

Tell HN: Why I want to start a startup - philipDS

I love my life. No kidding. I do. I'm a young guy in his early twenties and I'm doing great in college. I'm going to grad school next year, that’s exciting! I love Computer Science. I'm having fun with friends. I ride my bike, even when it’s freezing.  Does that mean I’m healthy and in shape? You’re right. I have grand plans for the future and everything is fine. Still, I get written off all the time and I guess I’m not the only one. Personally, I just try to not let it get to me. Here’s why.<p>How I got written off: phase one<p>It all started when I was in my final year in high school. One day, my math teacher asked me what I wanted to study. I’ve always been pretty determined and told him the truth. <i>I’d like to study Computer Science in college, sir. Go for a master’s degree.</i> He laughed at me, in my face. Point blank. I studied economics and languages back then, and I admit, the math I was taught was pretty poor. A few weeks after, he did the same to my mom on parents’ evening. It’s this sort of event where parents go to and get an evaluation of their kid. <i>Your son will be lucky enough if he gets a bachelor’s degree and eventually graduates.</i> It didn’t matter much to me. I would go to college and get this damn master’s degree. I couldn’t and wouldn’t give in now. And here I am, my CS degree almost in reach.<p>How I got written off: phase two<p>My first year in college was all right. However, I had some problems with calculus. I (still) had to learn how to derive a function and calculate surfaces, while the other guys in my class were pretty much all ready for some advanced differential equations. <i>Damn it, I should’ve taken more summer classes.</i> That’s what I thought back then. Would that have helped? I don’t know. Eventually, I passed the course by studying day and night. Bottom line is, I got through and my grades weren’t even that bad. That’s great!<p>Three years later, I met a friend from elementary school on my weekly train. He was going nuts over cycling and I recently bought a bike too. That’s when I decided I wanted to get in shape again. I hadn’t been practicing sports for three years. That’s a long time. Too long to keep you physically and mentally healthy. Basically, he became my trainer and mentor for the coming months. I stopped eating fried food, limited my meat consumption and ate a lot of pasta (gotta love carbohydrates! ;-)). <i>Hahahahaha, you’re cycling now, are you? And you’ve stopped eating fast food? You goof! You won’t carry on, I tell ya!</i> That’s what many of my dorm “friends” said. I’m in my second year of cycling now and I love it. Still going. And I will be going harder and faster. Mens sana in corpore sano.<p>How I’m getting written off: leaving college<p>So… it’s almost time for me to leave college now and I have a clear plan. I want to start a startup. Actually, I am starting a startup. We’ve been working on it for two to three months now (not only coding), and it’s going pretty well. It’s got to do something with photo sharing. I know what a lot of you will be thinking now. <i>Another Instagram clone? Another PicPlz? I already share my photos and I don’t need another service!</i> That would sound a lot like my math teacher in twelfth grade. But that’s ok I guess. My dorm “friends” are reacting likewise. They think going to the USA to pursue your dreams and start a startup is ridiculous. Maybe it is? I don’t think so. Let them have their way. I’ll have mine.<p>What exactly am I getting at now? It’s pretty simple. Believe in yourself, because no one else will. People tend to believe only in the successful. A lot of us have a strong belief in top CEO’s and other successful guys. Take Steve Jobs as an example. He’s seen a lot of resistance from Apple around 1985, but he kept going. At the end of 1997, he finally got it right. He’s got his own child back. And see how it has grown over the years.<p>If you never believe in yourself, you’ll never get somewhere. I haven’t got a lot of life experience, but I’ve seen some pretty insecure boys and girls in my time at college. Stand up for yourself and you’ll be able to change lives. Did you ever notice how nothing or no one ever changes in your town? Nothing ever changes. Everyone goes to the same church or the same job, the same restaurants, the same swimming pool and everybody goes to the same basketball game every weekend. It’s like this huge fish tank we’re all stuck in and you can’t find a way out. Well, I may be kind of stuck. And I think the perfect way to be unstuck is by pursuing your dreams and by doing things you like. Pursue your dreams. Start your own startup. Create something. Yes, some of us may fail. Yes, you probably won’t be the next Zuckerberg. Failing is all right, as long as it’s <i>constructive failing</i>. Don’t listen to what others have to say all the time, because it will hunt you down. Do what you think is right. Just have no regrets and create some memories.<p>- The thoughts of a 22-year old with no life experience.
======
maxklein
I think you'll find that most people really don't care what you're doing.
You're just a mild curiosity to others, and your greatest motivators and your
greatest stoppers are going to be you yourself.

So don't frame things in terms of how much other people don't want you to do
them - more likely than not, they really don't care. Just do what you want to
do and don't do what you don't want to do. That's what every other person is
doing.

~~~
chr15
One of my favorite lines from Fight Club: _You are not a unique and beautiful
snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we
are all part of the same compost pile_

The real world is cold. It takes time, especially out of college/uni, to
realize this, but you have to keep on pushing. Best of luck to you.

