| One thing I see is a lot of people stressing about starting a company when they are in college or just out of college. If you're struck dead by the idea for a business in college and is so compelling the idea of working for someone else is absolutely laughable-- then by all means, start a business. But if an entrepreneur is what you "Want to be" but you're "not quite sure how to get there", or even if you're like me-- and you've been starting businesses since before you were a teenager, but you're not struck dead by a compelling vision of the startup you need to build RIGHT NOW, or if you've been kicking around and things aren't quite coming together-- go pay your dues and work for awhile. I'm a natural born entrepreneur. I'm the kid who was buying coke wholesale at walmart and selling it to the other kids. In my day the big thing on the school yard was toothpicks soaked in cinnamon oil. I knew I wanted to start companies, and so when I got out of college, I went to work for a startup. This job, and the ones that followed, taught me a great deal. I worked my way down until I was an earlier and earlier employee-- I've seen lots of startup failure modes. I also did some stints contracting for big tech companies, saw their failure modes too. It also gave me the opportunity to find what industries worked best, where leverage was, get industry specific experience, find out what I was best at doing, and not doing. So, when it was time to do my own thing, a lot of decisions had already been made or were easily made because I had the practical knowledge and experience. I think the glamorousness and programs like YC, and the media attention towards Facebook and instagram, etc, gives people the wrong idea. You don't need to do your startup when you're 20, 25, 30. 35, 40, 45, 50, these are all ages at which great companies have been built. And believe it or not, experience is a very valuable teacher. Unlike the article I won't say that some people shouldn't do startups... but I will say that if you're in one of the categories I mentioned above, there's absolutely nothing wrong with spending some time paying dues. In fact, its invaluable. I would never do a real estate startup because I have no domain expertise there. I wouldn't propose a new alcoholic beverage, because, again, no domain expertise. If it was what I really wanted, I'd still go work for someone for 6 months or a year. (nice thing about being a programmer is- sales offices in both those industries could probably use some help on a contract basis.) |
In the same way that new companies should be an improvement to what is already offered by others, I think there is a lot to be said for learning the successes and failures of how other companies run before starting your own.
[1] https://IronMoney.com/