[rgarcia]

Kind of a linkbait title since less than half of the presentation is caveats and the remainder is advice for starting a startup. Nevertheless I thought it was well done--definitely lays out the risks very nicely.

One thing I'd like to hear more about are people who took "secure" jobs for a period of time out of college and then jumped ship for a startup once they had some money saved up. I feel like most people coming out of college are very risk averse, so they'd rather get a guaranteed salary over a startup with uncertain prospects.

[evilduck]

If you took on student loans (incredibly common), you have 6 months before the collectors come calling and survival then requires an additional $100-$1000 income per month. Failure to pay or having insubstantial means to pay can result in substantially larger amounts of interest to repay, substantially longer repayment periods or garnished wages. Since there's no way to escape repayment a debt-encumbered individual has more at risk than a debt-free peer. I think the pervasiveness of student loans and the exploding cost of higher education is dividing equally risk-tolerant people into two paths.

I'm on the "secure" path at the moment to pay off student loans between my wife and I, and we just had a child. My obligations are more than paid for and things are stable, which is good because my family life is happy and fun and I value that highly, but it means that my risky endeavors have to be on-the-side and bootstrapped because doing stuff that's likely to fail now puts 3 people at risk instead of 1. I don't particularly enjoy the jobs I've had, and that gives me motivation to do things for myself.

[nkassis]

I know how you feel man, almost the same situation (no kid yet). My wife is finishing her Masters, I figure once she's done with that and has a secure job, it might be time for me to try something. It's risky but right now we make it with one salary. We've talked about it and she currently says that since I helped her with her dream she can help with mine. I think it's a fair trade.

But I'd be stupid enough to go for it now. They can come after me for all I've got and get pretty much nothing. In the end if you don't make any income, they have nothing to garnish. Naive view of things for sure.

[evilduck]

>In the end if you don't make any income, they have nothing to garnish.

True, but student debt can only be discharged in very limited circumstances and living under the thumb of a debt-collector for your entire life seems like one of the worst choices you could make.

Even with debt, our quality of life is higher than anyone else in our family has ever been, it's been a great enabler of upwards mobility. My wife came from near-poverty and I'm from a lower-middle class household, and we're now solidly in upper-middle class earnings and this is still a relatively low point of our careers. The debt is totally worth it, it's just an additional thing to manage and weights your life choices towards certain things.

[mattbrewsbytes]

Technically (per Suze Orman) the two things declaring bankruptcy will not clear are Student Loan debt and debt determined by Criminal/Civil courts, in the USA.

I found it shocking that those two debt types are on the same level. The student loan one is probably limited to Federal/State funded loans. I imagine if you pay your College bill with a MasterCard then you could get around this.

[WildUtah]

Student loans, child support/alimony, tax debts, criminal penalties, civil penalties, and tax witholding for other people will all follow you even past bankruptcy.

Pretty much all you can get rid of is unsecured consumer debt. A modern bankruptcy is just a way to get out from under your credit cards (or health care debts).

[ngsayjoe]

I have spent 8 years in a corporate job, paid off my house and car within this period, as well as saved enough that could sustain my simple lifestyle for the next 3-4 years. When i reached 30, i got married and quit within 1 month after my wedding.

As i look back, the only real tangible return i ever got back in these 8 years of is that I met my lovely wife.

[amcintyre]

How is paying off your house and car, and saving enough to choose not to work for 3-4 years not a bunch of "tangible returns?"

(By the way, kudos on that level of self-discipline; I would be extremely happy to accomplish that much with 8 years of corporate salary.)

[jamesjyu]

I did it. I took a "secure" job for two years after graduate school, then decided to jump into a startup as a first employee. The way I decided which company was that I built a script that would crawl the news for companies closing series A, and then chose from that pool (since those would be arguably less risky).

After 3 years as a startup employee (and learning everything about both technical and business side of things), I'm founding a company now.

[saddino]

It's never too late to become an entrepreneur. I took "secure" jobs for four years and then sold my services as a contractor for almost another six before I launched my first startup. IMHO, for the risk-averse, forming an LLC to contract your services is one of the best ways to learn how to run a business. And the $ you've (hopefully) saved will help you bootstrap when you decide to take the plunge.

[smilliken]

I did exactly that; I had a "secure" engineering job through college and for a short period after, but have since quit to co-found a tech company.

For the same reason one might go to school, you'll rarely be disappointed if you invest in yourself. My advice to graduates interested in startups is to work in their field of interest until their learning slows down, then to move on to bigger and better things. By starting a tech business, your skills in business and technology will grow tremendously, and will continue to pay dividends.

Obviously not the only way, though.

[lolizbak]

Hi, that was my case actually. My first two statups (if you can call this so) were done while having a well paid job in New York. For my last startup, I quit my job and went welfare :)

[mleonhard]

I worked as a developer at Amazon after college to get experience. I paid off my loans, saved up enough to support myself for 2 years, and then quit to start my business: http://www.restbackup.com/