~~~
gohat
A tough lesson I've learned is most people simply don't care. They don't wish
you bad but they don't wish you well that much either - they simply don't
care.

This isn't a good or bad thing; it's just most people, the vast majority of
the time, don't particularly care about what you're up to.

Long term friends do, of course, at least a little, but in perhaps limited
doses.

This is both saddening and inspiring (liberating), depending on how you look
at it.

~~~
peacemaker
I learned this lesson after my recent business failure. I spent months working
extremely hard to get the doors open only to find that no-one cared I was
there. I didn't neglect marketing but I didn't push hard enough either. I
think I got caught up in the fact that because _I_ cared, everyone else would
too. It's a very sobering feeling when you're standing in an empty shop on
opening day wondering, "where is everyone?"

Lots of lessons learned there!

------
pclark
"Other people do not think about you nearly as much as you think they do"

------
achompas
This reminds me of Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame induction speech. [0]

Is Michael Jordan one of the greatest basketball players ever? Yes. Did he
work incredibly hard to get there? Yes. Does he come off as very, very bitter
in his speech? Absolutely, because he still dwells on insignificant stuff 30
or 40 years later.

I'm happy for you finding motivation in the random, slightly negative
throwaway comments of your peers. Just remember that negative drive might make
you successful, but it will definitely make you bitter.

\-- from a formerly bitter 25-year old

[0]
[http://www.nba.com/video/channels/hall_of_fame/2009/09/11/nb...](http://www.nba.com/video/channels/hall_of_fame/2009/09/11/nba_20090911_hof_jordan_speech.nba/)

~~~
shortlived
I just skimmed through that video and Jordan seems pretty positive and upbeat.
Did I miss something?

~~~
elechi
Oh, yeah. Jordan actually invited and mentioned the person who beat him to get
a spot on the varsity high school team to his PROFESSIONAL Hall of Fame event.

For those that even read a book about Jordan, and what his peers said about
him and his reputation, wasn't really surprised by the speech. Most Hall of
Fame speeches are somewhat dull, mostly about thanking people who helped them
in life, what their life was like before and after success, and what lessons
of life they learned from their experiences. Not Jordan.

Jordan mentioned every slight that was done to him, perceived or otherwise,
and told the audience about how he found motivation from those slights. It was
all about him, and his, hunger, to be the best. He even stated then that he
could STILL come back right now and play in the NBA. To him, basketball was
the way for him to be the best, and by God, he was going to do it, no matter
who got in his way. Personally, it was way more enriching than someone like
David Robinson's, but it was somewhat shocking when it was done at the time.

People always get shocked when they hear how people got successful, and what
they REALLY had to do to get there. People like hearing about the successes,
but rarely the failures and hardships endured. Everyone ignorant of his
history thinks Mark Cuban just got lucky getting his wealth from selling
broadcast.com to Yahoo (and even he admits it), but they rarely really listen
to how he was living 5 guys to an apartment, how for 3 years he was paid low
wage selling computer programs and parts to other businesses, how in college
he was working his ass off teaching dance classes, running a bar, plus other
business ideas I don't remember off the top of my head, while trying to get
his degree.

Instead of glossing over that part of his success like most other HOF
speeches, Jordan I believe high-lighted them, which just surprised people,
that's all.

~~~
shortlived
Thanks for responding to my question. So how does this make him bitter? He is
a driven person and was reflecting on the events that challenged him.

~~~
achompas
_Jordan mentioned every slight that was done to him, perceived or otherwise,
and told the audience about how he found motivation from those slights_

Think about this for a second. Jordan has played almost two decades, won 6 (?)
championships, and is heralded as the best player ever. At an event meant to
celebrate his career, he instead talks for several minutes about being
slighted _in high school._

Can you imagine being a grown, old man that's bitter enough about high school
to mention it at an event celebrating his career? It doesn't sound fun.

~~~
shortlived
I guess we just see it differently. The event in high school was obviously an
important motivator for Jordan, so much so that he thought it important to
bring it up again. I have the same events in my life from high school and
early college and if I was giving a retrospective on my life, they would
certainly be included. Bitterness is usually accompanied by anger and cynicism
and Jordan did not display either of those.

------
Jarred
I think I have a somewhat similar experience, only I deserved what I got, you
didn't.

