervasive among people here in the bay. In fact the first question I get about my firm is whether/how much I raised.
      • kipply 6y ago
        I'm afraid of Bay-Area-view-of-the-world-being-inaccurate sorta things, was kind of sad to see it in myself (though my scope was narrowed partially because my only experience was choosing between industry vs startup)
        • EchoAce 6y ago
          Please don’t feel like this article wasn’t useful to some people though even with bias; as a new entrant to the industry I liked reading it!
        • noelwelsh 6y ago
• mdorazio 6y ago
  Not really mentioned by the author, but my own experience is that you need to strongly consider the 80/20 rule for founders. If you start a business, you will spend 80% of your time doing the business things you don't want to do, and only 20% of your time doing the things you enjoy. What this means in practice is that if you want to start a company because, for example, you just want to build products without dealing with manager/team bullshit, you are going to have an awful time. You need to be very honest with yourself about your ability and dedication to do all the things that actually get a business off the ground, not just the things you want to do and imagine you'll spend all your time doing.
• rmason 6y ago
  You may not wish to be a founder if you believe the only way to succeed is to chase venture capital. If you value freedom over becoming a billionaire there's an alternative and that's bootstrapping. Plus your odds jump from under 10% to as much as 50%. If you don't quickly reach product-market-fit it's a short journey. Sometimes having that pressure early brings clarity to the mind.
• georgewsinger 6y ago
  > A lot of people claim that startups are less money, but I find for signicant number of founders, that's not true -- not because they'll definitely have a good exit, but because they're skilled in ways that allow them to raise enough money to pay themselves like they would at a big company. If that applies to you, then going to a startup probably is your best shot at getting rich! For other people, the expected value of industry (particularly joining a well-founded early-stage startup) is usually higher. I've never heard this before. Raising enough VC money to pay yourself a corporate salary (i.e. 6-figure or beyond) sounds like fraudulent use of VC money?
  • blackrock 6y ago
    Why not? You might be the CEO of your new wannabe company, but your landlord is still going to demand his monthly rent. Bills still need to be paid. It’s unrealistic to be burning through your savings, because you probably don’t have enough. And if you had enough money, you’d probably have self-funded your startup idea yourself, instead of having to deal with pesky VC investors.
  • Axsuul 6y ago
    VCs want founders to be paid a market salary so that they can focus on their startup and not be distracted with other shiny things.
• Mave83 6y ago
  I successful founded startups since 20 years, starting in the age of 16. In none of them, I founded together with partners that I realy trusted like I trust my wife. However we worked together on a professional level and figured it out everytime. Why could we do that? because in the end it is a work for roughly 5y and if you stop even thinking about working 24x7x365 you have enough free time for recreational activities. I'm on vacation around 6 times a year, but available to the company on critical stuff. Yes sometimes it's hard, sometimes you have so much work that even 24 hours a day wont be enough, but then again you need to focus on the important work and think about yourself. Btw I only did the bootstrap way with every company founded on 25k€ and no VC/Angle/Bank/External money and very low income in the first years (I hire people ASAP). As of today, in average over the last 20y this gave me more then 500k€ yearly salary with the exit money. Not bad and definitive much better than I would have had in in any Employment. For me it is absolutely no choice to be employed or working in larger companies. I want my own freedom :)
  • amzans 6y ago
    Thanks for the inspiring story. I’m guessing that the 25K€ probably referrers to a GmbH in Germany :) If so, would you say the GmbH/UG (Limited Liability Company) route is a good idea from the start for a solo founder of a bootstrapped SaaS? I’ve been doing my research and maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like it has quite a lot of overhead for a first time solo founder like myself. To clarify, I’m an expat in Germany, but I’ve even looked into setting up an LLC in the US or another limited entity because they appear more lightweight to operate than their counterparts in Germany. But then I end up in a complicated international tax situation. I’m not seeking legal advice, just wondering if you have any tips now that you’ve gone that path several times successfully. Cheers!
