| I don't want to be rude, but this is pretty elitist. Essentially: "Can't you all just run your startup companies and make 220,000 a year like me?" Some people are overvalued by the market, working in a good space, being attractive and having "reputation" or a lot of online prsence, fame, etc. It sounds like you personally have a lot of accomplishments, old = "wisdom", and are attractive as a consultant. You have experience doing a lot ofthe things people pay you to consult on but they aren't willing (or you are not) to come on board full time. tldr, some people can't just make large salaries, but they would take worse terms to bet on themselves. Edit: to be clear i am being sincere here. If you are older and really really good at what you do, and have a lot of reputation thats great. There is ageism in tech for sure, they want young hungry devs AND older experienced architects to come in and provide advice. So it is a doubleedged sword, there may be less opportunity for a 50-60 year old programmer to join the team, but opportunity to consult. There also may be a log of spots for a 20 y/o programmer to join, but no room to come in and provide sftwr engineering advice. I am 26 and a so so dev. Would I take a shitty deal? Depends how shitty. Id give up 10-15% at poor terms, or I would think about it at least. It may end up being less risky than taking a while to build a prototype and trying to build a funding and legal structure with a SAFE and cryptocurrency and other shit. So yeah, I am leery of deals like this main post, but there is a part of ne that would love beleive it would ve possible to cap up quick and painlessly and with a quick call and application. Terms would be reasonable and I could start working faster, etc. Hiwever, it would be hard for me to believe that... |
The original, year 1 YC program was targeting people who genuinely would struggle to get $6K (at the time) because it was mostly aimed at students.
When I was a student I couldn't afford text books, so the idea I could get $20k together by consulting was laughable.
Now I'm positively ancient the consulting route isn't too hard to do.