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Why not to do a startup
- elq 19y agoto this list I can add a few more reasons: A fairly strong potential for financial ruin; an amazing amount of personal drama; and deep strain on friendships among the founders. After my last (also my first) company failed - my credit was heavily damaged (and after nearly 4 years it has yet to fully recover), repaying debt can take quite a long time (I spent the last 3.5 years working at a well paying corp job and I was only able to fully settle the debt early last year), and due to bad advice from a (very) expensive accountant the IRS was a thorn in my side for 2.5 years. But, I'm about to do it again as the experience is amazing and a _fantastic_ education.
- gyro_robo 19y agoSounds like incorporating early would've helped a lot. Don't accept personal debt.
- elq 19y agostarted off as an LLC, switched to a C corp 4 months later. we found it impossible (within the time frame we needed) to sign big ticket contracts, for things like 10k sq/ft in office space (yes, stupid in hindsight), or a cage in a datacenter; for a company less than a year old without personal guarantees.
- steve 19y agoBuy a shelved company for a few hundred bucks? Heh, I've wondered how well that would actually work.
- ivan 19y agoI love your last sentence :) you can give it up 1000 times and than try it again in the another way. That's my mantra.
- brianmckenzie 19y agoIt's appropriate that Marc should post this piece today, the first weekday since I quit my job to work on my startup full-time. Just so I truly know what I'm in for. Can't wait to read the rest of this series. Good times!
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- dpapathanasiou 19y agoI'm glad he said something about sales; too many of the silicon valley blogs gloss over it or ignore it completely. It's certainly the toughest thing to do (especially if, like me, you come from a technical background), but it can be tremendously important to your company, if there's no exit on the immediate horizon.
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- palish 19y agoI wonder how many potentials will be discouraged from doing a startup by this advice. Those potentials are probably not founder material anyway.