    • heipei 6y ago
      You can start out with an Einzelunternehmen (Sole Proprietorship) which means your personal finances and your "companies" finances are the same, but it's very little hassle and cost to set up, basically an online form and a few Euro. Then, when you want to grow your business, limit your financial liability, take in outside money or just better control the flow of capital you can set up a GmbH (don't bother with an UG if you have the €25k at hand). Bonus points if you think it likely that you'll sell your business you can set up two GmbHs in a Holding structure which has big tax benefits in the event of a sale. You still only need the €25k once in that case.
• satvikpendem 6y ago
  There are a lot of bootstrapped founders, actually the vast majority of them since the percentage of companies that VCs fund versus the number of pitches is tiny, so this doesn't seem that accurate. Just look on www.indiehackers.com for more info on these types of founders.
• raverbashing 6y ago
  I think the commitment aspect of a startup is mostly underrated by people Freedom? Closing the work laptop at 6PM is freedom. Not having to worry about office rentals, trash collection, bathroom cleaning is freedom. Fine, you could go WeWork for that, or just stay at home (aren't we all) but something will go off at night, or your future self will regret your past self decisions.
  • lazyjones 6y ago
    Are you confusing commitment with responsibility? If something goes off at night or if you have an idea and decide to put in a few extra hours at 6pm, it's an opportunity to do some work to improve things for the future of your project. You don't have to. Some people like such low-hanging fruit though. Office rentals and bathroom cleaning are responsibilities like those pretty much everyone has to deal with in adult life. They can feel like a burden if you have Peter Pan Syndrome, but are consequences of life decisions and not special commitments that need to be questioned every day.
• galaxyLogic 6y ago
  The value of starting a company is you can hope to accomplish something which other people have not. It is a bit like being an explorer finding new lands like Columbus. It is an adventure. But you might end up marooned. Whereas if you just work for someone else you accomplish some income. You can pay your rent or get a mortgage maybe even buy a sports-car! But you don't have real job-security and in the US you don't even have the security to know if you get fired you could still keep your health insurance. You are serving someone else's goal which probably is to maximize their financial profit. When you work for them you are their opponent. More for you is less for them. It's not full zero-sum of course but if they are the kind of person who just wants money they will view you that way, as somebody they can make money from. It's a game and they can win big, but you really can't. Your benefit is you learn things but after some years you start thinking you are wasting your life that way taking orders from some clueless greedy business-person. Just my feeling at the moment.
• blickentwapft 6y ago
  You don’t need a cofounder. You don’t need a VC/funding. You don’t need to over identify self with business.
• ThePhysicist 6y ago
  Mostly valid arguments. Founding a startup with a co-founder can be like being in a marriage, and there are a lot of frustrations on the path to success (or failure). That said, she doesn't seem to realize how privileged she actually is, having to choose between a high-paying job at a SV company or accepting to join one of the most famous startup accelerator programs... I don't think she does that on purpuse, just seems a bit out of touch (but then again this is HN so maybe not).
• nyxf 6y ago
  It is really a choice between wanting freedom while accepting the troubles that come with it or sitting under the shade of employment with the occasional bug bites. Most of all, I am glad that there is this awakening that one questions their situation and wants to change things up. That to me is growth. Thanks for sharing this.
• eastdakota 6y ago
  This made me sad to read. Not everyone should found a company. Frankly, in school, the people who annoyed me most were the ones who vowed to be an “entrepreneur.” Always sounded pretentious. But, as someone who has garnered wealth and happiness from creating something from scratch, I do hope we continue to celebrate, if not idolize, that. And, I hope, we remember the humble beginnings of Yahoo, eBay, Google, Dropbox, Facebook, AirBnB, Cloudflare, etc. Not everyone needs to be a founder to be successful. But I hope everyone will continue to believe they can be one. Not for themselves, but for what they can build for the world.
  • qeternity 6y ago
    Also, it’s a distinctly SV mindset that startups and entrepreneurs is this zero/hero dichotomy. The world is full of “moderately” successful startups that throw off a few million in free cash flow for a relatively small team. If I were to give advice to other founders, it would be stop building for an IPO/acquisition. Build for the middle ground, and take opportunities to step on the gas if you see them.
