
Ask HN: Are Startups similar to college admissions? - barnettx
I&#x27;ve just been rejected for undergrad at Stanford, the campus I hoped to accelerate my technopreneurship journey. I have been dealing with the rejection as an exercise of persistence because I recognise that I will have to face similar circumstances in startups with applying to incubators, pitching to investors, etc. Yet, I really hope startups aren&#x27;t as much of a lottery game as admitting into top colleges are.<p>For those who have been through both the college and startup journey, could you share if you see any parallels between the two experiences. Does luck play an equally large factor?
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WnZ39p0Dgydaz1
This may be an unpopular opinion, but here we go. It depends on how you define
"startup". There are two common definitions, and people confuse them all the
time and don't make clear what they are talking about. 1. A VC-backed company
whose primary goal is exponential growth with a small chance of an outsized
return. 2. A profitable business.

If your goal is to do the first, then luck will play a large role. That's why
VCs have portfolios of companies. It's nearly impossible to make predictions
about which startups succeed, but if one of their companies does, they win
(note that they don't care if it's your company or not). As a result, VCs push
their companies and founders towards making risky bets. Those bets involve a
large amount of uncertainty and randomness. You either win big, or you lose.

If your goal is to build a profitable business not focused on exponential
growth or VC-sized returns, then luck plays a smaller role. That's because you
are not forced to make those large risky bets. You can take more calculated
risks with slower growth while focusing on profitability. If you win, you are
not going to win as big as in the first case, but your chance of winning in
some way is higher. Of course, there is always uncertainty in life.

Note that I've focused on financial returns, which may not be what you
(should) care about. For example, your chance to fail is high in the first
case, but you since you are involved with more "successful" people you will
likely learn and build a network along the way that can set up you for future
success. You are more likely to "succeed" in the second case, but you may not
build much of a network or stretch yourself. Similar arguments in the other
direction can be made for mental health or stress levels.

