

Ask HN: Are my motivations for getting into entrepreneurship superficial? - etcetc

I had a few concerns and deep nagging issues about building a startup. After some deep introspection, I&#x27;m not so sure if I have a product that I&#x27;m deeply passionate about. I think my main motivations for building a startup is self satisfaction and proving to myself that I can start a business. Obviously self-management and working on something interesting are bonuses but I came to this conclusion after long hours of thought. It&#x27;s really bothering me that this might be a superficial reason to pursue entrepreneurship and also that I haven&#x27;t created anything yet. If entrepreneurship sounds like the wrong path for me, let me know. I hear all the time that to be in this business it&#x27;s a lot more than just hard work, which I understand. Usually what drives people past this barrier is their deep interest in whatever problem they&#x27;re solving. For me, I just like building things, regardless of what they really are. I like watching people get excited at watching a product grow and seeing their suggestions become reality. I am a software engineer with good internships lined up so I think I won&#x27;t have a hard time getting back into the industry if I ever worked at a startup or started my own. Has anyone felt like this going in? Any suggestions on what I should do or what I should consider instead?
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GFK_of_xmaspast
Somehow I expect that the proper mindset for 'entrepreneurship' is 'stack that
paper'.

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smt88
You absolutely, 100% should not start a company. Most startups fail, and the
ones that succeed are often not the first venture by an entrepreneur. So if
you think you'll get some validation by succeeding at starting a company, you
have a far better chance of feeling even worse when you fail.

It also sounds like you're pretty young. The massive success stories, like
Facebook and Microsoft, are often started by young people, but the vast
majority of successful startups are starting by older founders. I believe the
average age of a successful founder is 38.

One of the reasons for that is that you learn so much and meet so many people
early in your career. When you start a company without working for a few
years, you're starting with a disadvantage: you're missing a lot of important
experience that you can get from working for someone else, especially if that
someone else is committed to mentoring you.

If you keep seeing articles like "some young guy, similar to you, makes $100M
selling some product you could have built", stop reading the news. Those
aren't the norm, and there are often circumstances involved that you could
never replicate. You don't need to be Mark Zuckerberg to be wildly successful
and important, and you shouldn't even peg your self esteem to something like
that.

Keep in mind that nothing is stopping you from creating side projects,
throwing them on Product Hunt, HN, and Reddit, and seeing what happens. With
all the tools available now, most proofs of concept can be completed in a
weekend. In fact, one small test of whether you're ready to be an entrepreneur
is whether you can execute some products over the weekend. If you have the
passion and motivation to give up your weekend, and you can get something done
that quickly and dirtily, you have at least one pre-requisite of building a
startup.

Here are the conditions under which you should start a company, if you ever
find yourself in them:

1\. You can lose $50k+ and still be fine. You _will_ spend an enormous amount
of your own money, and you almost certainly will never get it back. Startups
are a black hole for both time and money.

2\. You can sacrifice most of the nice things in your life, including
expensive food, vacations, nice cars, and quite a bit of your social life.

3a. If B2C: you are one of a small group of people capable of solving a common
problem, and you also have the time and connections to access investors.

3b. If B2B: you are one of a small group of people capable of accessing your
market. This often comes from having worked in a particular industries for
years. (The market should always come first, not the idea. Be ready to throw
away many ideas to get to the right one.)

4\. You are very comfortable with failure, and you don't cringe when going
over your failures with a fine-toothed comb in order to learn everything you
possibly can and not repeat your mistakes.