Up until this (school) year I had been assessed by my peers as a nothing.
Although I had been doing small-scale computer repair for a while at this
time, I still lacked both the self-confidence and maturity to do anything
substantial. I did however want change from an awful summer spent mostly alone
in my room. Upon returning to school that year I had received probably the
worst people in my classes I could, or rather, the people most like me, the
people who were terribly unmotivated, for one reason or many. The school had
specifically picked out the academically troublesome students based on their
previous year and put them in slightly smaller classes with lower expectations
but more teacher assistance. This was a great move by the school. This alone
was not enough though, as most of the students and myself made a dismal effort
to do well, the ability in these people weren't lacking, it was motivation.

My lack of motivation was a progression, I didn't have much motivation to
begin with but, due to a summer spent mostly alone I frequently browsed Warez
forums and attempted to write a package manager for Windows (I had been taking
an interest in Ubuntu and really liked apt-get), and released a customized
version of Windows for them a couple years prior. That was the height of my
productivity in that school year, because in the following December I had
begun smoking a lot.

After that I spent most of my time smoking. I smoked a ridiculous amount of
weed, on average three times a week, but mostly on the weekends. I never went
to school high however (and I don't plan on it). My friends (and the same
people in my classes) were the people I would smoke with, although I paid for
a lot of it, as I had a decent amount of income for an 8th grader ($75 per
month or so on average, I fixed computers over Craigslist). I hadn't gotten a
pipe or any smoking paraphernalia up until summer, and so I would use what was
around me. Most of the time those were the insides of pens, with taking out
the top where one clicks the spring to bring out the tip, and putting a tiny
chunk of weed in it, lighting that end and breathing in where the tip of the
pen would normally be. The joy I got from smoking started to end though.

It started to end in June or so. I remember wanting to stop back then but
didn't feel motivated enough to do it. June also happened to be when I smoked
more than before, as I had nothing to do other than that (This was after
school had ended). I would just go to town and smoke with people, practically
everyday, and then when I wasn't high I was around people who were, eating
Taco Bell, or just walking around with people. However, I started to feel a
need to be productive, and that was really when I stopped smoking.

My brother was in his fifth year at UCDavis, when I started sitting in at a
class there. That class was ECS30, a 6 week course that taught the foundations
of C. I had a fairly limited knowledge of C# and Visual Basic but I really
didn't know how to program. This taught me how to do that. My brother had
talked to my parents before about the possibility of me taking a class over
the summer, and I thought it was a really good idea. So, I took the Amtrak
train every Sunday afternoon for 5 weeks (last week was Finals week) to Davis,
where I walked in a straight line for about 15 minutes to my brothers
apartment on B street. I would wake up every morning at 7:30, shower, eat,
have a cup of coffee and leave to go to class for two hours.

Taking this class was one of the best experiences in my life. Although the
people weren't by any means entrepreneurial, it made me want to do something
with my life. Just walking to the class was amazing. Passing the various
lecture halls and weird decorations. Seeing all the sleep-deprived people on
bikes heading to and from their classes. Wondering if people would give me
weird looks seeing a 14-year-old with a significant amount of stubble go to a
college class.

The class itself was fantastic, I would generally sit in the back due to fear
of being called out for being 14. I was also the one who asked the most
questions. I don't know if it was summer, if these people were just plain shy,
or if people didn't really care about the subject, but few other than me was
asking questions, and the professor seemed to like that I was asking
questions. I don't know if he knew that I was 14, he probably had guessed
though.

When I walked back to my brother's apartment I played a lot of Fallout 3 and
did a lot of homework. The homework was incredibly time-consuming. That was by
far the most time I had spent on school throughout my life. In the beginning I
did all of the homework, and it was amazing. As it got more time-consuming I
lost the patience for doing the homework (some were 20+ hours and I hadn't
been doing more than 25 minutes of homework my entire life). But, I learned an
enormous amount and got the foundation and drive I needed.

I didn't do anything with that drive for a short while, other than just
thinking about a few ideas. I spent a lot of time thinking about those ideas,
I had at one point a folder of about 20 different ideas I thought were good,
and three that I thought were excellent. One of those three is something like
I'm working and spending the majority of my time outside of school on, it's
called Jantire. It's a document reader for a new format for posting, combining
the learning-capabilities of a wiki entry with the discussion-elements of a
forum post. I applied to the Summer 2011 Y-Combinator session and went to one
of the dinners to review the Y-Combinator applications with Alumni and fellow
applicants.

I feel like I'm finally earning my keep.

------
thiagofm
I hate when people think that life is some kind of philosophy debate over
"what should i do?", just fucking live and do whatever your heart tells you
to.

I doubt your stupid steve jobs after getting fired from apple and having a
spare billion(or even more?) and being 30 did it because of the money, or for
approval... or anything. He did it because what he felt about his creations
was bigger and stronger than himself.

Maybe you shouldn't start a startup but be a teacher in CS, maybe marry a
beautiful woman or even be a serial killer... I don't know? But follow your
heart and you won't need to write a wall of text to prove yourself to HN.