• bananaface 6y ago
  She misses the most important difference between owning a startup and owning a project in a company: actual ownership. You don't own the profits in a company. I mean, really?? Anyone can write articles like this. Be careful who you learn from.
• jake_morrison 6y ago
  I had a funny experience where a friend was trying to recruit me to be part of some venture. We met up and got in a car with another lady who he was trying to recruit as well, and he kept talking about it as if it was already a done deal that we were in. At one point, she and I looked at each other and were like "Excuse me. No offense, but I don't know who the hell you are." We didn't join his thing, but ended up starting three companies together, so we were compatible business partners. You need some time to get to know each other. I find it's better if you don't consider it like marriage, investing a lot of emotion in it. It either works or it doesn't, and you can leave as friends.
• bjornsing 6y ago
  I’m a former VC-backed founder and I liked the post, but this part made me cringe: > To be ambitious often means things like wanting to do a Ph.D, become a medical doctor or an astronaut. Why should it be considered ambitious to do a PhD or become a medical doctor. Those are just slogs that most people can get through if they stick it out... Something is very wrong with our cultural preconceptions around ambition. It’s like real ambition is now so taboo we can’t even talk about it or something... Can anybody explain it to me like I’m 5yo?
  • jackpirate 6y ago
    Those are just slogs that most people can get through if they stick it out... Most adults in the US do not even have a college degree. For their children, aspiring to be a doctor would be incredibly ambitious and an amazing accomplishment. Acknowledging that these high-prestige professions are very difficult for certain members of society to get into does not make talking about your ambitions "taboo", and I frankly find your comment incredibly out of touch with the average person.
    • bjornsing 6y ago
      Yea, sorry, I’m in Sweden so may have a different perspective. But you must realize that if a child says “I’m going to start a successful VC-backed company” then that’s a lot more ambitious than saying “I’m gonna go to medical school”, right? (At least if we by more ambitious mean “has a lower probability of success”.)
    • czbond 6y ago
      OP is simply meaning the steps are laid out for those disciplines - and one must follow the path. It just takes the time and effort and one can progress there. Whereas entrepreneurship is finding the path, along with much more - and failure is still a high chance.
  • float4 6y ago
    > It’s like real ambition is now so taboo we can’t even talk about it Both in the times of the Romans and in the middle ages ambition wouldn't often be talked about since it was seen as a negative thing. That's not what you meant of course, but I always find it funny how people today seem to think that ambition has always been a virtuous trait or something.
• switch11 6y ago
  Could someone please explain to me what the value in this article is? It's written by a 18 year old who has never started a company So, as someone who has started multiple companies and currently running a profitable albeit small startup, what insights should I get from this article?
  • spurdoman77 6y ago
    Can someone explain to me, what the value of metacomments like this are?
  • s1t5 6y ago
    Don't assume that something is completely useless just because it isn't targeted directly at you or because you have more experience or knowledge than the author.
  • abalaji 6y ago
    This comment really is not in the spirit of HN. I would not attack the age of the poster and rather attack the merits of their arguments.
    • Strom 6y ago
      Pointing out the age here is a low effort way of saying that this person is giving advice about things she doesn't really have experience with. Startup grind, big company ladder grind, marriage, university. Advice is given on all of these, but from what I can figure out from the website she only has minor experience with the startup part. It can be an interesting read to see how inexperienced people view these things, but mostly this seems to touch upon something the author mentions in the post - self-confidence. She seems to have a ton of it to be able to dish out advice (to 80% of prospective startup founders) without having done any of it herself.
      • senojretep356 6y ago
        This. I think there are elements of fantasy of what it's like to work at a big corporate vs. working 'for' investors. Also, I can't help thinking you'd learn a huge amount at YCombinator even if at the end of it you said, you know what, this isn't for me, you'd be doing it from a position of having actual experience that tells you that. She also mentions she'd prefer to work for a well founded early stage start up - I wonder where you can find those?
