
Don't get an internship. Start a business. - veastley
http://www.sean-johnson.com/dont-get-an-internship-start-a-business/
======
calinet6
_Are you insane?_ Yeah, you'll learn by doing. You'll probably learn by
failing. That's all well and good, you'll likely learn a lot.

But you can learn this also by interning at an existing business, learning how
they do things, learning what they do wrong and what they do right. You'll
bask in the experience of people who have already done this, and from their
partners and connections. If you want to learn from a startup, then intern or
work at a startup.

Outright cutting off this possibly important and valuable experience is
borderline insane. This is not an absolute. This one-sided recommendation
should be taken with a spoon of salt.

Both internship and entrepreneurship are valuable experiences. It's entirely
dependent on who you are, what you're interested in doing, and the
opportunities you find are open to you.

~~~
ank286
I couldn't get myself to click on the article. It just sounds like a bad idea.
Industry experience is so valuable even as an entrepreneur. You learn about
the efficiencies and inefficiencies of industry and it can only help you run
your operation better.

~~~
guylhem
Wrong. You learn even better when you figure things out by yourself.

It's called "outside of the box" thinking for a reason. If you join the box,
it ain't outside the box.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> Wrong. You learn even better when you figure things out by yourself.

Assuming you figure out the correct answer.

------
chatmasta
I've had my own business since I was 15 and also multiple internships. You can
do both, and if possible, you should. Never underestimate what you can learn
as an employee. This is especially true as a software engineer. Once you work
with a talented team of engineers at an established company, you realize that
you don't actually know anything. You will learn more in a summer internship
than you will in any CS class or teaching yourself.

~~~
jholman
I agree, especially about "you can do _both_ , and if possible, _you should_
".

I think you're right, chatmasta, about the benefits of being an employee,
especially in the context of a given craft. This is exactly what I was
thinking between reading the title of the article, and reading the article.
Just yesterday on HN there was a very moving confessional about hacking on a
production DB without transactional safety, and everyone agreed: in a sane
world, junior staff learn not to do this from senior staff, rather than just
trying crap and getting burned. How many things are there left to get burned
on? Oh my FSM, so many. Please, please, let me learn from experienced hands,
and reinvent as few wheels as possible.

But, that said, I found this article really convincing. I think all of TFA's
points about the benefits of early -- crappy -- entrepreneurship are very
compelling. Far more compelling than I expected. When I look around at people
who're doing better (at their careers and their contributions to the world in
general) than me, and people who're doing worse than me, my feeling is this:
the strengths mentioned in the article (selling, managing, and focus on
creating value ) are _really_ big differentiators in determining success and
impact.

I've never had my own business, so maybe I dunno what's up.

------
jiggy2011
This seems to be the trendy advice to give to young people now, "go start a
business straight out of college!".

But speaking as somebody who relatively recently set one up, this seems to
ignore how expensive it can be to get even a simple business off the ground
without someone willing to help bankroll you to begin with.

No, you don't need millions of dollars but you probably need _at least_ a
couple of thousand $ spare to cover your living expenses for a few months +
whatever up front costs you need to fork out on.

You get problems like clients who pay very late, or for whatever reason try
and not pay you at all. And since you're the new guy with no track record
people don't want to give you much up front and know you're going to struggle
to lawyer up so put you at the bottom of the payment list.

Not the sort of money who somebody who is likely without savings (and who
probably also has debt) is likely to be able to spare.

Also the advantage of having a job _before_ you go out on your own is that you
already have some track record with a company people have (hopefully) heard of
as well as more connections and hopefully knowledge that you have acquired on
someone elses dime.

------
bicx
Cool idea, but I can't help but wonder about the whole movement around pushing
people toward management or leadership. Sure, it's great to find those of us
who are naturally talented in that area. However, in a lot of the big
companies I'm familiar with (like my previous employer), there was a glut of
"leadership" made mostly of people who shouldn't be leading. Tons of middle
management. It separated the regular working employees so far from the origin
of their assignments that no one really felt motivated to do more than the
minimum. Zero innovation from actual developers, since the system was highly
resistant to ideas that originated from below rather than from above.

Great leaders are a vital asset, but transforming every person into a leader
is akin to alchemy. And remember, gold is only of higher value because of its
relative scarcity, not because it is intrinsically better than other metals.
:)

------
blt
I feel bad for the people whose houses he painted. This guy probably did a
shitty job. They're going to need to repaint sooner than they should. Guess
we're supposed to be proud of him for swindling/pressuring people into buying
a subpar service. Not to mention the employees who are lured into half-baked
businesses and lose months of their lives to an incompetent "entrepreneur".

