
Nontechnical 17 year old startup founder with chutzpah is asking for advice - abiek
Thanks in advance for any advice you give.<p>I don't know how to program but I love startups and am dedicated to becoming an entrepreneur.<p>I have read all of PGs essays (some many times) and "Founders at Work". I came to realize that the hackers are the core of any good startup team. Thus, I want to learn. I have tried and am making progress but it has been a slow and hard process. I am not to the point where I can actually make stuff yet.<p>But, I have an idea that I really like. I feel like Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail (excepts I can't program). I have my best friend signed on and he is so behind the idea (and not into high school) that he is willing to drop out to pursue this idea full time. He is ahead of me on the hacking learning curve but is still in the process of learning.<p>I don't know if we are the rock star founding team that PG talks about but we have heart, are incredibly optimistic and want to work like hell to make it happen. I don't want to wait until finishing college. I don't even want to wait until finishing high school.<p>I have always been somewhat interested in startups but my interest has grown this summer. I now know entrepreneurship is my calling. I am doing a 3 week internship and am meeting really cool people and doing research. It has probably been the best 3 weeks of my life.<p>So my tentative plan is to apply to Y-combinator and similar programs for next summer's session after spending a year trying to get as far as possible in the development of the project.<p>My co-founder and I will split the coding (he will probably do more) and he will do the design interface and I will do the market research and corporate stuff. We have a lot of focus on product vision (even though we are yet to have a product).<p>So does our plan make sense? Any advice.
======
swombat
Don't drop out of school. You've got all the time in the world, what's the
rush? Your early twenties (let alone the time before you're even 20) are there
to be enjoyed, not spent hacking away at a start-up 15-hours a day.

Here's how it will happen if you start up now. Your first start-up will be an
unmitigated disaster. Your second one will be slightly less so, but still
fail. Your third will break even. Your fourth will finally make you a
reasonable sum of money. Then your fifth will make you rich. Allow for 1-3
years per start-up - with this, you'll probably be very wealthy by the time
you're 27. However, you'll also have wasted the best years of your life
working your ass off.

Wait a little, and chances are you might even be able to skip one of those
failed start-up - after all, life experience does count for something. Finish
school. Go to a cool university. Learn lots of interesting stuff. Meet lots of
really interesting people (that you'll be able to recruit into your future
ventures, among other things - but more importantly, some of them will be your
best friends for the rest of your life - money cannot buy that). Sleep with
lots of girls. Get drunk. Enjoy life. Wear sun-screen. Erm. Anyway, you can
always start up after uni. If anything, it will be easier, since a) you'll be
wiser to the ways of the world; at the moment your inexperience pretty much
guarantees dismal failure, b) maybe we won't be in the middle of a credit
crunch then.

~~~
abiek
We will work that much harder to prove doubters wrong.

The rush is to learn. If we fail now, oh well. We are that much closer and had
a reason and motivation to learn.

A startup doesn't mean we can't have fun.

A credit crunch has very little effect on our idea.

~~~
avner
You are 17 years old and about to drop out of high school...I personally would
advise you to at the least, finish school and get into a cool university and
experience life outside the _comfort zone of your parents' house_. There's
still a lot to learn, see and experience out there.

However, that does not necessarily mean that you completely stop working on
your startup. While being committed is important, there is a _right time for
everything_ and it may not be the best time to drop out of school... suppose
an year down the line, you change your mind- it will be a lot harder and for
you to get into good universities. The risks vs. benefits at this stage may be
out of whack.

The important thing is that the idea should not die and should always be on
the backburner until the time is right and you have the matured view of the
world [and how cruel it can be] to make the whole scheme of things to work in
your favor.

Just my 2 cents...

~~~
colinplamondon
Honestly curious- have you experienced bringing an idea on the backburner back
to life? I've always felt like if immediate action isn't taken and maintained
to move an idea forward it dies.

I'd love to hear your perspective here, I'm interested.

~~~
nostrademons
I just brought one back a couple weeks ago (<http://eve-
language.blogspot.com/>). I'd started it 3 weeks before my startup, and then
let it die to focus on something that might actually make money, and am now
bringing it back as a hobby project.

If you're really passionate about something, it's not going to die just
because you spend some time on other stuff.