• jyriand 6y ago
  Not sure about being a founder. I rather be a entrepreneur and if that means that at some point i end up founding a startup, so be it. But the term “founder” seems like a unnecessarily limiting word and i don’t understand why it appeals to some people.
• gerland 6y ago
  Don't want to be a founder? Good, you don't have to be.
• ChicagoDave 6y ago
  Being a founder requires a bit of insanity or a belief in one’s self beyond the negativity that will be incurred by the effort. For many, the suffering is not worth any vision. For some, like myself, doing nothing is a greater suffering.
• jasonkester 6y ago
  It's refreshing to see somebody stop and evaluate what they actually want, rather than just doing what they think they people like themselves should do. Places like HN tend to come with the expectation that you should be building a company rather than working for one. That's a "thing you need to signal" if you want to be here. But watching discussions here, it's clear to me that most people just don't want to be entrepreneurs. And it's also clear that many of those people don't realize it. Pull up a discussion thread on an article about bootrapping a little SaaS company. You'll find all these people coming out of the woodwork to explain how nobody could possibly build a software business today, listing three or four reasons that those of us who have built SaaS stuff never even considered, never ran into, or addressed on the day it came up. It doesn't really matter what the reasons are. The important part is that Building A Software Company Is Impossible So Nobody (Inclucing Me) Should Try (Though Note That I've Correctly Signalled That I Would, Were It Possible). You'll get whole threads of people talking themselves out of trying, and congratulating themselves on not believing anything the author said because clearly his success was some fluke combination of luck and influence that could never be duplicated by anybody else. Meanwhile, people who actually are interested in building a business will nod along to some bits of good advice, maybe comment about some of the less good bits, then get back to building something. I wish it was more acceptable here to simply not want to build a business.
• holoduke 6y ago
  this is personal. doesn't apply to me. I founded my first company 10 years ago. now in my second company. I enjoy it very much. I am in contact with many happy founders.
• timavr 6y ago
  It is definitely hard and stressful, but when you have your own company, it is up to you to decide how you want to run the company. You don't have to have co-founders, you don't have to take VC money. You don't have to do anything period. It is your company, you run it and if somebody else wants to run it, they can either fire you if they have means to do it or buy you out.
  • rwmj 6y ago
    This is technically correct, and running a lifestyle business can suit some people. But running a business is stressful because at the very least you have to deal with taxes, accounts, cashflow and sales that are more complex than being an employee. If you take on even a single employee it's another level of complexity on top, and you have to make payroll every month without fail. For me at least it was better to do it for a few years with an exit in sight (in my case it went out of business, oh well!) rather than knowing that the stress of finding payroll every month would go on and on forever. And that means going for growth or bust, having a co-founder and all that.
    • Axsuul 6y ago
      To be honest, taxes, accounts, and cashflow are overestimated. There's plenty of softwar/services out there now to make this less painful.
• djeiasbsbo 6y ago
  I like the article but I honestly have never even stopped to think "should I create a startup?"... is that a common thing? Maybe it's because I'm still young or because I've never actually been in huge financial distress (which I realise is a privilege) but I don't have the desire to make a lot of money or sell my dream idea/company. All I want is to make enough to cover my living costs and in my spare time work on side projects, code or tinker around. You know, do things that are actually fun to do and allow me to learn new stuff. If I have an idea i'm very passionate about I'd like to just share it with others because they might find it interesting, not turn it into financial profit for me. Why is it that it's almost a societal expectation that you must always push to level up financially and professionally? In all honesty, I haven't even used my salary for more than rent and food in the last few months because there is simply nothing new that I really need... I haven't had to buy new clothes in at least three years but if I had to I could also do that cheaply at a second hand store; that's just one example. As for my hobbies, even on very dated hardware one can pretty much work on whatever the heart desires and learn, the only thing that is needed is an internet connection. Why is there always a desire not just to make the money invested back but to make a huge profit? I think in this field we have pretty good wages, now can't we focus on more pressing issues that concern us and future generations? I don't get it in general... I'm satisfied with what little I have, I don't need anything else because I can already do all the activities that make me happy.
