
I Don't Want to Be a Founder - kipply
https://carolchen.me/blog/founding-bad/
======
gkoberger
I remember as I was starting my company, I reached out to a founder of a
company you've likely heard of for advice. We grabbed drinks, and he
practically begged me to not start a company, for my own sake. I thought he
was a dick.

But he wasn't wrong. Write down a list of why you want to start a company. I
bet the list involves things like "building something nobody else has,"
"getting to program and design and do a bit of business-y stuff" or "freedom
to work on what I want". That's only true when you start. Pretty soon, you're
spending all day in meetings, and only a small portion of your time will go to
the things you currently enjoy doing... and you'll feel guilty because there's
something more important you should be doing. (Me? I'm currently
procrastinating on an investor update, an H1B application and two performance
reviews.) You'll spend more time writing emails than writing code. You end up
bogged down in organizational issues, not dreaming up cool new features.
Rather than having one boss, you now have dozens... investors, customers,
employees, etc.

Oh, and the rejection. The non stop rejection. Every single day, hour, minute.
Investors, customers, employees, potential employees. It's not personal, but
it sure feels personal. Even when things are going great, there's tons of
little micro-rejections, non-stop. I wish someone told me that.

It's really hard. I don't know a single founder who hasn't had relationship
problems because of their company, or suffered from depression. Hanging out
with founders is less like the TV show Silicon Valley, and more like group
therapy.

This isn't to say you shouldn't do it. But just be prepared for what being a
founder actually entails. Talk to a few founders of medium sized companies
about how they're doing. If you're still on board, then maybe you're right for
the job. For me, I wouldn't change a thing... I love it. It's incredibly hard,
but there's a reason I haven't even thought of leaving. If you're the same
way, then go for it!

But don't do it because you want to do it. Do it because you literally can't
imagine not doing it.

(If you're doing it now and things are getting hard and you need someone to
talk to, my email is in my bio :) )

~~~
startup_thrway
> But don't do it because you want to do it. Do it because you literally can't
> imagine not doing it.

What about because you can't bear the thought of having to work 8 hours a day
for the rest of your life? I realize this is probably among the "bad" reasons
to start a business (and it probably sounds disrespectful to people who have
and will keep on doing that until retirement), but that is how I feel
currently.

It may sound like a burnout problem, but there wasn't anything to be burned
out by except... having to actually work full-time. I now freelance 10-15
hours per week and that feels doable but I'm not going to have a fun
retirement with that (at least living expenses are covered).

~~~
jimbokun
> What about because you can't bear the thought of having to work 8 hours a
> day for the rest of your life?

Probably the lowest risk strategy to solve this problem is get a FAANG job and
invest at least half your salary in mutual funds for 10 years.

~~~
icedchai
Yep, I know someone who did this, but without a FAANG job, living in a
relatively low cost of living area. It took 15 years to get to the first
million, and roughly 20 years to get to two. You need to be able to handle a
lot of ups and downs, like the dot com crash, great recession, and now corona.

A lot of people, quite understandably, can't deal with that sort of
volatility. You'll see $100K+ drops in a month. You'll also see 6 figure
gains, of course. Some people give up, put it all into bonds. That's not good,
either.

------
thisisbrians
I enjoyed this article, but I think it glosses over a very important part of
my (and my cofounders') own motivation for starting a company: vision.

Sometimes you see or believe something that others simply can't or don't, and
you want to do something about it. Trying to find a (usually narrowly-defined)
job that lets you work on these things can be very hard because there usually
has to be someone looking for solutions to these hard-to-see problems, and you
sacrifice a bunch (more) of your autonomy in the process.

Founding a startup is a great solution to this problem; convince some capital
that you have deep conviction and competence to make a material change in the
world and put in your own elbow grease to prove it. If you are willing to work
hard you don't need very much money to amplify the impact of your own
decisions and efforts and the snowball grows, attracting more resources along
its path.

It's still really hard to do, but founding a startup remains one of the best
ways to prove out a hypothesis in the real world and achieve actual change,
while still allowing for a decent income even in the event of failure. It is
worth it if the mission is compelling.

~~~
x87678r
> you see or believe something that others simply can't or don't, and you want
> to do something about it.

It must be more than vision. I see things all the time that more others can't
but I really dont have the time or inclination to start a company.

~~~
qppo
audacity?

~~~
thisisbrians
naïveté ;)

------
Mave83
I successful founded startups since 20 years, starting in the age of 16. In
none of them, I founded together with partners that I realy trusted like I
trust my wife. However we worked together on a professional level and figured
it out everytime.

Why could we do that? because in the end it is a work for roughly 5y and if
you stop even thinking about working 24x7x365 you have enough free time for
recreational activities. I'm on vacation around 6 times a year, but available
to the company on critical stuff.

Yes sometimes it's hard, sometimes you have so much work that even 24 hours a
day wont be enough, but then again you need to focus on the important work and
think about yourself.

Btw I only did the bootstrap way with every company founded on 25k€ and no
VC/Angle/Bank/External money and very low income in the first years (I hire
people ASAP). As of today, in average over the last 20y this gave me more then
500k€ yearly salary with the exit money. Not bad and definitive much better
than I would have had in in any Employment.

For me it is absolutely no choice to be employed or working in larger
companies. I want my own freedom :)

~~~
amzans
Thanks for the inspiring story. I’m guessing that the 25K€ probably referrers
to a GmbH in Germany :)

If so, would you say the GmbH/UG (Limited Liability Company) route is a good
idea from the start for a solo founder of a bootstrapped SaaS?

I’ve been doing my research and maybe I’m wrong, but it seems like it has
quite a lot of overhead for a first time solo founder like myself.

To clarify, I’m an expat in Germany, but I’ve even looked into setting up an
LLC in the US or another limited entity because they appear more lightweight
to operate than their counterparts in Germany. But then I end up in a
complicated international tax situation.

I’m not seeking legal advice, just wondering if you have any tips now that
you’ve gone that path several times successfully.

Cheers!

