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Why to Not Not Start a Startup

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Saved by 32 people (-15 private), first by anonymouse user on 2007-03-28


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So I'm going to list all the components of people's reluctance to start startups, and explain which are real.

Highlighted by sambody

There's a reason we have a distinct word "adult" for people over a certain age. There is a threshold you cross.

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different people cross it at greatly varying ages. You're old enough to start a startup if you've crossed this threshold, whatever your age.

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So, paradoxically, if you're too inexperienced to start a startup, what you should do is start one. That's a way more efficient cure for inexperience than a normal job.

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There's no better time to take risks than when you're young. Sure, you'll probably fail. But even failure will get you to the ultimate goal faster than getting a job.

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You need a lot of determination to succeed as a startup founder. It's probably the single best predictor of success.

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I'd say the test is whether you're sufficiently driven to work on your own projects.

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most companies do more mundane stuff where the decisive factor is effort, not brains.

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You don't need to know anything about business to start a startup. The initial focus should be the product. All you need to know in this phase is how to build things people want. If you succeed, you'll have to think about how to make money from it. But this is so easy you can pick it up on the fly.

Highlighted by sambody

One test adults use is whether you still have the kid flake reflex. When you're a little kid and you're asked to do something hard, you can cry and say "I can't do it" and the adults will probably let you off. As a kid there's a magic button you can press by saying "I'm just a kid" that will get you out of most difficult situations. Whereas adults, by definition, are not allowed to flake. They still do, of course, but when they do they're ruthlessly pruned.

Highlighted by chanelubrin

if users love you, you can always make money from that somehow

Highlighted by sambody

The most valuable truths are the ones most people don't believe.

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So when you find an idea you know is good but most people disagree with, you should not merely ignore their objections, but push aggressively in that direction.

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The adult response to "that's a stupid idea," is simply to look the other person in the eye and say "Really? Why do you think so?"

Highlighted by chanelubrin

Not having a cofounder is a real problem. A startup is too much for one person to bear.

Highlighted by sambody

If there's no one where you live who wants to start a startup with you, move where there are people who do. If no one wants to work with you on your current idea, switch to an idea people want to work on.

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In a sense, it's not a problem if you don't have a good idea, because most startups change their idea anyway.

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the founders are more important than the initial idea

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The kind of question on the application form that we really care about is the one where we ask what cool things you've made. If what you've made is version one of a promising startup, so much the better, but the main thing we care about is whether you're good at making things. Being lead developer of a popular open source project counts almost as much.

Highlighted by sambody

here's the brief recipe for getting startup ideas. Find something that's missing in your own life, and supply that need—no matter how specific to you it seems.

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You need a lot of determination to succeed as a startup founder. It's probably the single best predictor of success.

Highlighted by chanelubrin

fallacy: that there is some limit on the number of startups there could be.

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This one is real. I wouldn't advise anyone with a family to start a startup.

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What you can do, if you have a family and want to start a startup, is start a consulting business you can then gradually turn into a product business.

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Another way to decrease the risk is to join an existing startup instead of starting your own.

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If you start a startup that succeeds, it's going to consume at least three or four years. (If it fails, you'll be done a lot quicker.) So you shouldn't do it if you're not ready for commitments on that scale.

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I'm told there are people who need structure in their lives. This seems to be a nice way of saying they need someone to tell them what to do.

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So if it seems risky to you to start a startup, think how risky it once seemed to your ancestors to live as we do now.

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If you're one of these people, you probably shouldn't start a startup. In fact, you probably shouldn't even go to work for one. In a good startup, you don't get told what to do very much.

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It's exciting to think we may be on the cusp of another shift like the one from farming to manufacturing.

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How do you tell if you're independent-minded enough to start a startup? If you'd bristle at the suggestion that you aren't, then you probably are.

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Well, if you're troubled by uncertainty, I can solve that problem for you: if you start a startup, it will probably fail. Seriously, though, this is not a bad way to think about the whole experience. Hope for the best, but expect the worst. In the worst case, it will at least be interesting. In the best case you might get rich.

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No one will blame you if the startup tanks, so long as you made a serious effort.

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since most of what big companies do is boring, you're going to have to work on boring stuff. Easy, compared to college, but boring.

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Eventually it gets demoralizing to work on dumb stuff, even if it's easy and you get paid a lot.

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The thing that really sucks about having a regular job is the expectation that you're supposed to be there at certain times.

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parents tend to be more conservative for their kids than they would be for themselves.

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In almost everything, reward is proportionate to risk. So by protecting their kids from risk, parents are, without realizing it, also protecting them from rewards. If they saw that, they'd want you to take more risks.

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Even if your only goal is to please them, the way to do that is not simply to give them what they ask for. Instead think about why they're asking for something, and see if there's a better way to give them what they need.

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To almost everyone except criminals, it seems an axiom that if you need money, you should get a job. Actually this tradition is not much more than a hundred years old.

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