I think the "strike while the anvil is hot" phenomena is largely because of
survivorship bias. Most of the time, if you drop an idea after 2 weeks, you're
not going to come back to it. But that's because most ideas that are only 2
weeks old aren't very good and should probably be abandoned anyways. While if
you've been turning the idea over in your head for 2-3 years (as Eve had been,
before I started working on it), another 18 months isn't going to make much
difference.

------
pg
Learn to program. Deciding at 17 that you're "nontechnical" is premature
optimization, without the optimization. At that age you're not non-anything
you don't want to be. And if you're going to be in a world where people make
software, there's nothing more valuable you could learn than how that's done,
even if it's not what you ultimately spend most of your time on.

~~~
johnyzee
I don't know. At 17 I had been programming for 5-6 years, which is pretty
normal for most decent coders I know.

In my experience, if someone does not have the mindset for coding (anal
retentive, OCD, borderline autistic, you know the type ;)), then trying to
make them is an excercise in frustration.

Maybe better to focus on the things you are good at, such as business
development, marketing, sales and whatever else is crucial in a startup.

~~~
ericb
>> (anal retentive, OCD, borderline autistic, you know the type ;))

Being a jackass does not make you a better coder, it just makes you a jackass.

~~~
johnyzee
Thin skin much? It was a (possibly lame) attempt at self-deprecating humor.

I was trying to say that not everyone is cut out for coding, and if you
haven't had an interest in it (or that type of thing) before, you probably
won't be very good at it. I have seen this with a bunch of people who thought
they'd get into IT and be millionaires.

~~~
ericb
I know it's hard to tell in type, but I wasn't offended. I know people who fit
the stereotype, but I also know gregarious, social, coders.

------
menloparkbum
Public high school in the USA is indeed a waste of time. And, there is no time
like the present to start a company. However dropping out can really mess up
your life, and I don't mean 5 years down the road. I mean it can immediately
mess up your life. A hacker friend of mine in high school did just what you
are proposing, but 10 years ago. As soon as he dropped out of high school his
parents kicked him out of the house. Being homeless at age 16 really puts a
damper on getting anywhere with your startup.

I'm voting for finishing up high school. But, if you're going to drop out
anyway, be sure you have some plan to cover all the basic life essentials type
stuff.

~~~
wheels
I don't mean to suggest dropping out, but it's not necessarily as bad as you
imply. I dropped out at 16 (12 years ago) and still managed to go to a good
college, and have had a series of good jobs.

More problematic things that I see:

You'll need an older co-founder. Justified or not, business folk and investors
aren't going to take you seriously at 17. Not to mention that you won't be
able to rent hotel rooms for business travel, or cars where need be, won't be
able to open a business bank account, etc.

If it doesn't work out in the first go, which realistically speaking is
probably for any first-off startup, you're not going to have a lot to show for
it when you're, say, 18 or 19 and throw in the towel. Actually the worst case
is it just stringing you along but not really going anywhere and it getting
frustrating late to start college.

In my case, despite "making it", I still view dropping out as more or less a
mistake. It didn't really screw up my life in any significant way, but looking
back on it, it's just nine months of part-time, easy work. Nine months is
nothing. I spent six months (while working full-time) just trying to learn
what I'd need to know to jump into a start up before going full-time on it.

My brother was smarter about it. He just decided to not take any honors
classes, set up about half of his time senior year to be internship hours and
skimmed by putting in almost no effort. You could probably intern in your own
company if you had an older co-founder...

~~~
menloparkbum
I didn't mean to suggest that you're automatically out on the street if you
drop out of high school - I just wanted to point out a worst case scenario.
Dropping out and being successful requires some sort of support team, since
you're starting out with a huge social disadvantage.

------
mechanical_fish
Go to college for at least one year. The act of finishing high school with
decent grades and getting admitted to a decent college (a state university, at
least) is a basic badge of competence that will serve as a useful social
signal for the rest of your life. Among people who went to college, high
school dropouts get zero respect; even the ones who are rich get only the
respect they can _buy_. I know that's unfair, but that's society for you.

Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs went to college. They dropped out after a year,
but I assure you that the first year is _important_. Among other things, you
might decide that you really like college: It's completely different from high
school, not merely because you're no longer in a minimum-security prison, but
also because some of the smartest people on earth are literally eating lunch
in the seat next to you.

