

I'm an Entrepreneur, Now Give Me a Job - by_Seeing
https://medium.com/on-startups/48df6408d03e

======
cpursley
I’m tired of the poverty..." & "Brooks is getting some air in Thailand..."

Not sure what type of poverty he's talking about, but I certainly cant afford
to fly off to Thailand at the moment...

~~~
GuiA
This is something that I encounter frequently. Friends from high school I have
on Facebook who are still in college/grad school, don't work, but spend their
vacations in exotic places doing scuba diving. Or acquaintances who are
working on their stealth mode startup and complain about how hard it is, but
then go spend 1 week snowboarding in Tahoe because they feel like it.

How does that work? Do those people have giant savings accounts, and am I just
dumb with my money? Or do they do freelance work on the side?

I have decent savings etc., but having followed the path of college -> grad
school (where I worked as a research assistant) -> startup, I have never been
to Asia/South America because I either have the time but not the money, or the
money but not the time. My getaway has been driving to Santa Cruz for the
Sunday once every few weeks.

I feel like I'm missing out on something here- and I'm not ashamed to say that
I'm a bit jealous of those people and that I wish I could do the same. Coding
on a Thailand beach between a scuba diving session and an afternoon of surfing
sounds pretty nice.

~~~
SteveGerencser
Don't be jealous. Soon you will be 45 with no debt, able to retire but working
because you enjoy it and able to do anything you want any time you want
without any real worry. Many of those friends will be 45, in debt to their
eyes, or bankrupted at least once, and talking about lucky you are to be able
to just up and go on a 10 day fishing trip to Alaska simply because you wanted
to.

They won't, however, understand that they could have had exactly the same life
if they had chosen to delay the 'fun' just a few years. Guess how I know ;)

~~~
seanmcdirmid
On the other hand, soon you will be 45 with no debt, but not many interesting
life experiences. You realized you spent all your time working and being a
responsible drone, but then you look at your poor bankrupt friend who did so
many cool things the last 20 years and feel like maybe your course wasn't the
best course. Now you are getting old, have a family to worry about, and are
not really able to do the back packer thing anymore.

Different strokes for different folks. Time is also a limited resource; be
careful not to waste your youth on just work.

~~~
raintrees
I cannot agree with you here. Although I do not claim to be smart now, I am
definitely farther along than when I was younger. And I hope to be working
only because I enjoy it in about 9 more years, happy to be also looking
forward to quite a bit of travel, as well as on-going self learning I already
do...

I worked hard for the first 20 years, now I work part time, and as I said
already, I hope to have it be optional soon. I also feel far more appreciative
of life in general now, whereas I took much for granted while younger.
Hopefully, that will continue to increase...

But now having typed this, I realize that we are all different, and the path
we took is the path we had to take to be who we are...

Hmmm... Never mind?

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> But now having typed this, I realize that we are all different, and the path
> we took is the path we had to take to be who we are...

And that is the real wisdom that age provides :)

I could criticize the family guy for working hard, living in suburbia, and
forgoing exciting travel/work opportunities to have a quite acceptable but
normal life. But, hey, it works for him, and he has many things that I don't
(and vice versa).

------
ponyslayer
This guy wants to have his cake and eat it too.

From my count, he has had 3-4 jobs in 3 years. Why would you want to hire
someone who can't even stick with his own company?

So, this isn't a parable to apply to entrepreneurs in general. It only applies
to quitters.

~~~
doppenhe
I wouldn't go as far as calling him names but I do agree with the sentiment.
In the corporate world its weird if you leave more than one job in a row
before the 18 month mark, managers will start asking if the person is worth
training and investing in. With more well defined jobs the day you get hired
your essentially a net loss to the company costing in benefits, training , the
recruitment process, etc etc. You start chipping away at that and in the end
you are usually a huge gain in favor of the company - if you leave early you
mess with the break even point.

~~~
by_Seeing
Yeah, I totally get where you're coming from. I'd say I'm young and figuring
out what I want. After trying lots of things and learning tons, I've got a
better idea of what I want. I'd like to believe that gives me advantage over
other folks who took jobs as a matter of course. Mine is a choice, not a
default.

~~~
bigchewy
that may be true but now you're acknowledging that you are likely a bad hire
because you're still figuring out what you want to do and are therefore a high
flight risk.

Figure out what you want to do on your own dime, prove it, and then you'll be
marketable.

