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by hobofan 2927 days ago
Me and my previous co-founder founded a startup with both of us having no experience. It was a very bad decision for the company, but extremely valuable for our personal growth. It also allowed us to skip the biggest parts of the usual career ladder.

It's certainly not the best route for everyone, but definitely one worth considering.
2 comments
ianamartin 2927 days ago
It's great for you. It's pretty bad for any employees who have to pay for your mistakes as you get your personal growth on and skip career ladders.

I think being a founder is a great option right out of school--if you are working for yourself, responsible for your own mistakes, and not actively harming anyone else in your quest for personal achievement.

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heurist 2927 days ago
FWIW I've worked with "experienced" founders who also had no idea what they were doing (in many but not all ways). There's never a guarantee that you won't be working for people who will make you deal with their mistakes.
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webmaven 2927 days ago
Heck, there is no guarantee that you won't be working for someone like that in any type of company, regardless of "maturity" or sector.

Bad managers (and most bad management - from death marches to protoduction - can be boiled down to "makes the people who report to them pay for the manager's mistakes") exist even in supposedly mature companies with good corporate cultures.

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s2g 2927 days ago
Con of startups, these are the people you might end up working for.

What's good for your personal growth was other people trying to make a living at a company being run by people who don't know what they are doing. Maybe it's fine, but that level of uncertainty is definitely a con.

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hobofan 2927 days ago
I very much agree with you (as someone who has since worked for such people too).

Luckily we mostly had temporary interns as employees, and I can confidently say that they had a good experience, as we are still in touch.

The biggest problems of the inexperience were that we had to ramp up our skills on the job (for me programming), including the mistakes you make there, which killed a lot of the runway, and the lack of business knowledge which ultimately lead to us running out of money.

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