I recommend reading "Fooled By Randomess" [1] on the topic of chance

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-
Marke...](https://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-
Markets/dp/B0012IZFRW/)

~~~
barnettx
great points

> If your goal is to build a profitable business not focused on exponential
> growth or VC-sized returns, then luck plays a smaller role.

a bit of background. I started Android development at 12 and published a few
apps on the app stores. Tasted the fun of building one's own business and
earning money by myself. I have always dreamed of building the next big thing.

I think now I'm slowly realising that building the next big thing is really
difficult. It might not even be something I'm aiming for any more now that
have better insights on the workings of exponential growth. The stress and
luck involved reminded me of this college situation I'm in.

> I recommend reading "Fooled By Randomess"

gonna give this a read. thanks!

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_JC_Denton
Luck matters a lot, as with anything in life. But the better you are, the less
it matters.

If you are some super precocious young scientist who had already developed a
novel drug, Stanford would be calling _you_.

If you show investors a killer product and early traction, it doesn’t really
matter who you are, they will be knocking on your door.

Now obviously its not easy to do either one of those things. And most of us
are somewhere underneath those very high bars, so luck does matter. Getting
into a good undergrad, getting into YC. I won’t lie. In my experience, these
things have helped me immensely. But optimizing for them is like studying for
the test, not for actual learning.

If you want to be an entrepreneur, worrying about luck, Stanford, YC is all
misguided effort. Start a business, succeed, fail, learn, start again. This is
what will actually get you closer to your goal. This is what will get you good
enough so that the whims of luck won’t make or break you.

------
jonahbenton
Different kinds of luck, and a different kind of game.

Stanford is small, arbitrary luck in a single play game, where failure usually
is not something you can learn from, because you will never apply to Stanford
again.

One's startup journey is best thought of as an iterated game, where luck
mostly around timing, and you can learn from failure and practice your timing.

In targeting an elite college you are in a lottery with 100s of others for
each seat. Of those hundreds a few might actually not be "qualified" but
generally there is nothing substantial to distinguish 99% of those who don't
get in.

Being chosen or not is a particular kind of small luck- the sort of arbitrary
circumstantial occurrance that is not under your control and is not something
you can learn from. Not "getting in" is not failure, unless you think not
meeting the demands of your ego is failure (it isn't).

In starting a business, the range of moves and outcomes, the game board, is SO
MUCH LARGER and SO MUCH MORE REAL than anything involved in getting into even
an elite college. Here you have other people's money and their livelihoods at
stake, not just your own ego. Here success and failure are much more tangible
and much more distinguishes between them. Execution is much, much more
complicated.

Even among startups who execute well, most still fail because of timing. The
ones that succeed also do so largely because of timing. This "luck" around
timing is something you can learn.

Said another way- my daughters are used to scoring high 90%s in their
academics. Every day I tell them the real world is where the people doing the
best are scoring around 5-10%, and of those who do it best the ones who
succeed get their 1 right out of 10/20 at just the right time.

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wespiser_2018
First and foremost, don't worry about not getting into <insert elite college
or university>. The admissions process is not fair, and in fact, it's unfair
is well documented in a couple of court cases. (See Student's for Fair
Admission court case docs [1] Your admissions decision is not a reflection of
you as a person.

Next, I wouldn't really draw comparisons between success and failure in starts
ups and academic institutions, as success in getting into a school is really
arbitrary, where the start up success is not some limited resource decided by
a panel of admissions officers. In my experience, as an employee of multiple
start up projects and companies, start ups are as much of a lottery game, and
I've seen unfair and unjust things happen to other people, and experience them
myself.

On a personal note, you will deal with failure, and bad things will happen to
you that make you feel bad. This is life. You can give up, or decide to keep
pushing forward closer to your goals with minimal delay and resentment. There
are a couple of useful philosophies for dealing with this, and I've found
Stoicism very helpful for managing these situations. (See Marcus Aurelius's
Mediations for a good intro [2]).

[1] [https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/sffa-files-motion-
for-...](https://studentsforfairadmissions.org/sffa-files-motion-for-summary-
judgment-against-harvard/) [2]
[http://seinfeld.co/library/meditations.pdf](http://seinfeld.co/library/meditations.pdf)

~~~
akhilcacharya
> First and foremost, don't worry about not getting into <insert elite college
> or university>.

Potentially unpopular opinion - one thing I've noticed where you get in is a
somewhat good indication of future success, whereas attending is far noisier.
I know countless successful people who are included as examples of folks that
"succeeded despite going to a non-competitive school" despite the fact that
they got into significantly more competitive ones.