  • zubspace 6y ago
    You're doing perfectly fine and I admire your modesty. Actually, on a personal level I feel the same. I need a notebook, a table, a bed and a roof and I could not be happier. But things change I life and with them your goals and maybe ambitions. I'm now reaching 40 years, have a wife and have 2 smaller kids. We had to move into a bigger house with more space. You also start to depend heavily on a car. I'm still a programmer like I was 20 years before, but now my priorities are different: I want financial stability. I want to spend as much time with my family as possible. I want more freedom regarding my schedule. But unfortunately work does not allow me as much freedom as I would like to have. I need to work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. I have a tight schedule and am not really free to shift around my work how I see fit. Well, the grass is always greener on the other side. If you are a founder you can reach financial stability much faster and you can organize your schedule (mostly) as you see fit. You can also increase your impact in this world if you run your own company. The big drawback is, that your workload will probably increase and you take on other risks in the process. (But these are things you can influence in one way or another).
• cheesecracker 6y ago
  I don't even want to work, but unfortunately food and shelter cost money. It's all a trade-off. Don't be a founder, but then you have to put up with crazy company politics, feeling of meaninglessness, having a boss, and so on. Personally I don't think anybody is entitled to a job, though. Hence my "I don't even want to work" statement. People have to do something to survive, that is just reality.
• enriquto 6y ago
  Using the word "founder" is ridiculously narcissistic when you are simply starting a business just like millions of people have done before. I try to stay away from people who call themselves that.
  • tdfx 6y ago
    Which word do you approve of? It seems like every terminology gets cliche at some point, but this is the first time I've heard of someone who has strong feelings about the "founder/co-founder" title.
    • enriquto 6y ago
      "Business owner" is neutral and meaningful. I guess "founder" is best reserved for writers of constitutions and the like.
• kissgyorgy 6y ago
  Your co-founder is not the same as with your wife, because you will spend MORE time with your co-founder than with your wife.
• christiansakai 6y ago
  Is software startup by solo founders still viable anymore? Today the age of apps/SaaS seems ending. It is oversaturated, and the low hanging (low technical complexity) fruits are already taken left and right.
  • nlh 6y ago
    This comes up a lot here. In short: * Yes, software startups by solo founders are very much still viable. * No, the age of apps/SaaS is not ending * It is not oversaturated either. There are ALWAYS new ideas to build, new products in demand, and new ways to make money. * It always seems like the low-hanging fruits have been "taken", because you've observed them being successful (it's a reductive argument). They probably weren't low-hanging when they were originally built - just in retrospect. Similarly, some of the app/SaaS ideas being built by solo founders right now may seem low-hanging in a few years. The crispest example someone once gave me for why the world never actually runs out of things to build (easy or otherwise) was: * New technical innovation A emerges (it can be anything - a new sensor on a phone, a new form factor, a new feature in software, a new API, etc.) * Product B emerges that cleverly uses innovation A. * Product C emerges that competes with Product B * Service D emerges that helps compare Products B & C Repeat ad infinitum... Unless you believe we've reached the end of the first step (no new technical innovations!), then we haven't even come close to running out of things to build.
    • christiansakai 6y ago
      That's really an interesting example. Thanks
  • Axsuul 6y ago
    Yes, all the low hanging fruit has been taken but why would you want compete on that anyways? Being a solo founder doesn't mean you can't solve hard problems. “You get paid in direct proportion to the difficulty of problems you solve”
    • adwn 6y ago
• thisisbrians 6y ago
  I enjoyed this article, but I think it glosses over a very important part of my (and my cofounders') own motivation for starting a company: vision. Sometimes you see or believe something that others simply can't or don't, and you want to do something about it. Trying to find a (usually narrowly-defined) job that lets you work on these things can be very hard because there usually has to be someone looking for solutions to these hard-to-see problems, and you sacrifice a bunch (more) of your autonomy in the process. Founding a startup is a great solution to this problem; convince some capital that you have deep conviction and competence to make a material change in the world and put in your own elbow grease to prove it. If you are willing to work hard you don't need very much money to amplify the impact of your own decisions and efforts and the snowball grows, attracting more resources along its path. It's still really hard to do, but founding a startup remains one of the best ways to prove out a hypothesis in the real world and achieve actual change, while still allowing for a decent income even in the event of failure. It is worth it if the mission is compelling.