OTOH, college is _very_ expensive and you might decide you don't need it. But
first go for a year and get the best grades that you can, given that you
intend to spend every available hour hacking on your part-time startups. :)
After you've been admitted to college and done a year of decent work, it will
be that much easier to get readmitted to college, one or two or five years
down the road. It will improve your maneuvering room, it will place you in the
college-student social class (which might very well be the one you're
marketing to, and the one your coworkers are in...) and it will be that much
easier to tell the story of your life to a future employer, customer, or bank
manager: "I did well in school and went to college, but then got distracted by
my startup company and took a year off, but then the startup tanked so I went
back to school for a couple of years before my _second_ startup hit it big."

------
ALee
Along with majority of comments, I agree, stay in high school. I would go even
further to say, go to college because it is like elven paradise and will help
in your startup adventure. Here's why:

A) Smart people. It's not a perfect filter (not everyone is smart), but you'll
find some folks in there who might be willing to join your fellowship. Oh, and
everyone lives really close to each other- and perhaps you could even live
together.

B) Resources. You'll be blessed with many gifts- economies of scale to help
you out here. You can work with professors on cutting edge nerdy stuff, get
free bandwidth from the school, be able to snag a few servers, get the
school's PR department to work for you, and get some money to start a "startup
club" to pay for your pizza when you're working.

C) Education. You can't program. Neither can I, but for god's sake I wish I
had just taken a few classes to get me started because self-starting is tough
and you hit some road blocks. If you do that, then you will be learning from
people better than you and perhaps can make more friends for your quest.

D) Time. Instead of partying like Bilbo Baggins, work on your startup. School
does get in the way, but you have more vacation time and free 3-day weekends
to get you going. If you do just school and your startup, you'll find your
startup will take up more of your time. You can time public release to the
school year- 3 months (about the same as YC). You should be able to make
something each semester and get progressively better.

F) Failure. You might find out that you don't like this startup trip to
Mordor. In fact, you may find you don't like the software task at all. Well,
you have a lot of other things to learn and to enjoy.

G) Success. If you're successful, then you can easily leave college. In fact,
many colleges let you defer indefinitely. I think Sam Altman is on leave from
Stanford still... :)

------
wallflower
> We will work that much harder to prove doubters wrong.

I imagine you may be getting a far amount of backlash from older people in
your life, namely your parents. I am much older than you and I entertain a
fantasy of quitting my job and going to Latin America. At one low point during
work, I almost booked non-refundable tickets with a co-conspirator. To show
how serious I am about this fantasy (to my family and to myself), I am
indulging in 3-5 hours a week of private tutoring in Spanish. The odd thing is
that I can foresee myself in a middle ground of not quitting my job but
learning Spanish in the States and taking the initiative socially.

I do not think your plan makes sense. The odds of success are against you.
Most businesses on the Internet are unfortunately or fortunately, all about
_marketing_ , only partially about innovation. I'd like to advise you against
it, as an older and not necessarily wiser person. Life does not always have to
be dive-in, you can dip your toes in the water, wade - if you dive-in, you can
drown. In this country, unfortunately, a GED degree is condescended upon and
will hurt your academic prospects.

Build your startup part time. You have one of the most important ingredients,
chutzpah, faith in yourself. But at the same time, L'Chaim ("To Life"). There
is more than life than saying "I did it". If your parents are serious about
you not leaving school, they will cut off funding. And in this country, money
is important to maintain a lifestyle. And, if you do drop out and go back to
school, you'll fall behind (disconnect with/lose your peer year/cohorts).

Maybe some of us are wrong. And we'll read about you in the 3rd edition of
Founders at Work. But if we aren't wrong, you might be torpedoing your long-
term life with short-term half-constructed disconnected realities.

------
warwick
Stay in school. Yes, you and your cofounder could get a GED, but I think
you're missing a lot of the advantages of high school. It's hard to see them
when you're there, but when you're in high school you have:

1) Large amounts of free time. You've got a six to eight hour or so block of
time every night, every weekend. You can probably pull programming books into
class with you if you're that insatiable. If not, just carry around a notebook
with you dedicated to the startup, it'll be chalk full of ideas whenever you
have a spare moment.

