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Market trends? The meaningful market trends that offer entrepreneurs realistic, actionable opportunities are typically industry-specific. It's not "Hey, everybo

Market trends? The meaningful market trends that offer entrepreneurs realistic, actionable opportunities are typically industry-specific. It's not "Hey, everybody is sexting so let's build an iPhone app to share pictures that self-delete." It's more like, "Hey, consumers are increasingly showing an interest in unbundling financial services, so there may be an opportunity to do x better than the large banks that have historically dominated the market." How do you spot those kind of market trends if you have never worked in an industry? You typically don't. Stamina? What is that supposed to mean? That 35 year-old entrepreneurs are in bed by 9:00 pm? Distraction-free life? You know what's distracting? Not knowing where the money to pay your rent and buy groceries is going to come from. Starting a business when you have stable finances and the moral support of a spouse is very helpful. Interestingly, many of the things that Silicon Valley pop culture tells us are distractions (like family, homeownership, etc.) are ironically correlated with wealth. For instance, well over 90% of millionaire households in the US are made up of married couples.

philwelch 12y ago
It's easier to accumulate a million dollars net worth if you're two people rather than one, and owning real estate is expensive, and most people are more attractive potential spouses if they have wealth, and having children is expensive, so it's not surprising that these things are correlated with wealth. But that doesn't mean getting married, getting a mortgage, and pumping out a few kids will help you get rich.
- headgasket 12y ago
  I would say that to the contrary, getting married to someone you love, hoping for kids, and looking forward to getting a mortgage then be mortgage free are the simple yet overlooked steps to wealth. You can do those while working on a startup, at a startup, or at an established company if you have the right priorities: dont bother with what other people think about anything you dont have for sale, be frugal and hustle.
mdorazio 12y ago
I think you're getting downvoted for a few reasons. 1) The kind of startup you're espousing is generally not easy to implement and test, and also very hard to rapidly grow. As a result, it fails the typical "good startup idea" test that SV applies. It's also at odds with this lecture series so far. 2) "Stamina" in this case means being able to throw yourself into something and work stupid hours fueled by ramen and passion until it's built. It tends to be a lot easier to do this when you're younger than it is later in life. The flip-side is that the "35 year-old entrepreneurs" you refer to are often able to work more steadily toward goals, but again this isn't what SV looks for in hyper-growth startups eyeing a fast exit. 3) "Distraction-free" refers to being able to focus solely on your startup without having to split time with a family, or worry about making mortgage payments, or most importantly, being afraid of failing. When you're young it's easy to take a hit and start over. When you're older and have large responsibilities it's a lot more difficult. Also to your earlier point, if your target market is HNIs, you're probably not in the startup business because that's a very small number of people to sell to. Please note that I don't disagree with you and think this is a valuable add to the discussion, but it's important to distinguish between the types of small businesses you're referring to and the types of startups that Ycom wants.
- 7Figures2Commas 12y ago
  > The kind of startup you're espousing is generally not easy to implement and test, and also very hard to rapidly grow. How is talking to potential customers before you invest time implementing and worrying about growth "not easy"? It's the definition of easy. > "Stamina" in this case means being able to throw yourself into something and work stupid hours fueled by ramen and passion until it's built. It tends to be a lot easier to do this when you're younger than it is later in life. The flip-side is that the "35 year-old entrepreneurs" you refer to are often able to work more steadily toward goals, but again this isn't what SV looks for in hyper-growth startups eyeing a fast exit. My post above refers to a study that looked at hundreds of founders of successful tech companies. If you believe that eating ramen and working "stupid" hours improves one's odds of success, and that 20-somethings are most capable of living this lifestyle, why did the study find twice as many successful founders older than the age of 50 as it found successful founders younger than 25? > "Distraction-free" refers to being able to focus solely on your startup without having to split time with a family, or worry about making mortgage payments, or most importantly, being afraid of failing. Again, if you look at the study I referred to, and look at the demographics of the millions of millionaires in this country who are business owners, it becomes really difficult to keep repeating the argument that older entrepreneurs have too many distractions. This notion is simply not supported by the numbers. > ...but it's important to distinguish between the types of small businesses you're referring to and the types of startups that Ycom wants. How you go about building your business can determine what happens to your business. There are a good number of YCombinator companies that will never be billion-dollar companies but could have been highly-profitable small businesses if their founders didn't buy into the high-growth hype, apparently not recognizing that YCombinator's portfolio has a power law distribution not dissimilar to just about any venture fund. As for "small business", it gets treated like a four letter word around here but ironically a lot of the people who have been convinced that owning a "small business" is the second worst thing in the world have never seen a bank account balance with more than a single comma in it.
Iftheshoefits 12y ago
Most of the people who are going to be accepted to YC are 20-something kids from wealthy and connected families, or at least families with solid upper-middle-class financial status. They hardly have to worry about any of the things you listed.