~~~
Mave83
Yes it's all Germany based. Don't go the UG way, just found a GmbH.

Please note it is possible to found it with 12500€ and have to provide the
other half of the 25k€ later.

My first company was without the GmbH protection and benefits. It was ok but I
would not do or suggest it to anyone. Hell of a pain to migrate to a GmbH
later.

~~~
YungSven
I‘m about to found a UG in the next few days, so I‘m curious why you say that
I should found a GmbH rather than a UG.

~~~
lnsru
I heard, that transition from UG to GmbH might be associated with additional
costs. Also some older folks don’t like UG in general, because it is
“immature” company status for them. Personally I don’t like
(haftungsbeschränkt) at the end. It’s longer than actual company’s name and
just does not sound good.

------
jasonkester
It's refreshing to see somebody stop and evaluate what they actually want,
rather than just doing what they think they people like themselves should do.

Places like HN tend to come with the expectation that you should be building a
company rather than working for one. That's a "thing you need to signal" if
you want to be here. But watching discussions here, it's clear to me that most
people just don't want to be entrepreneurs. And it's also clear that many of
those people don't realize it.

Pull up a discussion thread on an article about bootrapping a little SaaS
company. You'll find all these people coming out of the woodwork to explain
how nobody could possibly build a software business today, listing three or
four reasons that those of us who _have_ built SaaS stuff never even
considered, never ran into, or addressed on the day it came up. It doesn't
really matter what the reasons are. The important part is that Building A
Software Company Is Impossible So Nobody (Inclucing Me) Should Try (Though
Note That I've Correctly Signalled That I Would, Were It Possible).

You'll get whole threads of people talking themselves out of trying, and
congratulating themselves on not believing anything the author said because
clearly his success was some fluke combination of luck and influence that
could never be duplicated by anybody else.

Meanwhile, people who actually _are_ interested in building a business will
nod along to some bits of good advice, maybe comment about some of the less
good bits, then get back to building something.

I wish it was more acceptable here to simply not want to build a business.

------
djeiasbsbo
I like the article but I honestly have never even stopped to think "should I
create a startup?"... is that a common thing?

Maybe it's because I'm still young or because I've never actually been in huge
financial distress (which I realise is a privilege) but I don't have the
desire to make a lot of money or sell my dream idea/company. All I want is to
make enough to cover my living costs and in my spare time work on side
projects, code or tinker around. You know, do things that are actually fun to
do and allow me to learn new stuff. If I have an idea i'm very passionate
about I'd like to just share it with others because they might find it
interesting, not turn it into financial profit for me.

Why is it that it's almost a societal expectation that you must always push to
level up financially and professionally? In all honesty, I haven't even used
my salary for more than rent and food in the last few months because there is
simply nothing new that I really need... I haven't had to buy new clothes in
at least three years but if I had to I could also do that cheaply at a second
hand store; that's just one example. As for my hobbies, even on very dated
hardware one can pretty much work on whatever the heart desires and learn, the
only thing that is needed is an internet connection.

Why is there always a desire not just to make the money invested back but to
make a huge profit? I think in this field we have pretty good wages, now can't
we focus on more pressing issues that concern us and future generations?

I don't get it in general... I'm satisfied with what little I have, I don't
need anything else because I can already do all the activities that make me
happy.

~~~
neutronicus
It's probably because you're still young. More specifically (and here I'm
guessing something about you), romantically unattached. Dating is a tough road
to hoe if you can't or won't fund about half of a wedding and at least one of
kids-and-a-house or traveling-the-world. Well, not dating exactly - you can
get laid and even start relationships but in my experience the relationships
will have a half-life and eventually fall apart in the face of increasingly
unpleasant conversations about your lack of interest in the expensive stuff
mentioned above.

Especially as a software engineer, I think, because ... hippies don't really
like us that much, so there just aren't that many would-be ascetics out there
willing to date us, and the people who do date us tend to pretty good at
pegging their lifestyle expectations to a "leveled-up" career progression.

~~~
goldenchrome
What you said is very subjective and is likely the product of the way you
present yourself to the world.

Normal people want those things because they’re the things that society deems
normal, but there are plenty of weirdos out there if you look.

~~~
neutronicus
Probably. I've always had kind of a dad vibe.

However in regards to your last clause, I said as much in my comment. "Finding
weirdos" was less of a problem than "finding weirdos without a grudge against
weirdos like me."

------
irjustin
Dave McClure had a pretty aggressive talk about why not to do a startup[0]
back in 2012 and it resonates with what's written here.

Startups are hard and we love to parade those who made it, struck it rich, but
the reality is the vast majority don't. It also requires a
skillset/discipline/constitution that is very different than what most people
want to do.

In the very large group who don't make it, lies burnt relationships,
heartache, debt, lawsuits, depression, even suicide/death. Which on closer
inspection, the success group has a lot of the same traits. Only they made it
out with IPO, sale, merger, self sustaining business to show for it.

It is scary. It is hard.

But to me, you won't know until you know. And if you want to know, the only
way is to try.

That is reason enough.

[0] [https://vimeo.com/15799330](https://vimeo.com/15799330)

~~~
mettamage
IMO, damned if you do damned if you don’t.

Before covid it took me 12 months to find a job. I applied to 100 companies.
Ironically, got a job during covid and the job is pretty relaxing compared to
the job hunt. During the hunt I thought: society is kinda forcing my hand
here.

Also: a lot of knowledge workers have to work a lot of hours and keep on
learning (e.g. doctors or programmers).