2) No responsibility. Granted, high school is tough, but it's also
inconsequential. If you've studied the PG essays as much as you think, you'll
remember the concept of a day job in "What You'll Wish You'd Known". Here's
the link, it's worth a reread in your situation.
<http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html>

3) Your parents are funding you. They pay for your housing, food, and are
probably quite open to the idea of buying you and books you want to pursue
your goals. You can afford to take the time to learn right now. If you drop
out, are your folks going to want to keep feeding you while you sit around the
house? You'd probably be expected to get a job, which cuts into all that free
time you'd be gaining by dropping out.

Delay University if you want, but honestly you can get a lot of the same deal
out of it if you approach it well. Right now you've got an idea and no skills
with which to execute it. Don't create a situation that's more hostile to you
getting those skills.

------
axod
"I feel like Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail (excepts I can't program)"

Is it just me that finds this quite funny. I feel like David Beckham (except I
can't play football).

~~~
comatose_kid
I think his sentence was reasonable - like Sabeer, he feels he has a great
idea and is willing to quit school (Apple for Sabeer) and work on it night and
day.

ps to the OP: don't quit school. You might have the best idea in the world,
but if it doesn't work (and there are many reasons that are not under your
control for this to happen), it may be hard for you to return to school...
School is generally lame, but it is the 'gateway drug' to better experiences
in University.

------
colinplamondon
Don't drop out of high school, just bullshit your way through it and do enough
to get by- this isn't hard stuff, and you get food, shelter, and a good
internet connection. I know, in high school, that might not seem like a lot,
but it's huge when you're out in the real world.

Put as much time as you can into your startup and learning to program, just
don't fail out. If you're smart enough to write as lucidly as you do then
you're smart enough not to fail high school. Find some loopholes to make the
classes easier, figure out what the easiest way to make 70% is, and execute.

Like someone else said, hack morning, hack lunches, hack nights- put your time
into moving your startup forward.

Skip college, it doesn't sound like you need it- if you do need it down the
line you can do it then.

However, experience does matter- and you can pack a ton of experience into a
short amount of time if you're ok with taking risks, which it sounds like you
are.

Check out Inside Steve's Brain if you get the chance, this quote stuck out at
me a lot:

"For Jobs, innovation is about creativity, putting things together in unique
ways. "Creativity is just connecting things," Jobs told Wired magazine. "When
you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty
because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious
to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences
they've had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do
that was that they've had more experiences or they thought more about their
experiences than other people. Unfortunately, that's too rare a commodity. A
lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they
don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions
without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of
the human experience, the better design we will have."

Also:

"I wish Bill Gates the best, I really do. I just think he and Microsoft are a
bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to
an ashram when he was younger." -- Steve Jobs

With all that said-- you've got a great opportunity. You've got a co-founder,
you (hopefully) have a good idea, so execute and give it a shot. If it doesn't
work, bone out to Argentina or Eastern Europe for awhile, regroup, come back,
and give it another shot.

And, on college, there's a great article by Sean Nelson of Harvey Danger about
the merits of dropping out of college:

<http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=12087>

Good luck!

~~~
nonrecursive
re: Getting by in high school - my last year of high school I was able to
spend all of my time in the teacher's lounge or around the school (I helped
paint a mural) as long as I got A's on all my tests. Perhaps you can work out
something similar.

------
SwellJoe
Finish high school...but feel free to work on your startup after hours and on
weekends. You'll probably never have more free time for the
purpose...unless/until you raise money in order to pursue a startup full-time
(which, let's face it, is going to be a major uphill battle for a 17 year
old). You'll probably also be better served by going to college--maybe taking
a light load--and using the opportunity to meet additional co-founded and
people you can work with to bring your vision to life.

You know far less than you think you do at 17. Confidence is wonderful, and I
certainly encourage you to start a startup right away...today (I had a
business in high school, and I learned a lot from it). But don't let it get in
the way of having fun, going to college, and learning some stuff. Travel is
also probably wise.

------
ericb
Looking over your responses, sounds like your plan is a thinly veiled excuse
to drop out, and you were posting in the hopes that you'd see enough "ra ras"
to drown out the voice in your head that knows better. Dropping out of high
school at this point is phenomenally foolish and a lot like quitting a
marathon in the last quarter mile. Being a good entrepreneur is about making
good decisions, and most importantly, about _not_ quitting.

