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"And besides, the climate here in America has turned so decisively anti-small business that not only is it not fun anymore; it’s almost dangerous. And who know

"And besides, the climate here in America has turned so decisively anti-small business that not only is it not fun anymore; it’s almost dangerous. And who knows what’s up with health insurance now. I don’t have the energy to dig into that cesspool to find out what my small business has to do to cover itself in that department. Think I’d rather just chuck the whole thing." I think that these two paragraphs are the most interesting part of the whole post - I've occasionally tossed around the idea of joining a scrappy startup, or even running my own company, but I always come to the conclusion that I'm not confident that I could cope with that much risk. I'm admittedly much more risk averse than the HN community, but sometimes I wonder if I would have the nerve to do it if it weren't for an environment that seems so toxic to small business.

muzz 14y ago
You are in effect pointing out the advantage that businesses in countries with universal health care coverage have. Not only do they not have to pay for coverage, they do not even need to be involved with the process of providing it-- i.e. no "open enrollment" months with corresponding time spent on information sessions, filling out forms, etc.
ivix 14y ago
In terms of starting a business, you have absolutely no idea how easy you have it there, compared to almost every other country.
pfisch 14y ago
Can you explain what you're talking about? I run a small business and my understanding is that unless you have like 50+ employees this insurance stuff doesn't even effect you. Honestly though if it is a business killer(which you know, I don't really see how it could be unless I am running a minimum wage fast food drive through and not a tech company)I will just drop my employees' wages and tell them it is to pay for their health insurance. I really doubt I will need to do this though.
- willismichael 14y ago
  Maybe I'm just a victim of my own FUD - Whenever I think about setting out on my own, I get all kinds of doubts about what kinds of taxes that I would owe, avoiding a patent minefield, how to make insurance work, etc. To be honest, now that you've actually called me on it, I think that those are really just surface concerns. I think my real concern is more about being able to cope emotionally - I've seen multiple discussions here about significant depression symptoms in startups.
  - pfisch 14y ago
    Honestly what a lot of the hip startup people with the blogs in silicon valley do scares the hell out of me as well, and I guess that is a lot of Y combinator. I worked as a developer for awhile so I have some money, and now I am bootstrapping some stuff and I have hired another dev and we also do contract mobile work to supplement. We outsource most of the design work. I have been doing this since around May and I need to check the finances but I am either slightly in the black or slightly in the red(this includes my living expenses). At the current revenue I have a runway of like 50 years though so I'm not too concerned. We have a bunch of cool stuff cooking in development and have partnered with some other companies on some stuff so hopefully we can stop the contract work early next year. These kids doing all these startups with little runway, no clear method of generating revenue and basically no experience out in the valley are crazy imo. I think the only people making real money are the VCs and a very few lucky founders. It kind of seems exploitative to me but I'm not out there so maybe it is much better than I think.

muzz 14y ago

You are in effect pointing out the advantage that businesses in countries with universal health care coverage have. Not only do they not have to pay for coverage, they do not even need to be involved with the process of providing it-- i.e. no "open enrollment" months with corresponding time spent on information sessions, filling out forms, etc.

ivix 14y ago

In terms of starting a business, you have absolutely no idea how easy you have it there, compared to almost every other country.

pfisch 14y ago

Can you explain what you're talking about? I run a small business and my understanding is that unless you have like 50+ employees this insurance stuff doesn't even effect you. Honestly though if it is a business killer(which you know, I don't really see how it could be unless I am running a minimum wage fast food drive through and not a tech company)I will just drop my employees' wages and tell them it is to pay for their health insurance. I really doubt I will need to do this though.

willismichael 14y ago
Maybe I'm just a victim of my own FUD - Whenever I think about setting out on my own, I get all kinds of doubts about what kinds of taxes that I would owe, avoiding a patent minefield, how to make insurance work, etc. To be honest, now that you've actually called me on it, I think that those are really just surface concerns. I think my real concern is more about being able to cope emotionally - I've seen multiple discussions here about significant depression symptoms in startups.
- pfisch 14y ago
  Honestly what a lot of the hip startup people with the blogs in silicon valley do scares the hell out of me as well, and I guess that is a lot of Y combinator. I worked as a developer for awhile so I have some money, and now I am bootstrapping some stuff and I have hired another dev and we also do contract mobile work to supplement. We outsource most of the design work. I have been doing this since around May and I need to check the finances but I am either slightly in the black or slightly in the red(this includes my living expenses). At the current revenue I have a runway of like 50 years though so I'm not too concerned. We have a bunch of cool stuff cooking in development and have partnered with some other companies on some stuff so hopefully we can stop the contract work early next year. These kids doing all these startups with little runway, no clear method of generating revenue and basically no experience out in the valley are crazy imo. I think the only people making real money are the VCs and a very few lucky founders. It kind of seems exploitative to me but I'm not out there so maybe it is much better than I think.