To me, it feels much more like a pick your poison type of thing.

~~~
wutbrodo
> To me, it feels much more like a pick your poison type of thing.

The way out is consistently living way under your means (if possible). If you
don't live in poverty, this is likely possible in the general case; just
pretend you make XX% less aftertax and voila, you have an %XX savings rate.
There are non-monetary costs to doing this, but there are also benefits, and
the freedom is really hard to beat.

...though I've heard that that doesn't apply to having a family. I don't know
exactly this wouldn't generalize to having a family, but I don't currently
have dependents, so this blind spot is likely the reason. The main thing I can
think of is how expensive schooling is (via or not via housing prices), and
the understandable desire to max out the quality of your kids' schooling (my
mom took a super-shitty job as a teacher to get my sister and I free private
school tuitions, with a bitch of a commute, until we were old enough to get
scholarships).

~~~
jimbokun
> ...though I've heard that that doesn't apply to having a family.

It 100% applies to having a family. (Source: have family.)

~~~
wutbrodo
Could you elaborate? As I said, I'm assuming this is a blind spot, but
assuming both parents are onboard with trading consumption for
security/freedom, I don't understand what specifically would make this
unworkable.

That is to say, the same logic applies to a family: If a family making $120k
could survive adequately in a given location, then a family making $160k can
pretend they make $120k and do the same thing. As I mentioned, the only
exception I can think of is wanting to max out education spending: taking for
granted that school spending is valuable for educational outcomes, does this
explain 100% of the difficulty in maintaining this habit once having a family?

Other possibilities:

    
    
      1) education/housing spending is often a proxy for class segregation, which I suppose is another factor you'd want to max out for your kid (I have no experience with this: my parents were upper-class in the old country so they hung out with other upper-class old country people (of various incomes) and I got the values they hoped I would without having to pay for it)
      
      2) Perhaps it has less to do with kids than it does coupling up: anecdotally, most of my male friends who are happy to be ascetic need to start flashing money when they start dating, and most of my female friends are far more interested in consumption/comfortable living spaces.  I know few people living well below their means, but 0% of them are women, despite my having many female friends. Though this is a pretty low-confidence guess, since as I said, it's based on anecdota.

~~~
jimbokun
> That is to say, the same logic applies to a family: If a family making $120k
> could survive adequately in a given location, then a family making $160k can
> pretend they make $120k and do the same thing.

Yes, I was trying to agree with you.

I'm married, have a family, and we do exactly what you describe. We live below
our means and save as much as possible.

In our case, living below our means worked out as having a single income
family, and having a full time care giver in the home. For others, that might
mean maxing out two incomes and retiring earlier.

> Perhaps it has less to do with kids than it does coupling up: anecdotally,
> most of my male friends who are happy to be ascetic need to start flashing
> money when they start dating, and most of my female friends are far more
> interested in consumption/comfortable living spaces.

When we started dating, my wife joked she liked me for my crappy old beater of
a car. What she meant by that, is she knew a lot of the guys with fancy cars
were actually broke because all their money went into their car, and she could
tell early on I was more responsible and frugal.

So be careful of over generalizations based on anecdotes. And, frankly, be
careful about getting in a serious relationship with someone who doesn't seem
capable of living within their means.

~~~
wutbrodo
Ha, my mistake, I misread your comment's reference to my own. I thought you
were saying that it is definitely impossible to do while having a family.

Thanks for your perspective!

------
lacker
For me, the way I thought about it was a bit different. When I did YC I had
already worked at Google for a while, and the question I was asking myself was
less "do I want to be a founder?" and more "is starting a company something I
ever want to try out, in a career that will probably span decades?" If you've
had jobs you liked in the past, and you figure that you can probably find
those jobs again, and you don't immediately need the big company salary, what
is a startup really risking? The worst case is that you work on it for a year
or so, it goes nowhere, and you go back to work somewhere else. You miss out
on some money but you're going to learn something new in any case.

~~~
8f2ab37a-ed6c
Same here. I wanted to know what it was like to have all of that
responsibility on my shoulders.

I felt like my career was moving at a snail pace within BigTechCo and I was
capable of much more. There's no real risk in that situation, unless you're
borderline destitute, have dependents who need you, have a serious medical
condition that requires a high end employer to support you etc.

Even if you fail, you will have learned many valuable skills and perspectives,
and might get hired at your previous employer with a better title.

------
switch11
Could someone please explain to me what the value in this article is?

It's written by a 18 year old who has never started a company

So, as someone who has started multiple companies and currently running a
profitable albeit small startup, what insights should I get from this article?

~~~
Veen
Does it not strike you as somewhat narcissistic to assume that, because an
article isn't valuable to someone in your exact position, it isn't valuable at
all?

You comment reminds me of something I read recently in a novel by Ian McEwan,
in which a character talks about the sort of novels she would like to read:

> "I suppose I would not have been satisfied until I had in my hands a novel
> about a girl in a Camden bedsit who occupied a lowly position in MI5 and was
> without a man."

The character is, of course, "a girl in a Camden bedsit who occupied a lowly
position in MI5 and was without a man".

~~~
Kkoala
Not that other novels are/can be interesting as well, but I would find it
fascinating to read a novel about myself.

~~~
oscargrouch
Maybe you should write a book. It would be about yourself, no matter what.

------
imprettycool
Title should be: I don't want to take VC money and I don't think you do either

~~~
santoshalper
I do find it interesting that in spite of the fact that so few companies will
ever accept VC money or go public, this model is viewed by many as the
dominant or only way to start a tech business. This is in spite of the fact
that Technology businesses may very well have the lowest capital requirements
of any type of company in history.