------
pavelludiq
Please read carefully what i will write. Unlike other people i will not give
you advice like "Go for it dude" or "Wait, don't be stupid". Instead i will
give you my point of view.Im 18 and i have one year left in school. I started
programing years ago, but never got any deep. Started with pascal, then c++ in
school, but never learned anything. In December last year i started learning
python and i am now quite knowledgeable of the language. I started learning
Django a while ago and i also read a lot about other languages. I view my self
as an entrepreneur, although i have no business ideas, or even anything close
to a product(or anything that can evolve in to a product). My goal in life if
for spiritual balance. Its my philosophy. I don't care about money, or people
that much. I like learning and solving puzzles. I'm poor. My family has no
money, we live in Bulgaria and even by local standards, we are below average.
I don't mind at all, all i need is about 20 cents(euro cents) for the coffee
automate in school and a running internet connection at home(we are not that
poor) I love technology and stuff like that, i love science, all kinds of it,
biology, math, physics. i love it all. What's my point you will ask? I am
lazy. I hate doing things unprepared. I hate having to do things the hard way.
If i go start a company now it will be very hard, it will be almost
impossible(not completely impossible) I will have to learn so much on the run,
it will not be business, it will be home school. Its not worth it, so i just
enjoy being 18. I play football(European football, soccer is a stupid name), i
drink beer with friends(its legal here ha ha) I draw stuff, i listen to music,
and i learn. I learn as much as i can, i prepare my self. I don't like
failure. I know how to fail, I've failed a lot of times in my life and I've
learned to prepare my self for what i want to do. You do what you want. Drink
beer if you like too(don't mind the illegal part, i drink since 13) just think
about stuff. Don't do stupid stuff you know are stupid, that way you don't
have an excuse of being ignorant. Learn from peoples mistakes and think about
stuff. Try to understand your self and the world. And read Sun Tsu's Art of
War, its going to help you to a lot. It helped me understand the situations in
which my actions matter, and i use it as advice every time i have to make a
hard decision. Good luck, from a fellow entrepreneur and wannabe hacker.

~~~
ssanders82
I'm not trying to flame you, but in what usage of the word can you call
yourself an entrepreneur?

~~~
pavelludiq
I will explain. I work on my self. Most people around me waste their time.
They just want to go get drunk or something. Some of them are ambitious, but
most of them just say they are. A girl from my class says she wants to become
a layer ant thinks that she can become one without any understanding of
rhetorics or any other essential theory needed for that job. She doesn't even
try to get good grades in the classes that she will need(she got some good
grades but that is through obedience in school, not knowledge or any
understanding of the subject). A lot of people around me are like that. They
try to go the easy way. I am more ambitious. When i was a kid, me and my
friends tried to make ice cream money through a lot of different means(some of
them illegal too) Like selling sandwiches or cleaning houses and stuff like
that. Most kids just watched TV, i was learning about the world, understanding
my surroundings and looking for options. I knew from an early age that i had
potential. My plan is simple. Go through school, and get in to a good
university(all i have to do is get through a few math tests and i have a whole
year to get ready) Then just study, have fun and meet people. Then if i
actually get somewhere i might not graduate, but i think that i will get to
the end probably(as a safety net) Then start a startup in Bulgaria, probably
will not make a lot of money, but my hope is that it will be enough to move to
the USA(or any other startup hub that may be existing in 8-10 years) and make
money there. Of course it might not happen that way, so i don't make strict
plans, i just try to learn to hack, its hard, because there are not a lot of
good hackers near my town.

------
ars
>I came to realize that the hackers are the core of any good startup team.

Only software startups need them, but there are many kinds of startups.

First think of your idea, then see if you need programmers.

By reading those sites you are causing yourself to ignore all the other kinds
of businesses in the world, and especially since you are not a programmer,
that's a mistake.