------
justin_vanw
I'm holding out for your autobiography. Please expand the part where you had
trouble with calculus but were able to do ok in the end to at least 50 pages!
Also the part where you decided to get into shape, I really cared about that.

I'm personally inspired by how you didn't let the kids on your dorm stop you
with their mildly disinterested comments. If you didn't let that stop you,
there's no way you're going to be stopped by an under-inflated bike tire, or
even as many as 3 broken spokes (not all on the same wheel of course). Where
do I invest?

~~~
rkudeshi
Was that really necessary?

~~~
notyetdeleted
Well, he does make a good point. The original post is about extremely mundane
situations. Everyone not getting excited about your startup, people
questioning whether or not you'll stick with cycling and your new diet? These
are the hardships of life? Seriously? Sorry, I don't mean to sound rude, but
the original poster needs some real world experience, and the ability to
understand the commitments that come in life, before criticizing people for
working the same job and living in a fish tank. We know the way out of the
tank, but unlike the original poster, we know why we need to stay at times.

~~~
philipDS
You're right. However, the situations I described where not really the
hardships of my life. They where just situations in which I was disappointed
in other people and I just wanted to share that with you. It was initially
something I had written for myself to know the real reason why I wanted to
start a startup. Then I thought, why not share it?

~~~
justin_vanw
Why not share it? Because nobody reading it will benefit in any way, and many
will be annoyed that you wasted their time, and you did waste the time of
everyone reading it.

Send me your email address, I'll send you a 10 paragraph rundown of the trials
and tribulations of laundry day.

------
wlievens
A curious question: where are you from and which college did you attend? I
have a vague hunch.

~~~
philipDS
going to University of Antwerp :) I'm from Belgium.

~~~
wlievens
Same here. I guessed because you said you studied "economics and languages"
(Economie-Talen) and because you had a bunch of teachers discouraging higher
scientific studies because of less math background.

You do need to be really good in maths, have a really solid basis or _work
your ass off_ to succeed in the first few years of university-level computer
science education. You did the latter, and you have my respect for that!

------
bhousel
I'm going to just tell myself that this is someone either doing a sociological
study on cyber-bullying or else demonstrating an uncannily sophisticated
natural language generator built upon the extensive corpus of previous Ask HN
posts.

It's probably not true, but somehow helps...

------
synnik
You also could adjust your focus... instead of telling us all how you are
being blown off, figure out WHY. Even if they are all wrong, something is
giving that incorrect impression. And you will have a hard time recruiting
others to your cause unless you figure out what that is.

------
dutchrapley
“Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a
fortune.” - Jim Rohn

You can do it. You have the drive for it. It's all one big learning
experience. Never stop learning. Learning to gain knowledge is important.
What's more important is learning how to learn, learning through
understanding. Building your photo sharing site is one small learning
experience in the grand scheme. You've got nothing to lose. Sure, you're
investing time into it, but you'll walk away with knowledge and connections
that you previously didn't have.

I, too, was written off. I dropped out of college and was a temp for 2 months
at $9.50/hr before landing my first job in IT. It's been well over a decade
and I haven't looked back.

------
iamdave
>\- The thoughts of a 22-year old with no life experience.

Life experience my dear son is relative, and with your attitude and outlook,
you're going to have some great experiences to share with future generations.

Good luck, friend.

------
eengstrom
I only have one comment to offer: No.

~~~
eengstrom
Obviously my comment was misunderstood. Given everything the author of the
post wrote about, "No" should be his "Yes". "No" is something you'll hear in
life many, many times and it doesn't even phase people who are truly
motivated.

So "No" in this case is brief language for meaning; "Go build a great product,
kick the teeth out of the competition/market and don't fall into a rut."

------
mindcrime
_Believe in yourself, because no one else will._

That may be the single most important point of all... well said, sir.

 _The thoughts of a 22-year old with no life experience_

Well, FWIW, this 37-year old agrees wholeheartedly. :-)

~~~
TheGreatBundini
_Believe in yourself, because no one else will.

That may be the single most important point of all... well said, sir._

I don't think that's true at all. While I'm not going to diminish the
importance of believing in oneself, one of the greatest loves you can show
toward someone else is demonstrating that you believe in them, too. Everyone
should surround themselves with people like that.

~~~
eengstrom
Awesome point, Bundini. Not all entrepreneurs need to be leaders, but "The
One" in every venture needs to be able to influence others to believe.
Cultivating people skills, understanding basics of business communication that
Dale Carnegie published nearly 80 years ago.

Charisma, people skills, energy, good-vibe - call it what you will, but if you
can engage people in a trusting and real dialog they WILL believe in you and
follow you into fire.

------
JoshKalkbrenner
Don't forget -- it's nothing until it's something!

