
Debt-Laden Millennials Want Their Own Startups but Can’t Afford Them - adventured
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-09-22/debt-laden-millennials-want-their-own-startups-but-can-t-afford-it
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huac
I think a lot of my peers have (for better or worse) a stronger aversion to
debt and risk, having matured right after or during the last economic crisis.
We've been warned about credit card debt, sleep debt, and now student debt.
Fundamentally when you don't have some minimum level of capital you need to
take the more certain outcome. Nobody's dropping out to form a startup, but
they might take a semester off to work at Facebook or Google.

Even the highest paying tech internships can't cover the cost of attending
expensive private colleges. God forbid you 'merely' do banking, which pays
$16k for a summer before tax, aka half the cost of a semester at my school.
This is without considering the additional cost of wanting to eat and live
better than cheap pizza, food truck chicken over rice, or info session
sandwiches.

(I cut out a lot of snark above, but college tuition is just too damn high)

~~~
exabrial
I really think the problem is that people are unwilling to shop around for a
cheaper college education. In the Midwest, I bought an affordable engineering
education by starting at community colleges before going to a large
university. I'm very successful in my career if that's the measure you want to
use. If you are adamant about going to a university on the coasts, you'll pay
out the nose.

~~~
mattmanser
Honestly no offence meant, but you won't be very good in your connections. You
won't know the right people, the alumni or professors or generally all the
actually important people that will give you massive leg ups if you want to
start a company.

As for learning? Your peers won't challenge you, you'll be exposed to easier
lessons, to easier concepts, you won't really get challenged at all. When I
was keeping up with this stuff, in the UK the shit unis taught Java, the good
ones Lisp or Python. The whole ethos is different. A friend of mine got a 1st
(best degree in UK) from the 2nd tier University he went to.

But he couldn't remotely handle complicated code written by our literally
genius colleague (I've honestly never met someone so insanely good again in 15
years). He was not anywhere near 1st material in a real top-tier university.
He would have been lucky to get a 2:2.

I know someone who did the 2nd tier route and who is genuinely good. He,
perhaps like you, is the exception, not the rule.

~~~
xj9
Complicated code? That doesn't sound like genius to me.

~~~
witty_username
I think a genius coders makes a complex problem into simple code.

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vacri
> _Sixty-two percent of millennials have considered starting their own
> businesses_

I call horseshit. "Considered" in the same way as "considered what life would
be like if you could fly". There's a giant difference between daydreaming and
taking even the first step towards merely investigating what's required to
start a business.

> _72 percent think startups are “essential for new innovation and jobs,”_

I'd be genuinely surprised if 72% even knew what 'startup' meant, let alone
have such a strong opinion of them.

I'd believe the above numbers if the survey was limited to an area which is
hyper-aware of startups, like a college in SF or similar.

~~~
WalterSear
They don't want a startup. They want a start up like the ones they see on TV -
frosted glass and ping pong tables and people being paid millions for goofing
off.

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resolaibohp
I think this is not something specific to millennials. Unless you are already
wealthy, starting a business requires trade offs, patience, and creativity.
While millennials might have different obstacles than their baby boomer
parents, that doesn't mean millennials lack the creativity to conquer them.

~~~
mordae
This is wrong. Starting a business requires customers.

To get them, you first need to meet them. Good luck with so many established
businesses around. You do not get the chance to prove yourself and grow with
your customers unless you invest upfront a lot. And since millenials are
broke, funding comes from their parents generation that also keeps the
profits. Have a nice life.

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rebelidealist
The good news is that i don't believe doing a startup out of college is the
best idea. Startups serving millennial are way over saturated. There are
bigger and more important problems in areas that college grads haven't
experienced yet. Get a job at a _growing industry_ that you are _interested_
in. Don't take the job just based on salary. Learn the ins and out of your
trade. When you are ready to take the plunge your startup will have a better
chance of being useful. Your insider experience and network will be a
competitive advantage.

~~~
wsinks
How do you measure whether an industry is growing?

What are some industries that you're watching right now?

Just looking for ideas ;) 28yr old looking around here.

~~~
cableshaft
Virtual Reality/Augmented Reality. 3D Printing. Drones. Robotics. Autonomous
vehicles. Internet of things (maybe, I think there's more resistance to this
one). Chatbots/voice recognition. Biotech in general. Maaaybe commercial space
travel.

Any of those tickle your fancy?

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matt_wulfeck
> Since many are burdened with massive student debt, they can’t afford to
> launch startups...

I'm really dubious of this as an explanation. The figure I found here[0] says
the average debt is $37k. I bet that the median is actually quite lower than
that because of how wildly different tuition can cost (private liberal arts
versus state college). Either way that's not "massive" and hardly explains a
cultural change.

This[1] article calls the group the most debt averse generation ever. Well
which is it?

[0] [http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/05/02/student-debt-is-
ab...](http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/05/02/student-debt-is-about-to-set-
another-record-but-the-picture-isnt-all-bad)

[1]
[https://www.google.com/amp/www.cnbc.com/amp/2014/09/05/debt-...](https://www.google.com/amp/www.cnbc.com/amp/2014/09/05/debt-
averse-millennials-steer-clear-of-credit-cards.html)

~~~
overgard
Do you come from a wealthy family? 37k is a lot to pay off when you're just
out of school, STEM included. That's like 500-700 a month if you want to pay
it off in 3-5 years. That kind of obligation makes it really hard to quit a
job.

~~~
matt_wulfeck
I'm not saying it's not a lot, I'm just saying I'm dubious about it as an
explanation for the article's theory. Also, that's the _average_ debt. I
believe the median is probably much lower but unfortunately I can't seem to
find any research in this area. I would love it if someone pointed me in the
right direction.

~~~
dilemma
You seem to think that paying off debt is not important. Why?

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shostack
I wonder how much this is about not wanting to "work for the man" vs. wanting
to control their own financial destiny.

Yeah, startups are high risk, but if you can get something going, you are, for
the most part, able to control your success to a larger degree than if you are
in some random company where they could do a departmental layoff anytime they
need to juice numbers before an earnings report.

Younger generations have a lot more financial uncertainty and distrust in
their lives, and often see taking things into their own hands as the only
long-term solution.

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mzw_mzw
And yet, they'll keep re-electing the politicians who brought us the insane
run-up in undischargeable student loan debt. Call me when they've decided to
stop being complicit in their own destruction.

~~~
Devagamster
This seems pretty toxic...

~~~
mzw_mzw
No kidding. Putting college kids into basically debt slavery until they are
forty, it's hard to be more toxic than that! And yet, the college kids keep
voting for them. I don't have an answer to this problem. :-/

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floor_
Here in the Midwest it costs ~$90 to get an LLC set up. That is about all
there is to having a startup.

~~~
rdlecler1
This is a poor response. Starting a startup is hard work. It takes a lot of
time and if you're saddled with debt and high housing costs to need money to
survive. A lot of people simply can't afford to live without a paycheck.

The bar for starting a startup is actually getting higher. While setup costs
are coming down the product expectations are rising. Not only are all the good
ideas taken but all the bad ideas are taken to, so no it's not a simple matter
of setting up an LLC (besides you probably want to do it as a Depaware C-Corp
if you want venture funding...).

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serge2k
> Contrary to their rep as job-hoppers, only a quarter of those surveyed saw
> switching jobs frequently as the road to success

useless without a baseline.

------
wyager
"Young people would rather own companies than work for them." Yeah, how is
this news?