Those sites are written by hackers, so they will of course laud hackers, but
it's perfectly possible to create a startup that does not need hackers. Just a
hired, regular, programmer or two.

~~~
comatose_kid
I'm kind of surprised to see this down-modded. There's nothing wrong with
casting a wider net, especially if you're not a technologist.

------
Maro
If you're smart enough for starting-up, then the time spent on school is
pretty much the time spent _at school_. Also, if you're smart, you've probably
taken a lot of extra classes the first 2 years, so you only have 5 or less
classes now? Seems to me you can be at home and coding by 1-2PM, leaving a lot
of time. Plus weekends. If you think I'm provocative, I'm just trying to
convince you not to drop out of HS.

Also, talk to people about your idea. You can probably even post it here.
Ideas are supposed to be worthless anyways. Per your description of yourself,
you're young and not a programer, so an older and wiser programer may be able
to tell you in 5 minutes that your idea stinks (for real) or has been tried n
times before.

I was involved in a startup when I was 17, and let me tell you, it was
chaotic. Dropping out of any school over it would have been a huge mistake.
Fortunately I didn't.

------
DanielBMarkham
Test your chops. I wrote my first contract program when I was 17 on an Apple
IIe for a local bookkeeper. Once I did that I finally realized that I could
take my skills and make something of value (Instead of just playing at
programming where you never actually deliver value to anybody)

There's a difference between idle and productive dreaming. I had a hard time
with this when I was your age. Productive dreaming is envisioning something
just outside of your reach and then making it happen. You string together
enough of these and you can go anywhere. Idle dreaming, on the other hand, is
thinking about some ideal future state with no idea at all how to begin. It's
a lot more fun -- but it doesn't take you far.

So test you chops. Prove you can code something somebody likes. Then prove
people will pay you for it. Continue along this pattern.

My advice only -- good luck!

------
iamwil
Lots of people will tell you lots of different things, but as always take it
w/ a grain of salt.

The thing about dropping out is that you have to be willing to figure out
everything on your own (which is sounds like you are). However, you'll find
that you'll end up learning alot, but there will be holes in your basic
knowledges and skill set. Unless you really dig deep into things you don't
understand, you'll end up with just a shallow broad knowledge of what you need
to know. And that at times can make or break your project.

I'd say, wait until you can make stuff to drop out.

------
softbuilder
Can you do independent study to finish high school? Don't drop out and don't
do GED. Either will put you in such a low educational caste it may be hard to
break out of later in life. Finish, get a real diploma for the reasons
everyone has already stated. Think of yourself as a guerrilla warrior and
right now you're biding your time and building strength.

It sounds like you aim to be the CEO type. If that's the case, you've got to
train yourself to be a CEO. No one is going to do it for you, at least not if
you're an entrepreneur. A CEO wears a lot of hats, but mostly a CEO is a
salesman, especially in a startup. So learn about that and get good at it,
even if it means you take a job selling someone else's crap for a few months
just to know what that's like.

Yes, you definitely should learn to program to the point where you can build
real things. It's not hard. If it seems hard try a new language or technology,
or find a mentor. A CEO needs a pretty good bullshit detector, so having some
tech knowledge is critical if you're doing a tech startup.

One final thing: People often emphasize that failure is ok and that is how you
learn and find your weaknesses and build strength. All of which is true. _But_
you get to choose your failures, probably more so than your successes. Make
sure the projects you pick will teach you valuable things and let you make a
lot of contacts. You'd be amazed how many happy coincidences happen when you
just happen to have learned some unique thing or you just happen to know so-
and-so from the last project you worked on.

------
babul
Stay in school. Do the startup thing over the evenings and weekends. If things
take off (you can live off the earnings full time for the foreseeable future),
_then_ consider leaving school and doing it full time.

It sounds like you are looking for a reason to leave school and startup may
not be the right thing. Have you considered getting a job at a tech firm to
develop your tech skills which you can apply on your startup.

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astrec
Don't drop out of high school: Hack nights. Hack early mornings. Hack at
lunchtime. Allot some time to party/chase girls/work out. Most of all make
sure you're having fun.

Before long you'll find you've built something of substance. It might be
something people want. It might not. Either way you'll have both a startup and
have/be-on-your-way-to a high school diploma.

Best of all you'll have options.

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mattchew
At 17, you probably don't have a very realistic idea of your capabilities.
Most 17 year olds are a lot better at dreaming than they are at accomplishing
difficult things. (Some 37 year olds too, ahem.)

If you have a track record of completing long term projects that _you_ wanted
to do (not your teachers, not your parents) that's evidence that you're an
exception. If you don't have that kind of track record, take a little warning.