(Disclaimer - I didn't get into any elite schools..)

~~~
wespiser_2018
Yea, in general, to get into a competitive school, you already have a lot
going for you: namely a stable enough home life, and supportive enough and
enriching environment that you can dedicate yourself to applying your
intelligence to creating a competitive application. It's kind of weird, the
people that get into the schools are the ones that "need" them the least.

Conversely, there is some evidence that less privileged students have worse
outcomes if they attend an elite school (compared to lower tier schools) in a
substantial amount of cases where these students have not prepared to the same
level as peers that have undergone a more competitive selection criteria.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I’m not convinced about the latter, but I am convinced that it’s difficult to
get out of the hole you’re in if you can’t get into an elite school at 17/18\.
I’ve basically given up.

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voz14005
The university you go to is a factor in your entreprenurial journey. Stanford
is likely the best outcome in the school factor you want to be a startup
founder. But there are many other factors to optimize for beyond college.

The ultimate thing to optimize for is to build something people want.

The college you go to is just one factor feeding into that.

Don't let a poor outcome in one factor cause you to lose focus on the ultimate
goal.

And here's a tip: go to another school in the Bay Area, find the hottest
startup, and offer value to them until they let you intern there. 4 years of
that (or even at a few startups) is worth more than anything you would have
gotten from any school. And don't forget to read all the startup books.

Edit: I realized I didn't really answer your question so here goes: yes luck
plays a huge factor, especially as you move from predicatable businesses such
as commerical real estate to hypergrowth moonshots like Google and Facebook.
But all startup founders face setbacks, and you've just witenssed your first
highly visible setback. Don't let it rock your ship; instead use it to fuel
your fire.

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muzani
Luck is _the_ determining factor to life. Except both startups and colleges
use different types of luck. Startup luck is more similar to 'real life' luck.
College admissions luck is much more controllable in a sense.

Pretty much everything you do should be just to put yourself in a position to
be lucky. It's sort of like sports - there's no one guaranteed strategy to
score goals, but you have to put yourself in a good position to be lucky.

A degree doesn't guarantee you a better career. It just puts you in a good
position to be lucky - if an opportunity lands, it's likely going to the one
with more education.

You be nice to people because it helps you get lucky. You be proactive because
it helps you get lucky. You work really hard because the world respects hard
workers, which helps you to get lucky.

Presence helps you get lucky. i.e. not being in the future or the past, or in
some virtual world. Just being present, observing the world as it is, finding
the irregularities that everyone is too busy to see.

Or heck, just smiling a lot, being optimistic, cheerful, energetic, fun to be
around.

Basically there's a lot of these little things that help a lot in getting
lucky. But this doesn't apply so much to college applications besides
interviews.

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stazz1
If you consider the many non-optimal ways a puzzle piece fits into a puzzle,
rejection might actually be a blessing in disguise. Stay inspired, it's
Stanford's loss. In general, all you need to make connections is a smile and
access to a good library.

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sixtypoundhound
Both are nice to have but ultimately irrelevant to your success in life. Means
nothing in the long run. Just do you.

And work to get to a level of accomplishment where you don't need to worry
about getting accepted / funded.

Successful graduate of an "elite" university. With a wife from a state school
who kicked his ass financially before we got hitched... (just saying)

~~~
muzani
Eh, I come from a fairly elite university, I did a startup, and I think both
of them have played huge parts in my current situation. They're the kind of
thing that get me about double the average salary, or random emails from
interesting people.

I wouldn't say it means nothing. It certainly does mean something. But it is
one path of many.

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wesammikhail
Any adventure you embark on will involve some degree of luck. However, You not
getting into Stanford isn't because you weren't lucky. It´s because you didn't
have the connections, the money, the reputation, the scores, the will, the
intellect or any of 100 different reasons. Don´t blame it all on luck just
because that absolves you of the responsibility.

As someone who has exited multiple startups let me tell you first hand that
startups are what you make them out to be. The success of a startup however,
while there are some large factors that are outside of your control, is mostly
a function of how hard working and smart you are. You need to make the right
decisions and work hard for a long time toward a vision that you believe in.
Meanwhile being a student requires you to be somewhat good at bullshitting and
maintaining a body temperature somewhere in the 30s (and for the students out
there, dont get butt-hurt by this comment, it´s literally true).

That said, you have to understand that startups are not for everyone. The best
advice I can give you is to go out and work for a startup for a year or two
and gain some experience. Additionally get close to the CEO and have him
mentor you until you understand what it takes to run a company of that size.
You might find that running the show isn't really for you, and there is no
shame in that. Meanwhile, save all the cash you can because you __will __need
every dollar once you eventually start your own thing if you decide to do so.
It may take months or years until the money makes it in so you want to save up
as much as possible and use those savings when the time is right.

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Alex3917
> Does luck play an equally large factor?

There are some startups that only succeed due to luck, and some startups that
only fail due to luck, but most startups aren't in either category.

For the most part if your startup idea requires something like Oprah endorsing
it in order for you to succeed, then it's by definition a bad idea.

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ixxie
Paul Graham seems to think otherwise:

[http://paulgraham.com/lesson.html](http://paulgraham.com/lesson.html)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21729619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21729619)

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youeseh
Luck is a factor. With knowledge, skill, preparation, learning from
experimentation... you get better at pitching.

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rajacombinator
Luck is the #1 factor in anything. Persistence is probably #2.

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akhilcacharya
Getting into Stanford is only a small degree of luck. It's only luck if you
otherwise fit the profile and were passed over for more trivial reasons. It's
really not a lottery.