It was the same way in the 80s with finance. Even though most finance workers
were (and are) accountants working boring 9-to-5 corporate jobs, everyone
assumed that anyone in finance worked on Wall Street and snorted coke off of
strippers in NYC nightclubs every weekend.

~~~
kipply
Yah my feelings about running a startup are completely different for
bootstrapped/hacked up companies (I think that's the term?)

~~~
jaxn
The downsides are still there it takes the same level of commitment,
dedication, and obsessive effort to bootstrap.

It has taken me 5 years to bootstrap a niche b2b saas to $1m ARR. It is both
awesome and terrible.

~~~
imprettycool
It doesn't have to be stressful or full-commitment. I'm cool with $50k ARR.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
I'm not even sure revenue is that good of a signal of the work put in. Didn't
the Basecamp guys start off on just 10 hours a week inbetween their day job.

~~~
dasil003
By day job do you mean running 37signals the new media design firm at the dawn
of the web?

I wouldn’t really isolate the “day job” part here, it was sort of the
quintessential dogfood SaaS.

------
pier25
For me the main reason to try it is the frustration of having been working for
20 years as a freelancer or as en employee.

In both cases I've been investing my time and blood in exchange for money.
Then the money runs out and you start all over again, and again. I want to
invest my time into something which hopefully can grow so that I can keep
investing more of my time instead of just giving it away. I want to plant a
forest that will produce on its own instead of having to plant and harvest
again on each season.

Freedom is another important aspect. I've been frustrated during my
professional career with clients and bosses making the wrong decisions again
and again and living with the consequences of those decisions.

I might totally fail while building what I'm building (see my profile) but
that's better than waking up one day and realizing I've wasted my life.
Thankfully I'm in a position where I can invest a couple of years of my life
without earning money and I don't have people depending on me.

~~~
jmchuster
i think if those are your motivations, then you definitely don't want to start
a startup. You want to start a small business where you're the boss and maybe
you have one or two assistants. Or maybe you just want to start a side
project. As a founder, i think you very quickly lose your sense of freedom and
control.

~~~
jennasys
As a 20 year freelancer myself, a side project is a good way to go. But if
that takes off and starts requiring more structure, more resources, and
eventually overtakes the day job, it essentially becomes a startup.

~~~
jmchuster
Sorry, i meant "startup" in terms of "company predicated on exponential
growth". If you have a small business where you're the boss, you just grow it
slowly how you you want. But as a startup founder, your surrounding
circumstances essentially are dictating what you have to do in order to get
that exponential growth. Your customers are your boss, your board is your
boss, the market is your boss.

------
rickdangerous1
My take on this is: the only people who should become a founder are the people
who can't bear the thought of not doing it. Anyone with less than "Give me
libertly or give me death" levels of commitment should not even bother.

~~~
take_a_breath
This seems like an unnecessary barrier to new ideas and innovation. So many of
the businesses we rely on started as simple hobbies or games.

~~~
rickdangerous1
But of course there are obvious exceptions

------
conceptnotion
I think what most of us want is to be free of the tyranny of employment. And I
don’t think founding a company is best way to mitigate that if you aren’t
completely into it, you could just go become a freelancer or start a small
services Center in your locality.

~~~
gkoberger
If that's the case, definitely don't start a company. Instead of being
beholden to one manager, you're all of a sudden beholden to dozens...
employees, investors, board, customers, etc. Being a founder is just a job.

~~~
chii
> Being a founder is just a job

a founder has the power to make changes to his job. An employee doesn't.

Even tho a founder is beholden to their investors, board and customers, the
founder is also empowered (after all, he/she calls the shots).

An employee is beholden to his/her manager, but cannot "call the shots" but
simply takes orders.

~~~
AmericanChopper
This seems like a rather naive view to me (and one that I also used to have).
As a business owner you are far more accountable to a far greater number of
people than you ever will be as an employee. You have the authority to make
more decisions, but it’s hardly a “whatever you like” sort of situation.
Nearly all of the decisions you make will just be about balancing all the
responsibilities you have to other people. As a business owner you might have
more authority, but there are many areas where an employee would typically
have more freedom. An employee has the freedom to leave all their work
problems at the office and go home at the end of the day, or take a vacation.
An employee has the freedom to leave the moment a better opportunity comes
along. An employee has the freedom to only worry about the problems they’re
specifically employed to solve. A business owner would not be expected to have
any of that. If your primary concern is a greater level of autonomy at work,
then you’d typically be better off seeking and employer who will give you more
autonomy than you would be owning a business.

------
jarsbe
Why is it that starting a tech start up is seen as an uber difficult task
often resulting in burnout while starting a business in a technical occupation
such as electrical or refrigeration is (seemingly) less risque? Surely there
are a plenty of opportunities where rather boring software can be applied to
business problems. Does it always need to be a monumental technical
accomplishment to create a success?

~~~
mdorazio
The difference is in the HN-style (and Bay Area) understanding of the word
"startup", which is focused on hyper growth at all costs or bust. Starting a
_small business_ in something like HVAC is very different in that you
typically start small, with relatively low ambition, and grow the business
organically over a long period of time. The latter is definitely difficult and
sometimes stressful, but not in the same way as when you have investors
pushing you to bump your revenue up by 10x in the next year or gtfo.

~~~
senojretep356
There was an article on HN about extremely successful Mormon startups.
Interesting that they all manage to leave the office at 5pm (because they all
have 6 kids) and build multi-billion dollar businesses.

~~~
depthroiler
Would you mind linking? I'd love to read that article. I've anecdotally begin
to notice more and more B2B startups from Utah make it onto the map that fit
just that profile.

~~~
Axsuul
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882224](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23882224)

------
sepranu
The commitment point is very true, and extends to employees and clients if
you're in certain spaces and want to maintain a clean record in civil or moral
court.

