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by invalidOrTaken 4697 days ago
Meh. My creds: I served a mission and am an active member of the LDS church, so I'm not some bitter exmormon. But the two worlds seem orthogonal to me. There's a very heavy focus on short-term numbers in most LDS mission organizations. If anything, an LDS mission probably prepares you for corporate life or the armed forces better than for a startup. Exception: yes, it does make for fantastic ticket scalpers, as the article relates.

Also, "accelerator?" An accelerator is something that speeds along an already existent entity. A mission might be a good person accelerator, but if you're bringing your company with you on the mission, you're a bad founder and a bad missionary.

I attribute Utah's startup culture to: the presence of BYU, a bunch of church-derived networks (I still talk to mission buddies, and did a startup with one of them), and high pressure on men to be providers.
3 comments
brd529 4697 days ago
Another active Mormon here. My mission was European, like this guys, which meant a lot of doors. I'd say your right - for me, this was a great person accelator, which was the point of his article. Don't think he was implying that he was working on his startup during the mission.

My mission really taught me what hard work was - to devote 100% of your waking hours to further a cause you believed in. It turns out that is what it takes to grow an early startup as well, and my mission prepared me for that.

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austenallred 4697 days ago
Creds: Author.

Yeah, I created the title at like midnight last night; obviously it's not meant in the literal sense.

I think you're right; a mission is a good person accelerator, and if that person happens to be a would-be entrepreneur it makes them a better entrepreneur.

There wasn't really much of a focus on short-term numbers in my mission, mostly because when we reported numbers it would usually start "0, 0, 0, 0"

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film42 4697 days ago
Creds: I'm Austen's cofounder/ we met in Ukraine.

This is very true, and I do see a lot of missionaries return and jump into summer sales and do quite well. But there's that side where you just gotta keep going, always that has really proven valuable while working on our startup.

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