~~~
by_Seeing
> After trying lots of things and learning tons, I've got a better idea of
> what I want. ^ that.

------
ultimatedelman
no portfolio, no personal site, just a twitter and instagram and a few links
to ex-employers and a history of bailing... hmm...

~~~
WalterSear
A better title for this post would be,"I'm a Designer™. Where's my silver
platter?"

------
awakeasleep
This is a beautiful example of pure nonsense.

Brooks, you sound like you were made for sales. Maybe try catering your resume
towards those positions?

Anyway, I'm an unfulfilled critic, so I don't know if your reading this, but
here are the things that made my head spin about your post.

1) You editorialize a third party synopsis of your life into a headline
without any indication that you're making a parody or something. "One
accidental entrepreneur is finding it hard to" (This reminds me of someone
during a manic episode)

2) You build your story out of clichés, but they seem incompatible with each
other. (described as both "accidental entrepreneur" and "serial entrepreneur")

3) Totally ignore all important or interesting details that might indicate
something about you or what your experience is. (leaving company i started for
all the 'normal' and uncomfortable reasons? What?)

4) Generally weird stuff. Give me a job? If you're an entrepreneur, you'd know
you wouldn't hire anyone with that attitude! Jetsetting in poverty?

Anyway, best of luck. I'm sure you'll find somewhere you fit in. You sound
like you're made out of enthusiasm, and that rocks. It'd be interesting to
know more of the facts of your story- I think sometimes the more specific
detail of a thing you can share, the more powerful it can be. (I bet one
uncomfortable thing that happened to you would be cooler for me to read about
than a two paragraph synopsis of the last few years of your life even!) Also I
want to know how much money your parents give you =D

~~~
trevelyan
Not intended disrespectfully, but you're too hard on the guy.

I'd describe myself as an "accidental" and "serial" entrepreneur as well. The
first bit means that you never expected to work for yourself. As for the
"serial" part, if the companies you start aren't complete successes but aren't
complete failures, it is easy to spend years trying to bootstrap multiple
ideas. After you struggle along for several years regular employment starts
looking pretty good (salary! vacation! benefits!), especially as you get older
and want to start a family or buy a house or something.

As for the rest, I agree with the parent poster that it is harder to get an
institutional job after years of self-employment. Part of the problem is that
entrepreneurship is like a black pool -- what people see in it is mostly the
reflection of their own prejudices. I suspect this is actually one of unstated
reasons there is such an emphasis on getting funding, finding accelerators,
etc. and why there is such aversion to the idea of bootstrapping. At the
least, people who make their businesses as institutionally respectable as
possible and collect salary from investors during the process are rarely
berated for taking a vacation before starting a new job! :)

------
kunle
You're a designer. Designers solve problems by trade. Find a problem to solve.
Someone will hire you to solve it for them. If you're unable to deliver,
they'll fire you, but that's another story . . .

~~~
by_Seeing
I suppose that's why I wrote this piece. Solving a problem in a lateral way.

------
robomartin
I've experienced this sort of thing first hand many years ago. After ten years
running my own tech startup I decided to go get an engineering job and
"depressurize". I could not land one. I did not understand what was going on
until an HR person clued me in. The message was that with the Internet you
can't escape your past. You can't dumb down a resume for the practical purpose
of getting a job. If you've been an entrepreneur with any degree of success
(or even failures) you are one search away from someone knowing as much about
you as they care to.

You typically run into two scenarios. The first is a manager --your would-be
boss-- who, upon seeing what you've done feels threatened. A CTO might not
feel good about hiring an ex-CTO as a rank-and-file engineer. The second
scenario is that of a business owner who, upon learning about your
entrepreneurial experience is concerned about hiring someone who might come
in, learn the business and potentially become a competitor.

Yes, there's also the concern about someone pulling anchor early to go off on
their own in an unrelated direction. It costs a lot of money to bring someone
onboard.

My conclusion at the time was that in this fashion entrepreneurship can be a
curse. It can be nearly impossible to land a "regular" job because of it. In
my case, after much frustration I decided that my only path was to run my own
show again and off I went.