The rest of these arguments seem like bad framing. From a certain school of
thought, entire point of a startup is to leverage your risk taking ability
relative to incumbents in the market and your economic peers. Working at a
startup forces you to learn more, faster; and you're challenged by real market
factors, not artificial incentive structures created by a large org or
academic institution. You also wear a ton of hats that you have no access to
early in your career at larger orgs or in academia. Hiring, management, sales,
accounting, taxes, finance, product ideation and refinement, etc - early years
at FAANG or medium sized orgs will not expose you to all of these. Even an
experimental team that lets you play with cool technological toys.

"Not being at school" is an silly way to describe, "4 years of school is
sometimes a poor choice of use of the best risk-taking opportunities of a
person's life".

"Your VC is not the one at risk here" is a reason to avoid VC, subvert some of
the incentives that VCs give you, or ignore a subset of the advice they they
give you, not a reason to avoid risky ventures.

It's important to note that the author here is an 18 year old and has no
significant real-life perspective on either running a company or being part of
a larger org. Nothing about that affects their ability to accurately
pontificate on the pros and cons of running a startup, but there also isn't a
lot of skin in the game or experience to back up that perspective. The
bayesian prior here is negative.

If you're partway through a uni degree or similar learning program, or an
incumbent engineer at a small or large org, then you should look at starting
or joining an early-stage startup as a great way to take risks that you will
be less able to every year (because of increasing costs of living, commitments
to a new generation of your family if you marry and have children, incentives
to purchase real estate, etc). The payoff will hopefully be huge and will be
distributed across potential exits, experience, and personal growth.

------
mdorazio
Not really mentioned by the author, but my own experience is that you need to
strongly consider the 80/20 rule for founders. If you start a business, you
will spend 80% of your time doing the business things _you don 't want to do_,
and only 20% of your time doing the things you enjoy.

What this means in practice is that if you want to start a company because,
for example, you just want to build products without dealing with manager/team
bullshit, you are going to have an awful time. You need to be very honest with
yourself about your ability and dedication to do all the things that actually
get a business off the ground, not just the things you want to do and imagine
you'll spend all your time doing.

------
cryptoz
Reacting mostly to the ending/conclusion here.

I don't know about other founders, but for me, startups are basically the only
vehicle for solving big problems that nobody else will/can solve.

Often the reasons that (nearly) nobody else is trying to solve your exact
problem are 1) it is risky/unlikely to monetize well, 2) it is hard, grueling,
or boring work that may not even function right in the end, 3) might believe
it to be impossible or not worth it.

But if you have a big problem in front of you and you strongly believe it can
be solved and should be solved, then what other choice do you have but to
start a startup?

There are lots of people (maybe myself? I dunno.) who feel strongly about
solving a problem but also feel that they don't have "what it takes" to be a
successful startup founder. I have a failed startup in my past. The failure
process wrecked me for years, emotionally, socially, financially, the whole
thing. I'm okay now, don't worry.

But are there any other reasonable options for "trying to solve a big problem
that is otherwise being ignored" other than starting a startup?

I want to solve big problems I care about. I have that ego discussed in the
article; often I find I do believe I have the right combination of things to
solve a particular problem better than other people. So I feel like it is my
responsibility to do it.

But being a startup founder is _hard_ and if your personality or circumstances
aren't a good fit, then, what do you do? Just stay frustrated that the problem
isn't being solved?

~~~
rckoepke
This resonates very strongly with me. Everywhere I work, I find really cool
things to invent and business process improvements. Sometimes the biggest
impacts these have are at the megacorps due to economies of scale. Often
though there's so much friction, overhead, and red tape that it's impossible
to get buy-in from team members and managers in the megacorps. This happens
even in the best cases where everyone is open-minded and supportive. Sometimes
large groups just don't have the excess capacity needed to re-tool. In large
companies that don't have the best case cultures, it's nearly impossible to
implement improvements or use any cross-team resources (human, physical or
digital) to bring an invention to life.

It seems you're absolutely right that a startup is your only option if your
idea is a proposed solution to a problem that is outside the mission/domain of
(your/any) current organization, and/or if any organizations which would be
interested simply can't devote resources and time to developing, evangelizing,
and implementing your solution.

However, the risk involved in the process is so damned high. I love working in
teams, whether at large megacorps, small contracting groups, or on my own or
my friend's startup ideas. I don't love the "burnt relationships, heartache,
debt, lawsuits, depression" (as 'irjustin phrased it elsewhere in this
thread), that can be associated with startups.

Some startups are well-positioned for co-operative mutual interest VC money
(repl.it would be a strange thing to bootstrap). Some startups are fantastic
for bootstrapping (Sparkfun/Adafruit), and many could probably succeed just
fine doing either (mailchimp, bootcamp come to mind). Still others probably
best operate via philantrophic arrangements (OpenStax).

------
eastdakota
This made me sad to read. Not everyone should found a company. Frankly, in
school, the people who annoyed me most were the ones who vowed to be an
“entrepreneur.” Always sounded pretentious. But, as someone who has garnered
wealth and happiness from creating something from scratch, I do hope we
continue to celebrate, if not idolize, that. And, I hope, we remember the
humble beginnings of Yahoo, eBay, Google, Dropbox, Facebook, AirBnB,
Cloudflare, etc. Not everyone needs to be a founder to be successful. But I
hope everyone will continue to believe they can be one. Not for themselves,
but for what they can build for the world.

~~~
qeternity
Also, it’s a distinctly SV mindset that startups and entrepreneurs is this
zero/hero dichotomy. The world is full of “moderately” successful startups
that throw off a few million in free cash flow for a relatively small team.

