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Peeking out of my bubble a bit: Why do we need startups? Why do we need so much that the thought of wrapping the mentality of a whole society around it comes

Peeking out of my bubble a bit: Why do we need startups? Why do we need so much that the thought of wrapping the mentality of a whole society around it comes to mind before questioning its legitimacy in a certain context? So serial startup-making can be executed like chain smoking. What are the big benefits that this very form and specific brand of organization type deserves special treatment, other formations or no formations, single persons, departments in a keep-going company, co-ops, semi-chaotic group of enthusiast, or whatever will never ever produce without absorbing proper startup mentality to the core of the society? I am sceptic, yes, not least because I was in a startup of a serial startuper where half of the efforts were spent on being a proper startup. How startupers do, how they act, what they do in what stage, what is the proper procedure for being a startup? There is even television series that was used as reference. Remaining efforts went into other detals, one among those was product development. Asking another startup founder about where he sees the company in 5 years the answer was 'Sold!' without a second of hesitation. I was phrasing wrong, I assumed I was asking about the product roadmap that happened to be made in the formal setting of this organization, but that was not in the focus of the minds apparently. Americans can have an inflated positivistic style pulled on when they want to anyways, to be enthusiastic for the sake of enthusiasm, in selective situations, easily shifted to and away from anything. I wouldn't rely on that too much, but especially wouldn't use as reference for transforming a different society that may be a bit more repelling with the same thing of all things.

oytis 1y ago
It's not just about startups, it's about entrepreneurial attitude in general. Europe has great workers, including great engineers, but business culture is lacking. Entrepreneurs we have are mostly "professional entrepreneurs" with no understanding or interest in the "technical details" - and it shows in the results. And eventually it's detrimental to the workers too - there are fewer good places to work, they pay less etc.
- TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
  The other side to this is that technical people often make for poor business people. These are different skill sets, and developing competency in both generally takes a long time focusing on each. That takes a lot of time and willingness.
  - oytis 1y ago
    Historically best innovative companies were founded by engineers though - even in Germany in its better (in terms of economic growth at leastt) times. It's kind of related to the culture again - if you see business as something scary that only specially talented and specially trained people should do, that is what you get, your engineers will not be very good at it.
    - TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
      The problem I see people running into is that they focus so much on the technical aspect of their product or service, that they don’t make time for, care about, or have the bandwidth to engage in extremely important details that are in areas they’re not experts in. For example, I co-own a business with two other people. When we started out, we did have the benefit of at least one of us having some amount of education and experience in business areas like corporate structure and financial accounting. We still contemplated a structure (specifically an S-Corp) which would have created headaches down the road. It was tempting at the time because it would have been simpler at the time, but we spent weeks going back and forth. We went with a C-Corp and it turned out that future-us was really glad we took the time. It’s definitely true that you should focus on what you’re good at, but when you start a business you’re going to have to focus on new things that you may have never had to think about before. If you wish to do well you need to care about those things too.

oytis 1y ago

It's not just about startups, it's about entrepreneurial attitude in general. Europe has great workers, including great engineers, but business culture is lacking. Entrepreneurs we have are mostly "professional entrepreneurs" with no understanding or interest in the "technical details" - and it shows in the results. And eventually it's detrimental to the workers too - there are fewer good places to work, they pay less etc.

TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
The other side to this is that technical people often make for poor business people. These are different skill sets, and developing competency in both generally takes a long time focusing on each. That takes a lot of time and willingness.
- oytis 1y ago
  Historically best innovative companies were founded by engineers though - even in Germany in its better (in terms of economic growth at leastt) times. It's kind of related to the culture again - if you see business as something scary that only specially talented and specially trained people should do, that is what you get, your engineers will not be very good at it.
  - TheNewsIsHere 1y ago
    The problem I see people running into is that they focus so much on the technical aspect of their product or service, that they don’t make time for, care about, or have the bandwidth to engage in extremely important details that are in areas they’re not experts in. For example, I co-own a business with two other people. When we started out, we did have the benefit of at least one of us having some amount of education and experience in business areas like corporate structure and financial accounting. We still contemplated a structure (specifically an S-Corp) which would have created headaches down the road. It was tempting at the time because it would have been simpler at the time, but we spent weeks going back and forth. We went with a C-Corp and it turned out that future-us was really glad we took the time. It’s definitely true that you should focus on what you’re good at, but when you start a business you’re going to have to focus on new things that you may have never had to think about before. If you wish to do well you need to care about those things too.