~~~
by_Seeing
Bingo

------
7Figures2Commas
While there are certainly companies that will not give bonus points for having
once pursued an entrepreneurial path, I don't think entrepreneurship in and of
itself is generally as problematic as it's made out to be here.

Constructive criticism: I think the author's difficulties are probably more
about his overall positioning than his history of entrepreneurial pursuits.
For better or worse, positioning can mean the difference between getting lots
of job offers and getting none.

The first thing I noticed in looking at the author's LinkedIn profile, which
is the first result when you Google his name, is that it tells me more about
what he's done than what he has actually accomplished. That's not helpful
because prospective employers don't just want to know where you've worked,
they want to know what you've achieved. If I were the author, I would rewrite
my job descriptions to focus on the tangible benefits realized by my
contributions. Right now, I can't figure out what value the author has created
for his companies/clients/employers because it's simply not described.

Also, certain red flags simply aren't likely to be overlooked. Examples of
these red flags include:

1\. _No_ full-time roles.

2\. A history of job hopping (i.e. most/lots of stints under 18-24 months)

3\. Jobs with overlapping dates.

4\. Unexplained gaps in employment history.

5\. No discernible career "path" (i.e. being all over the place in terms of
what you've done).

6\. Lots of moving around (geographically).

7\. Bizarre job titles.

8\. Job title progression that is inconsistent with a traditional development
path (i.e. a jump from an entry-level job title to a senior-level job title in
less than a year is likely going to be questioned).

9\. Public musings in which you paint yourself as financially strained, burnt
out, confused, etc.

Obviously, you can not and should not lie about your work history, so when
these sorts of red flags exist, there might not be an easy way to deal with
them. But I don't get the impression that the author has really looked at his
CV and made an effort to argue compellingly that he brings a lot to the table.
So blaming his entrepreneurial past for his failure to find a job is, in my
opinion, misguided.

Finally, the author can't expect a good outcome if he's not where the jobs
he's interested in are. If, say, I was interested in meeting the author for
lunch next week to discuss a job opening, I would be unable to do so because
he's in Thailand. And I, like most other employers, am not going to wait until
"mid-September" for the privilege of interviewing him.

~~~
ArekDymalski
While general spirit of your reply (OP can present himself better) is helpful,
I have to rant about the "red flags" you've mentioned. The criticism isn't
aimed directly at you, but against recruiters who base their decisions on such
factors. You see the red flags 2-8 are nothing more than just heuristics,
mental shortcuts which have nothing (or very, very little) to do with
competences (and that's what the recruiters should look for, right?).Actually
from your list only the point no 9 could be considered as a red flag, in terms
of a warning sign, not reason to filter the candidate out.

~~~
7Figures2Commas
You're right to a certain theoretical extent. A candidate with a history of
job hopping, unexplained gaps in employment history and bizarre job titles
_could_ be the most talented person in the world. But how is an employer
supposed to know that if the candidate doesn't do a good job of presenting his
capabilities and accomplishments?

Candidates have to be realistic: most employers can't thoroughly evaluate
_every_ candidate, so certain red flags are going to be used as filters. Have
a bunch of red flags? For better or worse, a recruiter or prospective employer
is going to assume that where there's smoke, there's fire, probably without
even talking to you.

At the end of the day, if you're looking for a job, it's up to you to sell
yourself effectively. Far too many people assume that because they're
competent, their competence will be evident to others. But hiring managers or
recruiters generally don't see more than what _you_ put in front of them.

If you're not strategic about how you position yourself and/or you're too lazy
to put together a convincing "pitch", prospective employers will have no way
of seeing the real you. And even if the supply of obviously good technical
candidates is often limited today, the risks of a bad hire are generally too
high to warrant taking a chance on someone who was incapable of presenting a
compelling CV or "story" in the first place.

~~~
ArekDymalski
You are absolutely right, in terms of describing the reality. In fact,I used
to do exactly the same when I was a rookie recruiter (and there was plenty of
candidates on the market btw). However when the job market changed I had to
change my approach to hiring. And that's why I'm ranting about this topic.
Becuase many recruiters make rookie mistakes and at the same time complain
about lack of talent on the market.