philwelch 12y ago

It's easier to accumulate a million dollars net worth if you're two people rather than one, and owning real estate is expensive, and most people are more attractive potential spouses if they have wealth, and having children is expensive, so it's not surprising that these things are correlated with wealth. But that doesn't mean getting married, getting a mortgage, and pumping out a few kids will help you get rich.

headgasket 12y ago
I would say that to the contrary, getting married to someone you love, hoping for kids, and looking forward to getting a mortgage then be mortgage free are the simple yet overlooked steps to wealth. You can do those while working on a startup, at a startup, or at an established company if you have the right priorities: dont bother with what other people think about anything you dont have for sale, be frugal and hustle.

mdorazio 12y ago

I think you're getting downvoted for a few reasons. 1) The kind of startup you're espousing is generally not easy to implement and test, and also very hard to rapidly grow. As a result, it fails the typical "good startup idea" test that SV applies. It's also at odds with this lecture series so far. 2) "Stamina" in this case means being able to throw yourself into something and work stupid hours fueled by ramen and passion until it's built. It tends to be a lot easier to do this when you're younger than it is later in life. The flip-side is that the "35 year-old entrepreneurs" you refer to are often able to work more steadily toward goals, but again this isn't what SV looks for in hyper-growth startups eyeing a fast exit. 3) "Distraction-free" refers to being able to focus solely on your startup without having to split time with a family, or worry about making mortgage payments, or most importantly, being afraid of failing. When you're young it's easy to take a hit and start over. When you're older and have large responsibilities it's a lot more difficult. Also to your earlier point, if your target market is HNIs, you're probably not in the startup business because that's a very small number of people to sell to. Please note that I don't disagree with you and think this is a valuable add to the discussion, but it's important to distinguish between the types of small businesses you're referring to and the types of startups that Ycom wants.

7Figures2Commas 12y ago
> The kind of startup you're espousing is generally not easy to implement and test, and also very hard to rapidly grow. How is talking to potential customers before you invest time implementing and worrying about growth "not easy"? It's the definition of easy. > "Stamina" in this case means being able to throw yourself into something and work stupid hours fueled by ramen and passion until it's built. It tends to be a lot easier to do this when you're younger than it is later in life. The flip-side is that the "35 year-old entrepreneurs" you refer to are often able to work more steadily toward goals, but again this isn't what SV looks for in hyper-growth startups eyeing a fast exit. My post above refers to a study that looked at hundreds of founders of successful tech companies. If you believe that eating ramen and working "stupid" hours improves one's odds of success, and that 20-somethings are most capable of living this lifestyle, why did the study find twice as many successful founders older than the age of 50 as it found successful founders younger than 25? > "Distraction-free" refers to being able to focus solely on your startup without having to split time with a family, or worry about making mortgage payments, or most importantly, being afraid of failing. Again, if you look at the study I referred to, and look at the demographics of the millions of millionaires in this country who are business owners, it becomes really difficult to keep repeating the argument that older entrepreneurs have too many distractions. This notion is simply not supported by the numbers. > ...but it's important to distinguish between the types of small businesses you're referring to and the types of startups that Ycom wants. How you go about building your business can determine what happens to your business. There are a good number of YCombinator companies that will never be billion-dollar companies but could have been highly-profitable small businesses if their founders didn't buy into the high-growth hype, apparently not recognizing that YCombinator's portfolio has a power law distribution not dissimilar to just about any venture fund. As for "small business", it gets treated like a four letter word around here but ironically a lot of the people who have been convinced that owning a "small business" is the second worst thing in the world have never seen a bank account balance with more than a single comma in it.

Iftheshoefits 12y ago

Most of the people who are going to be accepted to YC are 20-something kids from wealthy and connected families, or at least families with solid upper-middle-class financial status. They hardly have to worry about any of the things you listed.