4 ms·

> gives you the freedom to tinker on your own time - basically gives you the ability to hire other people to do the actual work of serving customers "just"? Se

> gives you the freedom to tinker on your own time - basically gives you the ability to hire other people to do the actual work of serving customers "just"? Seems like you identified it as a main factor just like the parent. It's like the difference between necessary and sufficient but put in terms of probability instead: it significantly increases the chances that it's even possible to make an attempt. It's clearly not sufficient though, as you both point out though.

nostrademons 6y ago
People significantly overestimate the amount of money needed to make an attempt, and then overestimate the amount that additional money helps, though. It's cheaper to found a startup than most people think; your chances of success are lower than you think, and the chances of some rich person being successful are lower than everyone (usually including the rich person) thinks. I started my first startup with $30K, saved up from 2 years of working at someone else's startup. That bought me a year and a half of tinkering time and 4 shots at goal. It'd cost more now, particularly with Bay Area prices (I was in Boston), but we're talking about $100K, not $1M. If you want to make an attempt, go work for a FAANG or one of the recently-public tech companies for 2 years, live like a grad student, and bank the difference. Then work for somebody else's startup for a year to see what life outside a big corp is like, then you should have 2-3 years saved up if you haven't increased your living expenses. If you can't get a job at a FAANG, unicorn, or one of the other leading companies in your field, you're probably not ready (in terms of knowledge and technical skills) to found a startup. Once you do you're looking at ~$200K/year in total comp, which saves up really fast if you're still living like peers who make $60-70K/year.
- alisonkisk 6y ago
  If you startup isn't something like a search engine, peeing a FAANG interview is nowhere near the right filter. Being a good founder is probably anyo correlates to being a whiteboard coding worker bee
- dzonga 6y ago
  > If you can't get a job at a FAANG, unicorn, or one of the other leading companies in your field, you're probably not ready (in terms of knowledge and technical skills) to found a startup. that's an overstatement right there. real life evidence points otherwise. lots of companies are founded on the humble crud stacks - php, django, rails etc where the founders or engineers hardly knew what they were doing. however yeah, I agree having runway by cutting expenses buys you a lot of time to tinker around.
- robocat 6y ago
  > If you want to make an attempt Work in a company with more than 50 people. Spend your time learning who are the two people that bring 80% of value to the business. Join those two when they go off to start their own business, which they choose to do because they are grossly underpaid at their current company relative to their impact.
- ipaddr 6y ago
  What you said doesn't sounds like a good plan or make sense. If I can land a job at faang why would I quit after two years to start a one person startup myself with $100,000 capital live horribility for 2 years at a faang and probably 2 more years trying to live off of that 100,000. It sounds naive. If I want my startup to succeed I can't wait two years to basically bootstrap the business. If I'm at a faang why not wait a little longer and leave with someone else and get millions in seed money?

nostrademons 6y ago

People significantly overestimate the amount of money needed to make an attempt, and then overestimate the amount that additional money helps, though. It's cheaper to found a startup than most people think; your chances of success are lower than you think, and the chances of some rich person being successful are lower than everyone (usually including the rich person) thinks. I started my first startup with $30K, saved up from 2 years of working at someone else's startup. That bought me a year and a half of tinkering time and 4 shots at goal. It'd cost more now, particularly with Bay Area prices (I was in Boston), but we're talking about $100K, not $1M. If you want to make an attempt, go work for a FAANG or one of the recently-public tech companies for 2 years, live like a grad student, and bank the difference. Then work for somebody else's startup for a year to see what life outside a big corp is like, then you should have 2-3 years saved up if you haven't increased your living expenses. If you can't get a job at a FAANG, unicorn, or one of the other leading companies in your field, you're probably not ready (in terms of knowledge and technical skills) to found a startup. Once you do you're looking at ~$200K/year in total comp, which saves up really fast if you're still living like peers who make $60-70K/year.

alisonkisk 6y ago
If you startup isn't something like a search engine, peeing a FAANG interview is nowhere near the right filter. Being a good founder is probably anyo correlates to being a whiteboard coding worker bee
dzonga 6y ago
> If you can't get a job at a FAANG, unicorn, or one of the other leading companies in your field, you're probably not ready (in terms of knowledge and technical skills) to found a startup. that's an overstatement right there. real life evidence points otherwise. lots of companies are founded on the humble crud stacks - php, django, rails etc where the founders or engineers hardly knew what they were doing. however yeah, I agree having runway by cutting expenses buys you a lot of time to tinker around.
robocat 6y ago
> If you want to make an attempt Work in a company with more than 50 people. Spend your time learning who are the two people that bring 80% of value to the business. Join those two when they go off to start their own business, which they choose to do because they are grossly underpaid at their current company relative to their impact.
ipaddr 6y ago
What you said doesn't sounds like a good plan or make sense. If I can land a job at faang why would I quit after two years to start a one person startup myself with $100,000 capital live horribility for 2 years at a faang and probably 2 more years trying to live off of that 100,000. It sounds naive. If I want my startup to succeed I can't wait two years to basically bootstrap the business. If I'm at a faang why not wait a little longer and leave with someone else and get millions in seed money?