  • jmschlmrs 6y ago
    "[..] while still allowing for a decent income even in the event of failure." How does this work? You're just taking enough of a salary as an early stage C[X]O/founder that your downside is limited?
    • thisisbrians 6y ago
      Essentially. At least enough not to accrue debt. In the event of complete failure of the startup, you'd still likely come out worse financially than if you'd taken a more traditional job (especially in tech). So there is, of course, still substantial opportunity cost — but the upside of success can be huge.
  • x87678r 6y ago
    > you see or believe something that others simply can't or don't, and you want to do something about it. It must be more than vision. I see things all the time that more others can't but I really dont have the time or inclination to start a company.
• terrib1e 6y ago
  I liked the article, but it just seems like a way to justify whatever self-doubts come from being a founder. It seemed like the author was just reinforcing the doubts they had about succeeding. A big part of being in a startup is belief in one's self. They said they became more confident than they thought was warranted through 'self-hypnosis' , but in reality that just means they had a ton of self-doubt and listened to that little voice of doubt in their head. Sometimes you just have to take a chance and realize that nothing is irreversible; you will learn from your failures/successes. You don't have just one chance, you have as many chances as you're willing to take.
• tylermenezes 6y ago
  I worry about the people who want to start companies. I think that's a terrible motivation that more often than not leads to failure (and drags others down with you). I have personally never wanted to start a company. I have seen something I've wanted to change in the world, and failed to find a way to change it without starting a company. Not starting a company would have been quite a bit less painful. I would 100% take that option if it were on the table.
• Areibman 6y ago
  Off topic to the content of the article, but this is a really slick looking blog! Is this a template or something custom?
• _curious_ 6y ago
  Interesting thoughts Carol, thanks for sharing. It's important to have this sort of conversation with yourself when considering the foundations of starting a company. The fact that you've expressed it in such a way that others can tap into may be valuable for those like you at or approaching this crossroads. Fascinating thought process! Not enough entrepreneurs/founders are able to have such a pragmatic and mature dialogue up front about the pros and cons. It's imperative that they do for the sake of their time and emotional well being - at the least. Kudos to you for going through it and making a decision which suits your needs. You've said: "Setting goals like working at a certain company, promotions (up to positions like CTO) and building a specific type of thing aren't less ambitious than building a successful startup." ... and I would ask you to elaborate on that, like is there anything more "ambitious" than building successful startup or how do you perceive the scale of ambition in the context of say business/professional pursuits? PS - I didn't know that hey.com was considered a "huge, groundbreaking" product...certainly captured some hearts and minds of the early adopter meets anti apple/establishment crowd but is it (yet) recognized outside of that bubble?
• loxs 6y ago
  Ugh, come on, for the vast majority of people, marriage and family are the best things in their lives. From what I can gather from the article, the author has neither been in a startup, nor in a marriage, yet they feel qualified to mentor people on both :-)
• ptero 6y ago
  I really liked the article which raises many valid points. You should not start a company without thinking those through. And have a cofounder who sees those in a similar fashion. On a flip side working for a large company has different challenges and limitations. They tend to be bureaucratic and have been moving in the direction of avoiding risk and increasing control over employees. Once this reaches a certain level, dancing to the HR tunes while in the straitjacket of 20 policies can get very taxing. Separately, I wonder why the 14-hour workday is the norm in startups. What would happen if founders try to get somewhere in four months instead of three and have a firm agreement between founders of "no more than 10 hour work days; at least one, preferably two days a week of no work"? It seems everyone agrees that "it does not work this way". Can someone explain?
