

Don’t Start a Company, Kid - quanganhdo
http://blog.bignerdranch.com/4428-dont-start-company-kid/

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tostitos1979
I have huge technical respect for Mr. Hillegass (bought and read several of
his books). I also respect the crux of this post, which for me was the
following sentence:

"Being smart and hard-working got me to seven employees. Luck took me the rest
of the way."

The funny thing is that I don't want to be an entrepreneur for the money. I'm
also not interested in the hockey stick. I wonder if the odds are better if
one is just aiming for a lifestyle business.

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carsongross
Best part of the article was almost a sidebar:

 _When you have Enough, the extra money means very little. I’ve been broke,
and being broke sucks balls. Having Enough is awesome. How would I define
“Enough”? Enough means that you can take a friend out to a nice lunch and not
have to worry about how much it costs. I have hung out with a couple of
billionaires—my experiences indicate that being a billionaire is just
incrementally better than Enough._

Exactly.

~~~
oz
As someone who would absolutely _love_ to be a billionaire (I once wrote an
'Ode to Wealth', it's under my comments somewhere), honest question: What
makes that the best part of the article?

~~~
avenger123
I tend to agree with you on this.

At the end of the day no one can argue that someone that lives on $20,000 a
month doesn't have a better quality of life than someone living on $5000 a
month.

I totally appreciate the sentiment in the article but at the end of the day,
money equals freedom.

If I had assets of $5 to $10 million in investments throwing off $200k-$500k a
year in cash, that would be a nice lifestyle indeed.

Does it mean I would work any less harder? Probably not. But, if I want to
take that 3-4 month trip to Europe and spend 50k on the trip, then that's what
I would do.

And I think the comparison is wrong. Being billionaire is incrementally better
than a multimillionaire (let's say net worth of $5 million and beyond).

Making $100k a year is definitely not close to somebody making $500k a year.

In terms of starting a company and the risks involved, I think for most people
that do it, its an itch. The money is the reward but that's not why we want to
do it.

I also think that the odds increase dramatically when you focus on building a
business where you don't expect it to ever go IPO or be worth more than 5-10
million.

~~~
oz
Finally, a kindred spirit!

You said it best: "at the end of the day, money equals freedom." My previous
sentiments: [0]

>At the end of the day no one can argue that someone that lives on $20,000 a
month doesn't have a better quality of life than someone living on $5000 a
month.

Oh, you'd be surprised. TONS of people will disagree; I know several of them
:). They'll create strawmen, saying things like "Oh, yeah, he spends $20,000 /
month, but he {had to sell his soul to get it | isn't happy | has a bad
relationship with his family"}. Personally, I think it's just jealously, and
bitterness.

Me? I'm a 1st year CS student. I have a math final on Thursday, but I owe
about USD380 on my tuition, so I'm gonna be barred from sitting the exam,
which means an automatic fail. The course is a pre-requisite for semester 2
courses. Which means my degree plans just got pushedback. Being in this
situation, when I hear people talk like money ain't a thing, it kinda makes me
shake my head. No beef with @carsongross, but to me, money is really, really
important. For want of 0.4BTC, my kingdom is lost ;(.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2025537](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2025537)

My 'Ode to Wealth':
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2026680](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2026680)

~~~
conjecTech
Really? You can't find a way to scrounge up $400? I've found your first
obstacle to being rich. Go talk to people. That is a problem you should easily
be able to solve. Try to find the money. Can't find the money? Go talk to
people at the school until it gets taken care of. You are effectively giving
up a semester of your life for $400. Be persistent. There are things of enough
importance that you should not simply resign yourself to the fate someone else
has dictated. I'd also suggest buying a copy of How to Win Friends and
Influence People if you can scrounge up another $10. The lessons in that book
were the main reason I had enough to eat my first 3 years of college.

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rjbwork
I have a friend who works for BigNerdRanch here in Atlanta now. It seems like
a really great company, led by a smart, hard-working guy who has, as he notes,
both earned and lucked into success. They have a great company culture where
they value results over presenteeism and time clocked, and they build truly
innovative solutions for a variety of different clients.

If I desired to work with Ruby or Apple technologies it would be a delightful
place to work.

As for his recommendation, I would add the caveat that if you have an idea you
want to get off the ground, treat it as a hobby or side-project and jump to
full-time working on it if you can get either investment or profitability.
There's no reason to wholesale discourage people from starting a small
company, but be responsible!

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swalsh
When you work for a company, like our client Procter & Gamble, they will
present you with a problem. “Here,” they will say, “is our problem and a big
bucket of money. Please create a solution.” There is no need for guessing.

Ummm i want the best of both worlds... how can I (a person with no contacts in
the company) go to procter & gamble, and say "hey I'm pretty good at tech, let
me solve your problems"?

~~~
eliot_sykes
In the UK, you can work as a contractor on a software project for BigCo. If
you go as a permanent employee as part of a consultancy company (eg
Thoughtworks, IBM) they will take the lion's share of your day rate. As a
contractor that changes to your benefit.

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LetMeListen
Fuck it! If people have the balls and drive to go after what they perceive to
be doable, why stop them? Failure is part of all our lives. That failure will
lead them towards a) bettering whatever they thought was going to make it big
or b) settling for conformity. I say let them fail, it will bring life lesson
not learned any other way.

~~~
mamcx
Yes, but is not necessary to fail right now!

Also, you need the right kind of failure... one to bad will have lasting
repercussions (or delay things more). Changes get better with a little of
experience doing things "normally" and do side things. Eventually then jump...

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elwell
It hurts just thinking about it:

    
    
      You will spend a large percentage of your energy on stuff
      that will eventually be thrown away.

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elwell
Where's the counter, inspiring epilogue?