Either way, you should still go for it.

School truly sucks, but I'd get the HS diploma at least, and encourage your
friend to do the same. If your venture doesn't work out, you'll be a lot less
stuck if you've graduated. Treat school as a system to be gamed and worked
around.

Learn to program. See "realistic assessment" above. If you can't program at
all, you're not likely to do well running a code based start up. You don't
have to be a brilliant coder, just reasonably capable.

(On the other hand, I've heard Ryan Carson doesn't code. Don't know much about
the guy. Exceptions, rules.)

Good luck.

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MaysonL
Contact Christopher Blizzard:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Blizzard> , who dropped out of high
school, got a GED later, and is now working for Mozilla. Find out what he
would advise after having gone the high school dropout route himself.

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ericb
College is a LOT of fun, and getting rich is no replacement for enjoying life
moment-by-moment.

I'd finish school, AND go to college. Try your hand at being a CS major. You
really do have enough free time at college to start a business if you want. If
your buddy is really so determined, go to the same school together. Drop out
only if you get traction.

Walking a tightrope is safer if you have a safety net (education) to fall back
on. Not only that, but reading these startup stories, you get the mistaken
impression that quitting/dropping out is some mystical talisman that leads to
success, but there's a selection bias. The people who burned their bridges and
failed aren't in any founders at work stories, they're often stuck in
relatively menial/low paying jobs or back in school.

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azharcs
First ask yourself do you really need 24 hours in a day, if not go back to
school. You should have a very good reason to drop out. If you are not
interested in education or if you think you can survive without it, then drop
out. Remember it is all about knowledge, you will have to know more than an
educated guy and always be a step ahead of the college educated people to win.
If you are lucky you might hire some of the more educated people to work for
you.

------
e1ven
Sounds like a lot of fun; I wish you a lot of luck.

I would highly advise that you work on the startup outside of existing school
hours- While I can certainly understand why you might not find finishing HS as
fulfilling as the potential of a startup, there are several mitigating
factors:

1) Highschool is not (easily) deferrable. You can put off a Master's degree,
or even a Bachelor's.. You can put off taking a new job, and find a new one
later. Highschool is not deferrable in the same way though. Once you're out of
the system, it's very difficult-to-impossible to re-enter.

2) Most startups fail, even ultra-determined ones.

I understand that some entrepreneurs might advocate throwing yourself into the
wind and hoping for the best- The theory behind their advice is that if you
eliminate your backup plan, you have no choice but to succeed. The difficulty
comes in that many shortfalls are outside of your control- The market could
change dramatically, you could become sick, or burned out, or a major player
could release a stronger, slicker, competitor. It's not to say that you
_couldn't_ work around these problems, but you shouldn't ensure that you
_have_ to.

3) Many people, not only future jobs, but VCs and Angels included, view HS
graduation as a necessary filter. Unfortunately, you're age will make it more
difficult to get meetings with a great many investors- Not finishing HS will
further exacerbate this.

4) You don't yet have the background you need to go full-time on the project.
Right now, your team needs to beef up their programming skill. You're job, as
the producer and business guy will be to make sure that happens, even when
it's boring for both of you.

You're other job is to be looking out for the long-term survival of the
partnership and the company; Everyone else might panic from moment to moment
and want to rush into things, but you're the one with the calm, reasoned plan,
and the wherewithall to see it through.

As annoying as it is, that means that you probably should focus on developing
your programming skill and finishing the degree. They'll both be crucial
later.

You should each work to pick up whatever language you're going to be writing
in; Even if he'll be doing most of the coding, you can't do a reasonable job
of helping where necessary, and eliminating roadblocks if you don't understand
what's going on.

I find that pair-programming, or at least reviewing together and discussing
design together, will greatly improve the quality of the code, as well as
making sure that any design decisions get a second set of eyes.

I think you're on the right track with your plan, but would recommend that you
take the time while you're each in school to focus on getting to KNOW the
technology.. Not just "I sort of understand it", but really knowing it, and
knowing it's limitations.

Again, as the business-guy, one of the things that you'll need to do is think
three steps ahead of where the code is right now- You want to make sure that
your programming language/framework won't cause you major problems, and then
you want to start to tackle the business planning and revenue side.

If everything goes well, the two of you should be able to put together a
prototype just before graduation, at which point you'll be in Great shape to
apply to YC, Techstars, and CloneOfTheWeek.

Best of luck to you and the team- You sound like you've figured out what you
want to do, now it's matter of executing.