~~~
guylhem
This says more about you than about the OP.

If you love to do a good job, and you find yourself without experience, you
will spend more time on it, taking care about the details a professional will
know to overlook.

------
guylhem
The article is spot on. I create a consultancy during my studies, in ...
2001!!

Best learning experience ever- tough times help make a tough mind, and the
best part is after university cost and life cost, it even left a profit. My
clients were satisfied, and kept coming back for more - which made me raise
prices (market demand you know).

And what can I say about the referrals- that _really_ make one feel proud,
because it means you did a good job not only by your own standards, but also
by the other person standard, enough than he feels like taking a risk and
recommending you to friends & family.

Basically, internship is passive. Entrepreneurship is active.

If you want to be a salaryman, you should really do an internship.

If you don't, you know what you have to do.

------
smokinjoe
I tried sub-contracting and I didn't know what I didn't know. It was a
disaster. I didn't even have to worry about getting clients and I still didn't
succeed or really take much away from the whole experience other than piles of
stress.

~~~
jabbernotty
Would you mind expanding on your experience? I would really appreciate it.

~~~
smokinjoe
Sure! I tried sub-contracting in Massachusetts for a guy who did Computer
Repair. A lot of people/businesses used him and after some time started asking
whether he could put together websites for them (you know, because all
computer work is roughly the same). Well, he looked me up and I joined him as
the web team.

I came on looking to expand on my development abilities, but I soon realized
that very little of the is spent actually sitting and programming. There was
meeting with customers, getting requirements, creating some sort of plan then
figuring out how to break it all into a roadmap/schedule where the delivery is
satisfactory and on the proper date. I had little to zero experience in any of
those tasks.

I struggled to gain comfort during meetings and lacked confidence while I
would be setting up the schedule, I assume it stemmed from my beginner status
and an overall lack of successfully completed tasks to look back on (whether
as a sub-contractor or just even hobby projects).

There were times I'd ask my father for advice (he had started a company that
was rather successful), read a book or two, tried some online resources, but
really, I was probably just too young and not wired to be a sub-contractor at
that point in my life. Sometimes I do look back and see the mistakes I made
and what I could have done to correct them, so in a way, it was a great
learning experience - but not in the area that I wanted.

I've since done some "internships" (one where I was paid less than minimum
wage and worked full days - but I really wanted a job experience) and realized
that I came away with way more than I could have ever discerned from my
experiences as a sub-contractor. However, I strongly believe this was due to
the fact that I wasn't all that great development back then. Nowadays, I find
that the business aspects come a lot easier now that my
programming/development understanding are eons beyond what they were even 4-5
years ago.

I should also make certain to mention that my experiences are my own - I
wouldn't be surprised if someone younger than I were thrust into that
situation and would came out successful. However, given my past personal
experience (and not even running my own business) I have to hesitate at the
article's implication.

Anyway, I hope that was some good info - feel free to ask any questions if
you'd like, I'll do my absolute best to answer.

------
MicahWedemeyer
I've heard this expressed several different ways, like creating your own job
or learning by jumping right in, and it always completely ignores the value of
professional experience.

Internships and first jobs are all about learning the realities of the work
world and building up your professional network. If you're trying to build a
B2B SaaS app, it really helps when you understand at least one of those "B"s
instead of just guessing.

There will always be anecdotes of "I started my first business at 14 and have
been my own boss ever since" but my (anecdotal) experience shows that most
successful entrepreneurs are people who leverage their professional experience
and network in order to get their first customers, co-founders, and so forth.

~~~
dechols
"Don't write something informative and realistic, make a call to arms!"

The whole point of an internship (or underpaid, monkey coder job) is to get
your foot in the door, to get some residue on your resume, and to work with a
real team trying to deliver something for other people.

You're naive if you think that you, by yourself, can imitate the processes,
procedures, best practices, tools, standards, guides, and mechanisms that a
large company can provide, and learn from it all to boot.

I'm all about "hoisting yourself up from your own bootstraps", but sometimes
you need other people. Internships are about immersing yourself with other
people, not trying to take the mantle of some superhero and thinking it's
going to help you fly better.

------
johngalt
You could spend all day arguing about where you will learn more, but what you
really gain is perspective. Even if you decide that you never want to run a
business again you'll be a more effective employee. Without that perspective
you'll probably have critically flawed ideas about how businesses work.

------
chigoodrich
Rallying cry for a generation. Well worth passing around as a manifesto.