If I were to give advice to other founders, it would be stop building for an
IPO/acquisition. Build for the middle ground, and take opportunities to step
on the gas if you see them.

------
christiansakai
Is software startup by solo founders still viable anymore? Today the age of
apps/SaaS seems ending. It is oversaturated, and the low hanging (low
technical complexity) fruits are already taken left and right.

~~~
nlh
This comes up a lot here. In short:

* Yes, software startups by solo founders are very much still viable.

* No, the age of apps/SaaS is not ending

* It is not oversaturated either. There are ALWAYS new ideas to build, new products in demand, and new ways to make money.

* It always seems like the low-hanging fruits have been "taken", because you've observed them being successful (it's a reductive argument). They probably weren't low-hanging when they were originally built - just in retrospect. Similarly, some of the app/SaaS ideas being built by solo founders right now may seem low-hanging in a few years.

The crispest example someone once gave me for why the world never actually
runs out of things to build (easy or otherwise) was:

* New technical innovation A emerges (it can be anything - a new sensor on a phone, a new form factor, a new feature in software, a new API, etc.)

* Product B emerges that cleverly uses innovation A.

* Product C emerges that competes with Product B

* Service D emerges that helps compare Products B & C

Repeat ad infinitum...

Unless you believe we've reached the end of the first step (no new technical
innovations!), then we haven't even come close to running out of things to
build.

~~~
christiansakai
That's really an interesting example. Thanks

------
caleblloyd
Title is a bit misleading, 3/4 of the arguments against being a founder in the
article are conditions that may not apply.

1\. Reliance on a co-founder is stressful 2. VC vs founder risk profile 3.
Don't dropout to found a company

I think these all apply more to the "get rich quick" approach and sure, I
agree that is a bit of a moonshot.

But instead of writing off founding, why not look at ways to mitigate risk?
Complete an education, spend some years working in an industry, or start a
bootstrapped company in a niche that you learn from the industry. Or any
combination of those that fits your risk profile.

And have an exit plan in mind, for either the success story or the failure.
That solves the sense of self- a calculated business plan that didn't work out
does not have to be devestating.

~~~
senojretep356
Yes, I always think working in business for a while is useful because you see
so many inefficiencies that give you ideas. Like the guys that made millions
on ski resort management software. Who knew that was even a thing!?

------
bananaface
She misses the most important difference between owning a startup and owning a
project in a company: actual ownership. You don't own the profits in a
company. I mean, really??

Anyone can write articles like this. Be careful who you learn from.

------
opportune
I don’t think the point about making more money in industry is particularly
compelling. I feel like I would be mostly losing opportunity cost and would be
pretty confident I could get at least as good a job, if not better, with the
lost experience. Further, in what way is joining an early stage startup
financially advantageous to being a founder? The only benefit is it being
easier to walk away, but the upside is greatly reduced, and the worst case is
not much better (perhaps a higher salary).

I also don’t really agree with the point that being an employee engineer can
be just as ambitious as being a founder. You can do great things as an
engineer but you won’t capture even close to all of its value, and for better
or worse will likely not get as much recognition or influence for it either.

There is nothing wrong with not wanting to start a company, and maybe there
are people who feel compelled to do it for the wrong reasons. It seems to
really boil down to risk tolerance and whether you would actually be
comfortable running a business

------
timavr
It is definitely hard and stressful, but when you have your own company, it is
up to you to decide how you want to run the company.

You don't have to have co-founders, you don't have to take VC money. You don't
have to do anything period.

It is your company, you run it and if somebody else wants to run it, they can
either fire you if they have means to do it or buy you out.

~~~
rwmj
This is technically correct, and running a lifestyle business can suit some
people.

But running a business is stressful because at the very least you have to deal
with taxes, accounts, cashflow and sales that are more complex than being an
employee. If you take on even a single employee it's another level of
complexity on top, _and_ you have to make payroll every month without fail.

For me at least it was better to do it for a few years with an exit in sight
(in my case it went out of business, oh well!) rather than knowing that the
stress of finding payroll every month would go on and on forever. And that
means going for growth or bust, having a co-founder and all that.

~~~
Axsuul
To be honest, taxes, accounts, and cashflow are overestimated. There's plenty
of softwar/services out there now to make this less painful.

------
terrib1e
I liked the article, but it just seems like a way to justify whatever self-
doubts come from being a founder. It seemed like the author was just
reinforcing the doubts they had about succeeding. A big part of being in a
startup is belief in one's self. They said they became more confident than
they thought was warranted through 'self-hypnosis' , but in reality that just
means they had a ton of self-doubt and listened to that little voice of doubt
in their head. Sometimes you just have to take a chance and realize that
nothing is irreversible; you will learn from your failures/successes. You
don't have just one chance, you have as many chances as you're willing to
take.

------
simonebrunozzi
At first I wanted to add some smart-sounding comment to this, but then I took
a sneak peak at the author's home page, and realized she's 18 only years old.

This made me think: even if she might not be 100% right, or she might have
missed some important detail, etc, it's really impressive that at this age
she's able to articulate this concept quite well. I was way dumber when I was
18. Heck, when I was double that.

To be clear and to avoid being misinterpreted: being 18 to me simply count as
not possibly having several years of experience as a founder, which makes her
thoughts even more impressive.

------
blickentwapft
You don’t need a cofounder.

You don’t need a VC/funding.

You don’t need to over identify self with business.

------
bjornsing
I’m a former VC-backed founder and I liked the post, but this part made me
cringe:

> To be ambitious often means things like wanting to do a Ph.D, become a
> medical doctor or an astronaut.

Why should it be considered ambitious to do a PhD or become a medical doctor.
Those are just slogs that most people can get through if they stick it out...
Something is very wrong with our cultural preconceptions around ambition. It’s
like real ambition is now so taboo we can’t even talk about it or something...
Can anybody explain it to me like I’m 5yo?