• devmunchies 6y ago
  > The VCs are your "bosses" as you answer to them (though much less than a regular "boss") and to the ones you hope to raise capital from in the future. Isn't this based solely on the equity makeup? If an investor only has 10%, but me and my co-founder share 90% then what absolute power does the investor really have?
  • loxs 6y ago
    Investors' job does not stop with giving the money. Very often, on the contrary, they are the people who will help you with connections to next round investors, will help with IPO, etc. They will not do any of this if you don't do what they want :)
    • devmunchies 6y ago
      yeah i get that, that sounds more like a "partnership", though. I was mostly talking about the "boss" verbiage. An investor is only a boss if they have more equity or voting rights, correct?
      • loxs 6y ago
        It's partnership when things go as intended, it's "boss" when there are problems. Just make sure there are no problems ;)
• fourseventy 6y ago
  Don't tell me what I do and don't want. I hate articles like this.
• pier25 6y ago
  For me the main reason to try it is the frustration of having been working for 20 years as a freelancer or as en employee. In both cases I've been investing my time and blood in exchange for money. Then the money runs out and you start all over again, and again. I want to invest my time into something which hopefully can grow so that I can keep investing more of my time instead of just giving it away. I want to plant a forest that will produce on its own instead of having to plant and harvest again on each season. Freedom is another important aspect. I've been frustrated during my professional career with clients and bosses making the wrong decisions again and again and living with the consequences of those decisions. I might totally fail while building what I'm building (see my profile) but that's better than waking up one day and realizing I've wasted my life. Thankfully I'm in a position where I can invest a couple of years of my life without earning money and I don't have people depending on me.
  • jmchuster 6y ago
    i think if those are your motivations, then you definitely don't want to start a startup. You want to start a small business where you're the boss and maybe you have one or two assistants. Or maybe you just want to start a side project. As a founder, i think you very quickly lose your sense of freedom and control.
    • jennasys 6y ago
      As a 20 year freelancer myself, a side project is a good way to go. But if that takes off and starts requiring more structure, more resources, and eventually overtakes the day job, it essentially becomes a startup.
      • jmchuster 6y ago
        Sorry, i meant "startup" in terms of "company predicated on exponential growth". If you have a small business where you're the boss, you just grow it slowly how you you want. But as a startup founder, your surrounding circumstances essentially are dictating what you have to do in order to get that exponential growth. Your customers are your boss, your board is your boss, the market is your boss.
• pjdemers 6y ago
  Only be a founder if you: A) Think you are better than what your resumes/work history says. B) Are better than what your resume/work history says. Most people with a strong enough resume/work history to get funding fail both.
• simonebrunozzi 6y ago
  At first I wanted to add some smart-sounding comment to this, but then I took a sneak peak at the author's home page, and realized she's 18 only years old. This made me think: even if she might not be 100% right, or she might have missed some important detail, etc, it's really impressive that at this age she's able to articulate this concept quite well. I was way dumber when I was 18. Heck, when I was double that. To be clear and to avoid being misinterpreted: being 18 to me simply count as not possibly having several years of experience as a founder, which makes her thoughts even more impressive.
• opportune 6y ago
  I don’t think the point about making more money in industry is particularly compelling. I feel like I would be mostly losing opportunity cost and would be pretty confident I could get at least as good a job, if not better, with the lost experience. Further, in what way is joining an early stage startup financially advantageous to being a founder? The only benefit is it being easier to walk away, but the upside is greatly reduced, and the worst case is not much better (perhaps a higher salary). I also don’t really agree with the point that being an employee engineer can be just as ambitious as being a founder. You can do great things as an engineer but you won’t capture even close to all of its value, and for better or worse will likely not get as much recognition or influence for it either. There is nothing wrong with not wanting to start a company, and maybe there are people who feel compelled to do it for the wrong reasons. It seems to really boil down to risk tolerance and whether you would actually be comfortable running a business
• konschubert 6y ago
  Cool, so best to do a bootstrapped solo-founder thing ;)
• t0mmyb0y 6y ago
  The biggest reason: Some of us would be horrible to work under. One day VCs will get it.