~~~
abiek
1) Despite high school not being easily deferrable he can get a GED instead
and go to community college

2) We are not most startups. We may still fail and we accept that. We believe
the process has inherent learning value. So we win regardless of financial
gain.

3) Due to our youth we will have to prove our competence in other ways. We
will work extra hard to make people take us seriously. Age is only a
biological number. Maturity is different.

4) I am making sure we both work hard to learn. Learning is part of the
process. There is always more to do so we want to work as hard as possible.

I will do my best to remain calm and keep the team level headed. That is some
important insight.

I agree with you about the importance of collaboration on the different
elements and we will check and help each other.

Time to execute

~~~
jkent
I started up when I was 18, and ended up going to uni when I was in my mid 20s
- "these people are so much younger than me!". It was a mistake (for me) not
to go when I was 18.

But in your heart you know what it is you want to do. You can always change
track later. Richard Branson didn't finish high school.

~~~
ericb
>> Richard Branson didn't finish high school.

Neither did the guy who served me fries this afternoon.

------
shafqat
Dude, you are only 17 so go for it. I would NOT drop out of school yet. You're
doing the rightthing, apply for programs for next summer, but I would add one
task between now and next year. Learn how to code! Its fun, you seem like you
guys both want to be hackers, so just jump in. Even though knowing how to code
is not a game breaker, it certainly helps when you are lean and small, so just
take the leap of faith.

~~~
abiek
Thanks for the encouragement.

I am taking the leap. I am working on learning to code but am having some
difficulty but I will persevere.

If my co-founder dropped out he would get his GED and could always go the
community college transfer route.

------
fauigerzigerk
Do you have funding for a year or two? What about your partner? If your
parents say OK, go for it, we'll support you for two years (as mine did), it
may be the right thing to drop out.

Second thing is, you absolutely must gain the technical skills as quickly as
possible. A startup of two cannot support one business guy. But you already
know that I take it.

I wish you luck!

------
patrickg-zill
It is great that you are enthusiastic! I recommend seeing if you can find
someone who can serve as your mentor and who can give you some advice when you
hit whatever bumps your business will encounter. Having the ability to call on
someone who has already been tripped up will help immensely.

------
jasonlbaptiste
drop out only if it can quantify something. odds are you can finish high
school. dont just drop out because "gates and jobs" did it. Yes, I "stopped
out" of college with one semester left. Before, you call me hypocritical
realize that I had spent a good 2 years working up to that point. Take it one
step at a time, fuck up a lot, learn from it, go fuck up some more, learn
more, and eventually it will work out well. As long as you don't factor in
_"give up" into those plans, you will be fine. Hope this helps.

_ give up means, give up all together. odds are your first idea or vision or
even company will not be "what makes it". Flexible people never get bent out
of shape.

------
rms
Good luck, I hope your idea is really hotmail level. The world needs more
paradigm shifts.

If you guys want to talk about your idea with someone, email me, I could sign
an NDA if you want.

------
flashgordon
dude learn programming.. dont fall into the trap of thinking you are an "X"
kind of guy, where X is "programming", "marketing", "design" and so on... keep
learning as much as you can and build what ever you can.. you may not make it
into an app but you will learn heaps to propel you forward...

------
volida
its summer you dont go to school so make your attempt now and see how you do.
If you cant see that and talking about dropping then its obvious you are not
ready to evaluate your resources and time so allow me to question at least the
validity of the idea.

------
Allocator2008
High school is evil. It is satanic. I hated it too. Still, I'd at least get a
GED. Also, I myself did not finish college, but to "offset" that resume-wise,
I got a couple of those COMPTIA certifications. If one doesn't do much on the
education side, balancing it with a couple of certifications is always a good
thing. At least that is what I have heard from other people, and is what I did
myself. (I got the A+ and Network+ certificatons). As for programming I
started with a "teach yourself java" book myself, but if I had to do it all
over again I would have started with c/c++. Currently I have a job writing
test scripts in silktest which has similarities to both java and c, so it all
works out, lol. Good luck.

