

Why are you starting a company? - wushupork
http://blog.1530technologies.com/2010/03/why-are-you-starting-a-company.html

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shiftb
To control my own destiny as much as I can. To make a difference in the world.
Oh, and money.

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rdl
I like starting companies in general because I like: * seeing direct effects
from what I do (it's like a game!) * freedom and responsibility to make
important decisions, not filling in TPS reports all day * Expressing opinions
about what technologies are useful (because they solve problems efficiently),
and solving important problems with those technologies * working with people
who feel the same way (employees + customers)

I am starting my next company (#3) (full-time this summer) because I'd like to
see cloud computing/virtualized infrastructure made (more) secure, and applied
to hard problems. I'd rather live in a world with this technology.

I'm willing to give up fairly comfortable 200-400k/yr. I _believe_ the
expected value per year at the startup exceeds that, but that isn't really a
factor in my decision. I'd do it for free and wait tables to pay the rent.

Doing a startup only because you want the end result (exit) seems like a way
to be miserable for most of your life.

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strlen
First, this is a pointless debate: there's a Russian proverb saying "Don't
divide the skin of a bear you haven't killed yet" i.e., starting a company
that even _gives_ you the option of liquid equity _or_ profit you can live on
is difficult and you'd be lucky to do be in the position to choose.

Most don't get to either routes (they fail); others have to choose one over
the other due to the nature of their product and market e.g., business
software requires _long_ sales cycles and a pipeline that takes many of these
cycles to build (before you have any significant traction or equity),
"generic" consumer Internet on other can mean sub $1.0 CPMs, requiring immense
scale before profit (at which point a "for eye balls" sale sounds lucrative).

I also don't think the understands what fuck you money means. To some it may
mean "serial enterprise" (and these people have generally built world changing
companies as well as invested in others). To others that means enough money to
develop your own Lisp dialect at your own pace instead of spending most of
your day working only on the sort of software others would pay for (that is,
freedom). They're both noble and respectable goals.

People who are interested in money for the sake of material wealth typically
aren't technology entrepreneurs. I'd argue even Ellison and Gates would be
technologists even _if_ it didn't make them wealthy.

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ableal
> there's a Russian proverb saying "Don't divide the skin of a bear you
> haven't killed yet"

I believe the English one is "don't count your chickens before they've
hatched" (i.e. don't count unhatched eggs). My local one is about the same,
but more graphical: "don't count on the egg in the chicken's ass" ;-)

(Yes, I do have a weakness for proverbs.)

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chipsy
I feel like being an entrepreneur, even at the small single-developer scale
that I'm going for right now, is the most _honest_ way I can attempt to
contribute to the world.

Employment is essentially the use of my skills as a kind of organizational
machinery: sometimes this can be very valuable - more monetarily valuable than
things I might do solo - and the work problems can be interesting, but it's
not as personally fulfilling, because it's the company that gets to be
influential to the world, not me personally, and the work done is usually a
"right now" problem that in the very long term has an automated solution. That
bugs me to no end.

So while I want some of the "lifestyle" business aspects, I also want some
kind of ideological power in the long term to help others live a good and
productive life. And I want my work to feel intimate, and to be made with
artisan craftsmanship. This has led me pretty strongly towards making
independent games; they're a great medium of expression and of teaching, and
they have a lot of room for aesthetics. The work has essentially no upper
limit on challenge and variation, and building with the market in mind is
actually a helpful constraint on the "art" side of things.

I haven't gotten too far towards specific expression yet, but I think that is
really going to come as a cumulation of everything else.

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mburney
" _Money, cars and material things won't suddenly make you happy._ "

But what about the freedom to work on things that don't make money? This is
the true purpose of seeking out "fuck you" money

~~~
fnid2
You don't need fuck you money to do that. I do that and I don't have fu money.
I volunteer lots of time and create websites that don't make money or aren't
intended to make money.

If you are really productive, live a frugal life, and create a little residual
income you can work on whatever you want.

~~~
semanticist
If you're happy with a frugal life, then your 'little residual income'
effectively IS fuck you money.

Fuck you money doesn't have to be hundreds of millions of dollars, unless you
want to support a wealthy/extravagant lifestyle. Then again, maybe you want an
extravagant lifestyle and your own submarine. That's not any better or worse
in itself than just wanting a frugal life.

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jlees
Because I'm unemployable.

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nandemo
Would you mind elaborating?

How come you're capable of running a company but cannot find a job? Unless you
live in a place with a very high unemployment rate, it doesn't sound right.

~~~
jlees
Oh, I'm awesome, I just don't like answering to other people and not working
to my own schedule.

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_delirium
The general take-away is hard to argue with, I suppose: there are lots of
reasons to start a company, and when making decisions, you should take into
account which of the reasons are yours instead of just blindly following
conventional wisdom. But it does seem like pretty well-trodden ground: surely
by now we are all aware that you don't _have_ to go the big-scaling-up/huge-
VC-funding/looking-for-an-exit-in-5-yrs route, if you don't want to?

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adamloving
To get out of a service based profession. To pay my mortgage without having to
perform a skill based job.

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zhed
After working at a number of companies, I realized that the thing that would
really suit my talents is to be part of the top management of a reasonably
large company. To start my own company were I had a top position by default
was way easier and more satisfying than working my way up the ladder in an
existing one. I now lead a small startup (bootstrapped, highly profitable) and
I'm having the time of my life. The key thing is not money, freedom or some
such - but simply the feeling of using my brain in a very efficient way, every
day.

~~~
vyrotek
What is the website for your startup?

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jmatt
I want to add value to the world in the most efficient way possible. For me,
that's owning my own company and making customers and/or users happy. I've
worked overpaying jobs for large and mid sized companies and it was stifling.
Before that I made decent money playing poker and it was unrewarding - I felt
like I wasn't accomplishing anything. In the end; I agree it's freedom and the
drive to create. EDIT: Grammar.

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Concours
I'm in it for the money. I'm introvert, and hate interacting with peoples I
can't stand on a day to day basis. Will it make me happier? not sure, but it
probably doesn't make me unhappy and I can do whatever I want.

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benologist
I'm doing it because I love working for myself and I believe there's an
opportunity for what I'm working on to help a lot of people. And get paid.

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pascalchristian
So that I can do things I like, and make money from it

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known
Because I'm a rebel.

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PG-13
So I never have to interview for a job.

To take over the world.

The knowledge that I'm making money from something I created out of air gives
me confidence in other areas of life.

~~~
bjelkeman-again
The interview. In the last ten years, or so, I figured that all the companies
or organisations that I wanted to work for didn't actually exist, and if they
did they wouldn't hire me to run them. So I started my own instead. But
several of them have taken outside investment, which means I am doing "job
interviews" all the time, but with investors. It feels like investors are
pickier than employers. So I am not sure I gained on that one. :)

The "take over the world" part is quite interesting, when you find something
to work on which is largely virgin territory and it involves a significant
part of the world population (in our case 40% or so). You just have to think a
bit different.

And yes, it gives me a real kick to create something from chicken scratchings
on the back of a paper napkin.