~~~
jackpirate
_Those are just slogs that most people can get through if they stick it
out..._

Most adults in the US do not even have a college degree. For their children,
aspiring to be a doctor would be incredibly ambitious and an amazing
accomplishment.

Acknowledging that these high-prestige professions are very difficult for
certain members of society to get into does not make talking about your
ambitions "taboo", and I frankly find your comment incredibly out of touch
with the average person.

~~~
czbond
OP is simply meaning the steps are laid out for those disciplines - and one
must follow the path. It just takes the time and effort and one can progress
there. Whereas entrepreneurship is finding the path, along with much more -
and failure is still a high chance.

------
_curious_
Interesting thoughts Carol, thanks for sharing. It's important to have this
sort of conversation with yourself when considering the foundations of
starting a company. The fact that you've expressed it in such a way that
others can tap into may be valuable for those like you at or approaching this
crossroads. Fascinating thought process!

Not enough entrepreneurs/founders are able to have such a pragmatic and mature
dialogue up front about the pros and cons. It's imperative that they do for
the sake of their time and emotional well being - at the least. Kudos to you
for going through it and making a decision which suits your needs.

You've said: "Setting goals like working at a certain company, promotions (up
to positions like CTO) and building a specific type of thing aren't less
ambitious than building a successful startup." ... and I would ask you to
elaborate on that, like is there anything more "ambitious" than building
successful startup or how do you perceive the scale of ambition in the context
of say business/professional pursuits?

PS - I didn't know that hey.com was considered a "huge, groundbreaking"
product...certainly captured some hearts and minds of the early adopter meets
anti apple/establishment crowd but is it (yet) recognized outside of that
bubble?

------
rmason
You may not wish to be a founder if you believe the only way to succeed is to
chase venture capital.

If you value freedom over becoming a billionaire there's an alternative and
that's bootstrapping. Plus your odds jump from under 10% to as much as 50%. If
you don't quickly reach product-market-fit it's a short journey. Sometimes
having that pressure early brings clarity to the mind.

------
ptero
I really liked the article which raises many valid points. You should not
start a company without thinking those through. And have a cofounder who sees
those in a similar fashion.

On a flip side working for a large company has different challenges and
limitations. They tend to be bureaucratic and have been moving in the
direction of avoiding risk and increasing control over employees. Once this
reaches a certain level, dancing to the HR tunes while in the straitjacket of
20 policies can get very taxing.

Separately, I wonder why the 14-hour workday is the norm in startups. What
would happen if founders try to get somewhere in four months instead of three
and have a firm agreement between founders of "no more than 10 hour work days;
at least one, preferably two days a week of no work"?

It seems everyone agrees that "it does not work this way". Can someone
explain?

------
georgewsinger
> A lot of people claim that startups are less money, but I find for signicant
> number of founders, that's not true -- not because they'll definitely have a
> good exit, but because they're skilled in ways that allow them to raise
> enough money to pay themselves like they would at a big company. If that
> applies to you, then going to a startup probably is your best shot at
> getting rich! For other people, the expected value of industry (particularly
> joining a well-founded early-stage startup) is usually higher.

I've never heard this before. Raising enough VC money to pay yourself a
corporate salary (i.e. 6-figure or beyond) sounds like fraudulent use of VC
money?

~~~
Axsuul
VCs _want_ founders to be paid a market salary so that they can focus on their
startup and not be distracted with other shiny things.

------
loxs
Ugh, come on, for the vast majority of people, marriage and family are the
best things in their lives.

From what I can gather from the article, the author has neither been in a
startup, nor in a marriage, yet they feel qualified to mentor people on both
:-)

------
ThePhysicist
Mostly valid arguments. Founding a startup with a co-founder can be like being
in a marriage, and there are a lot of frustrations on the path to success (or
failure).

That said, she doesn't seem to realize how privileged she actually is, having
to choose between a high-paying job at a SV company or accepting to join one
of the most famous startup accelerator programs... I don't think she does that
on purpuse, just seems a bit out of touch (but then again this is HN so maybe
not).

------
tylermenezes
I worry about the people who want to start companies. I think that's a
terrible motivation that more often than not leads to failure (and drags
others down with you).

I have personally never wanted to start a company. I have seen something I've
wanted to change in the world, and failed to find a way to change it without
starting a company.

Not starting a company would have been quite a bit less painful. I would 100%
take that option if it were on the table.

------
raverbashing
I think the commitment aspect of a startup is mostly underrated by people

Freedom? Closing the work laptop at 6PM is freedom. Not having to worry about
office rentals, trash collection, bathroom cleaning is freedom. Fine, you
could go WeWork for that, or just stay at home (aren't we all) but something
will go off at night, or your future self will regret your past self
decisions.

~~~
lazyjones
Are you confusing commitment with responsibility?

If something goes off at night or if you have an idea and decide to put in a
few extra hours at 6pm, it's an opportunity to do some work to improve things
for the future of your project. You don't _have to_. Some people like such
low-hanging fruit though.

Office rentals and bathroom cleaning are responsibilities like those pretty
much everyone has to deal with in adult life. They can feel like a burden if
you have Peter Pan Syndrome, but are consequences of life decisions and not
special commitments that need to be questioned every day.

------
devmunchies
> The VCs are your "bosses" as you answer to them (though much less than a
> regular "boss") and to the ones you hope to raise capital from in the
> future.

Isn't this based solely on the equity makeup? If an investor only has 10%, but
me and my co-founder share 90% then what absolute power does the investor
really have?

