[awillen]

This really rings true with me as someone who's interviewed a few failed founders for PM roles. This was always at early-stage startups, so it wasn't an issue of skills (generalists tend to be great fits for early-stage PM work) but rather a question of whether this was just a temporary stop to shore up finances and get a break from the stress of being a founder until it was time to start the next company.

I believe we only hired one that I interviewed, and sure enough he lasted six months before leaving. Great guy, and we parted ways amicably, but he just couldn't go back.

And now that I'm on the other side of it as an early-stage founder, I honestly feel like my instincts against hiring them were right. If my company failed, I'd probably get a PM job, but I'm not sure if I'd be able to stick with it. On the one hand, it would honestly be really nice to have the stress of ultimate decision making on someone else's shoulders, but at the end of the day, even with the stress, I like being the one to call the shots.

Something more advisory would probably be more interesting, but obviously advisory jobs for startups aren't easy to come by.

The upside for me, at least, is that I didn't decide to start something until I had a healthy financial cushion. I've put some money in, but I'm absolute never going to be one of those back against the wall, deep in credit card debt kind of founders. That would create more stress than I could handle, and I think the glorification of that lifestyle definitely leaves some failed founders in much worse positions than they should end up in.

[topicseed]

Founders, in general, have to work really hard on themselves to avoid starting gazillions of projects, features, side hustles, and so on. And that's whilst being fully busy with their one business they're founding.

So I totally agree that in a regular job, it's just a matter of time until they bounce, at least mentally.

The problem today is the glamourisation of "starting your own thing". I did it and still do it because in a way, that's all I can do without losing my mind entirely, but it's far from being easy or fun or even at times enjoyable. It's just that a job would be worse for me. And I hate seeing people built for companies start their own and be completely miserable because they're barely using their skillset since they now have to do everything, everyday. (Talking about bootstrapped tech here.)