[Tloewald]

Very informative and amusing post. My favorite statistic was the 18% of entrepreneurs succeed the first time, and only 20% succeed the second time.

> The sort of person who jumps in and gives advice to the masses without doing a lot of research first generally believes that you should jump in and do things without doing a lot of research first.

Like most good polemics, this one probably overstates the case. It seems to me that if you want to pursue an idea when you're young and inexperienced then go for it; but don't go for "it" because doing so is intrinsically better than getting a job.

In my thirties I left a pretty promising career to pursue the dream of designing games and running a games company. I failed (in the ways I cared about -- we didn't lose money or go broke). I think I learned a lot. One thing I learned is that sometimes there are advantages to being young, and poor, and hungry (in the "stay hungry" sense) and sometimes there are advantages to being older, comfortably well-off, and experienced.

[graeme]

>My favorite statistic was the 18% of entrepreneurs succeed the first time, and only 20% succeed the second time.

This is a potentially misleading stat. The second cohort only includes the failures. So clearly at least some of them learned something.

It's a 36% total success rate for entrepreneurs who try twice.

(Though I guess that number is missing those that try once and don't try again)

[Tloewald]

There is nothing to suggest that the second cohort only includes failures, and bear in mind that many people -- having failed -- won't try a second time -- and if they've learned anything, it will be the people who figure out they're never going to succeed who drop out. Without knowing the probability that someone who succeeds vs. fails will try again there's simply no way to tell.

Anecdotally, it's very common for entrepreneurs to start a business, wait until it's up and running, sell it, and start over. This applies both in high-tech and more prosaic areas like restaurants and gas stations. I imagine that first-time successes are very likely to try again.

[Smirnoff]

Actually, the post says it explicitly that this 20% includes only failures. --> "... entrepreneurs who previously failed have a 20% chance of succeeding."

[Tloewald]

But what chance of success do entrepreneurs who previously succeeded have?

[Smirnoff]

This statistic wasn't there but one could imagine that it would be higher than 20%. Also, keep in mind that success is a subjective term -- for some people it's when you make $1M, break-even or get acquihired, for others it's at least $100M or $1B.

[Bahamut]

Who's to say that the 36% one is not a potentially misleading stat?

Assuming the 18%/20% stats are correct, it is a 34.4% success rate from the 18% and 20% stat.

The 36% stat may not be out of the realm of possibility with the difference in values here - there may be context missing from all the numbers cited here. They don't seem to disagree with each other significantly though.

[graeme]

I have an explanation. I got the math wrong. I meant to do:

18 + (82 * .2) but I calculated 16.4 and then added 20 instead of 18.

[sliverstorm]

Or it could just as easily mean that 18% succeed the first time, and the second time (after either an exit or a failure) only 2% more succeed

Which you could take to mean "If I don't succeed in my first venture, I am not part of the 18%- so am I part of the +2%?"

[hoprocker]

Love these sorts of reflections -- insight about a career in software, from those that have been in it long enough to have one.