

Technical founders have nothing to lose - martinvanaken
http://blog.8thcolor.com/2012/12/technical-founders-have-nothing-to-lose/

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alexchamberlain
Technical cofounders have everything to lose.

If you are any good, you have a job and, therefore, the opportunity cost of
launching a startup is massive.

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martinvanaken
My point (as another commenter pointed), was more that, as long as you do not
put a lot of money in, you'll have ample opportunities to recover, even in the
worst case. Especially in the market we are in. This does not invalid your
point, as I agree that there is plenty of jobs and money to do around here in
the sector.

~~~
sqrt17
Your point is valid if (and only if) your income stream from consulting or
contracting can be scaled up and down fluidly enough to catch the ups and
downs that your startup business generates.

Most enterprises/jobs prefer the 'surrender your soul' approach to hiring and
contracting, partly to eliminate competition from current and former
employees, partly because they prefer to get a stable stream of work from you.

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palebluedot
This seems a bit naive - perhaps it would be better targeted as "technical
founders need less capital".

For instance, you still have legal liability risks, which may vary depending
on the problems your startup / business is trying to solve. Especially in the
early stage, even if you have a corporate entity wrapped around your startup,
mounting a legal defense can be financially crushing. This is doubly true if
you are augmenting your cash stream by consulting / contracting.

This may not be very likely, depending on the startup - but to say technical
founders have nothing to lose seems a bit naive.

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ojbyrne
That's clearly not correct, since there is opportunity cost.

~~~
loceng
Perhaps "technical founders have less far to fall" makes more sense, though
even that doesn't fully work. Technical founders, at the moment being in high-
demand, more so will be able to rebound.

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computerslol
I have a deliverable due today; will someone elaborate on the following?

Career Trajectory. Job 1: 5,000 users. Job 2: 10,000 users. Job 3: 500,000
users. Job 4: 1,000,000 users. Job 5: 10,000,000 users. How many users does
the startup have, how will that destroy my resume, and how long will it take
me to recover my career if the startup fails?

Opportunity Cost vs. Peak Production Years Remaining. I am 20 something years
old. I only have so many years of peak production remaining before it's time
to have a family and a house and all that. Is a startup the best way to spend
those years when I am worth $x per hour on the market?

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sqrt17
The basic advice in the article seems to be: use consulting as well as doing a
lean startup to achieve (i) a fluid stream of income [from consulting] and
(ii) a hopefully-growing stream of passive income [from startup]. (As far as I
can tell, it's also what Patrick 'kalzumeus' McKenzie and others are
recommending).

Part of the "nothing to lose" assumption seems to be that doing a startup
gives you a learning effect that outweighs the lost revenue you had to give up
for doing a (failed/failing) startup in the first place?

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NateDad
There's a lot more than opportunity cost. There's the actual money in my
pocket lost from the (probably very good) salary that I would be making at an
established company. Most people still have to pay the rent or the mortgage.
That's the main barrier of entry. It's not that we think we'll have to max out
all our credit cards... the cost of renting some EC2 instances pales in
comparison to my mortgage, I can tell you that much.

~~~
martinced
"There's a lot more than opportunity cost. There's the actual money in my
pocket lost from the (probably very good) salary that I would be making at an
established company."

I'm probably mistaken on this but isn't your second sentence precisely the
very definition of "opportunity cost"?

I mean, the opportunity cost isn't what it's going to cost you to buy ramen
and rent EC2 instances: the opportunity cost is the money you're not winning
should you be working for a company actually paying you.