~~~
loxs
Investors' job does not stop with giving the money. Very often, on the
contrary, they are the people who will help you with connections to next round
investors, will help with IPO, etc. They will not do any of this if you don't
do what they want :)

~~~
devmunchies
yeah i get that, that sounds more like a _" partnership"_, though. I was
mostly talking about the _" boss"_ verbiage.

An investor is only a _boss_ if they have more equity or voting rights,
correct?

~~~
loxs
It's partnership when things go as intended, it's "boss" when there are
problems. Just make sure there are no problems ;)

------
nyxf
It is really a choice between wanting freedom while accepting the troubles
that come with it or sitting under the shade of employment with the occasional
bug bites. Most of all, I am glad that there is this awakening that one
questions their situation and wants to change things up. That to me is growth.
Thanks for sharing this.

------
galaxyLogic
The value of starting a company is you can hope to accomplish something which
other people have not. It is a bit like being an explorer finding new lands
like Columbus. It is an adventure. But you might end up marooned.

Whereas if you just work for someone else you accomplish some income. You can
pay your rent or get a mortgage maybe even buy a sports-car! But you don't
have real job-security and in the US you don't even have the security to know
if you get fired you could still keep your health insurance.

You are serving someone else's goal which probably is to maximize their
financial profit. When you work for them you are their opponent. More for you
is less for them. It's not full zero-sum of course but if they are the kind of
person who just wants money they will view you that way, as somebody they can
make money from. It's a game and they can win big, but you really can't. Your
benefit is you learn things but after some years you start thinking you are
wasting your life that way taking orders from some clueless greedy business-
person.

Just my feeling at the moment.

------
satvikpendem
There are a lot of bootstrapped founders, actually the vast majority of them
since the percentage of companies that VCs fund versus the number of pitches
is tiny, so this doesn't seem that accurate. Just look on www.indiehackers.com
for more info on these types of founders.

------
jyriand
Not sure about being a founder. I rather be a entrepreneur and if that means
that at some point i end up founding a startup, so be it. But the term
“founder” seems like a unnecessarily limiting word and i don’t understand why
it appeals to some people.

------
ChicagoDave
Being a founder requires a bit of insanity or a belief in one’s self beyond
the negativity that will be incurred by the effort.

For many, the suffering is not worth any vision. For some, like myself, doing
nothing is a greater suffering.

------
enriquto
Using the word "founder" is ridiculously narcissistic when you are simply
starting a business just like millions of people have done before. I try to
stay away from people who call themselves that.

~~~
tdfx
Which word do you approve of? It seems like every terminology gets cliche at
some point, but this is the first time I've heard of someone who has strong
feelings about the "founder/co-founder" title.

~~~
enriquto
"Business owner" is neutral and meaningful. I guess "founder" is best reserved
for writers of constitutions and the like.

------
pjdemers
Only be a founder if you:

A) Think you are better than what your resumes/work history says. B) Are
better than what your resume/work history says.

Most people with a strong enough resume/work history to get funding fail both.

------
jake_morrison
I had a funny experience where a friend was trying to recruit me to be part of
some venture.

We met up and got in a car with another lady who he was trying to recruit as
well, and he kept talking about it as if it was already a done deal that we
were in.

At one point, she and I looked at each other and were like "Excuse me. No
offense, but I don't know who the hell you are." We didn't join his thing, but
ended up starting three companies together, so we _were_ compatible business
partners.

You need some time to get to know each other. I find it's better if you don't
consider it like marriage, investing a lot of emotion in it. It either works
or it doesn't, and you can leave as friends.

------
holoduke
this is personal. doesn't apply to me. I founded my first company 10 years
ago. now in my second company. I enjoy it very much. I am in contact with many
happy founders.

------
kissgyorgy
Your co-founder is not the same as with your wife, because you will spend MORE
time with your co-founder than with your wife.

------
Areibman
Off topic to the content of the article, but this is a really slick looking
blog! Is this a template or something custom?

------
t0mmyb0y
The biggest reason: Some of us would be horrible to work under. One day VCs
will get it.

------
fourseventy
Don't tell me what I do and don't want. I hate articles like this.

------
gerland
Don't want to be a founder? Good, you don't have to be.

------
konschubert
Cool, so best to do a bootstrapped solo-founder thing ;)

------
aabhay
This article has such a strong mental bias towards the Bay Area worldview. It
assumes so deeply that the two types of people in the world are VC-backed
startup founders and engineers at top tier tech companies. This is so
completely off. Many people (including me) decided to start bootstrapped
companies that are profitable on day 1 (or soon thereafter), with richly
rewarding work. Many folks literally can’t get a job because they have no
marketable skills and their only solution is to create something brand new.
Other folks just want to have a good story to tell about trying to change the
world. It’s really in this small bubble that you can create an equivalence
between tech founder and tech employee.

~~~
kipply
This is correct (am author), bad oversight. Opinions were only applicable
towards the scope you described

~~~
aabhay
Hm okay, thanks for acknowledging! I guess the reason I had strong words for
this was that the mental bias I observed is actually extremely pervasive among
people here in the bay. In fact the first question I get about my firm is
whether/how much I raised.

~~~
kipply
I'm afraid of Bay-Area-view-of-the-world-being-inaccurate sorta things, was
kind of sad to see it in myself (though my scope was narrowed partially
because my only experience was choosing between industry vs startup)

~~~
EchoAce
Please don’t feel like this article wasn’t useful to some people though even
with bias; as a new entrant to the industry I liked reading it!

------
cheesecracker
I don't even want to work, but unfortunately food and shelter cost money.

It's all a trade-off. Don't be a founder, but then you have to put up with
crazy company politics, feeling of meaninglessness, having a boss, and so on.

Personally I don't think anybody is entitled to a job, though. Hence my "I
don't even want to work" statement. People have to do something to survive,
that is just reality.

