
Stop Pretending you can Start a Company while Avoiding Sacrifice and Risk - transburgh
http://www.gobignetwork.com/wil/2007/8/23/stop-pretending-you-can-start-a-company-while-avoiding-sacrifice-and-risk/10187/view.aspx
======
geebee
This article does a wonderful job explaing why moonlighting is a poor path for
people to start new companies.

But we don't have to reason this one through - we just look out into the world
and check.

All in all, it does look grim. Most of the successful software companies do
seem to have taken a big plunge at some point. Consulting companies don't
count, but consulting companies that have morphed into product companies
might.

Can anyone think of a few successful companies that have started this way? Or,
if not successful companies, personal applications that someone managed to
sell for a lot of dough?

Joelonsoftware's fogbugz might be a good candidate, as well as the 37signals
apps. I think that delicious was started as a personal project by an employee
with a full-time job. None of these are the giant, smash successes you read
about in the business section of the mainstream press, but they can be still
be remarkably profitable quiet successes.

------
wschroter
What spawned this post was a lot of the email I get from Go BIG members
talking about wanting to pursue their idea, but they don't want to take any
risk to do it.

I used the job example as the most common issue that people tried to
circumvent, but I think you can moonlight in some cases just fine.

There is risk and sacrifice in moonlighting, too. I think people have
unrealistic expectations as to what starting a company means though.

------
staunch
This is probably the most controversial topic possible here. There's nothing
that could offend people more than the idea that deep down they might not
really have the determination they think they have.

It's so easy to fool yourself into thinking you can have your cake and eat it
too. How many people get into the upper-middle class lifestyle of a programmer
and then are willing to go back to living like a poor college student? Very
few. So moonlighting becomes a way of trying without taking the plunge.

Someone might say about quitting to do a startup: "Yeah..maybe you can't diet
without getting your stomach stapled, but I can."

Eating a healthy diet and exercising might be similar. It's something that
tons of people want, but so few are able to actually sustain over the long-
term. I think a lot more people would successfully exercise and eat healthy if
they didn't have day jobs. If they had plenty of extra time to go to the gym
and cook meals. I think the same thing is true for doing successful startups,
but to a _much_ greater extent since they require so much more effort and
time.

------
chmac
True, lower the risk, lower the reward if it pays off. However, I think
starting a business beside a job is a good way for people who want to start
something small. Sure, they're not going to create the next Facebook part time
in their garage. But they might build a nice lifestyle business that gives
them quality of life.

~~~
palish
There are also people in my position who have to start something big while
moonlighting. I make 35k a year, so after car payments and living expenses
(not credit card debt though, thankfully) there's simply no way to save up
fast. I'm saving, sure, but at this rate it'd be a year before I could quit to
spend 3-6 months on our startup. Godda start now.

~~~
rokhayakebe
sell your car, move with your girlfriend/boyfriend and code till you get a
call from Yahoo.

~~~
palish
That's.. certainly one way to do it. I'm debating that, but it's another thing
when the chance of you failing affects someone else (for example, if you have
a family). Technically you can't 'fail' at a startup, you just quit working on
it, so how long do I invade their life? I couldn't bear to ask Emily's father
to support me for a year or more.. It just feels morally wrong, especially
when he's already 20 years in home debt and is supporting three children and a
wife.

Does it make me a non-entrepreneur to worry about morally wrong things? I
don't know.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Nope. Entrepreneurship and ethics go together. Chances are you can make more
than 35k working as consultant or some odd jobs rather than working for
someone else. That could be your first step. There are lots of people who
would love to know what you know. Put a simple web page and offer consulting
services and go to Odesk, Craiglist. Soon you will have a better income and
more time for your startup.

------
menloparkbum
What a bunch of bullshit. This is at best stupid business-book pith, and at
worst completely irresponsible advice. The parts about using your personal
cash, spending kids college fund, blowing through your retirement account are
particularly egregious. The founders of the most successful companies in
Silicon Valley sure didn't risk their own money building their empires. If
you're starting a (failed) nightclub in Cleveland, maybe it is a different
story.

~~~
wschroter
How do companies get funded then that:

1\. Aren't VC funded 2\. Aren't angel funded

Before you answer, keep in mind that 550,000 businesses are started EVERY
MONTH in the U.S. alone. VC's fund less than 4,000 of those each YEAR.

You must have some kind of insight that 23 million small business owners
don't.

~~~
rms
I think his point is that companies that can't get funded usually won't be
successful, because there has to be something wrong with them to not get
funded. Only someone who lives in the Valley and sees how easy it is for
someone reasonably connected to get funded could have this attitude.

This isn't always true but there's at least some truth there.

~~~
wschroter
We all know Silicon Valley is the quintessential barometer for how all
companies are funded and started.

