

Symptoms of Successful Entrepreneurs - chrysb
http://chrysbader.com/the-symptoms-of-a-successful-entrepreneur

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tsally
What struck me about this article is how well it describes proactive students
in the classroom. These students work together until they understand the
material. Upon understanding the material, they do something original and
exciting beyond what was presented in class. And throughout the whole process
they always seem to be willing to talk about what they're working on with
other people, simply because they find it cool. There's always a group of
students in every class like this. For my software engineering class, it was
the students that used Lisp, but I'm sure YMMV.

It raises an interesting question: why don't more students become
entrepreneurs? It's either (A) these skills don't transfer well in practice or
(B) a question of motivation and confidence. I'm inclined to believe (B), and
I think PG has addressed this in "A Students Guide to Startups".

<http://paulgraham.com/mit.html>

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liamk
I think some cultures might not appreciate entrepreneurs as much as other
cultures. This may lead to family pressure which may in turn lead to students
seeing big companies like Google and Microsoft as the ceiling of success. In
contrast they might see entrepreneurs as risk takers, who aren't thinking
about their family. I'm saying all this because I've observed that the ratio
of races in computer science is extremely difference from the ratio among
entrepreneurs.

~~~
maxer
I once chatted about how Americans live up to the American dream while in
other countries there is no such thing, you go to school and become another
cog in the machine.

Entrepreneurship is frowned upon by some cultures- my family have are very
much working class, my father and his father were both proud union men.
Anything else wouldn't be encouraged

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mixmax
The second _"Successful entrepreneurs move in packs"_ might be a product of
the YC experience. It is a known fact that tech entrepreneurship is a lonely
endeavour - not many people understand or care about what you're doing. Having
a whole bunch of people with the same passion that are roughly at the same
stage as you will inevitably tend to create a "wolfpack" trying to conquer the
world.

But whether this is a trait of a successful entrepreneur is not so clear. I'm
not saying it isn't so, just that the poster could be biased by the YC
wolfpack experience. Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom, for instance, weren't
wellconnected when they started out with Kazaa and in the early days of Skype.
I have several friends that are lone wolf entrepreneurs, and don't have many
close friends or business associates in the strartup world. And some of them
are very succesful.

~~~
rantfoil
It might also be a function of being in the Valley. Everyone seems to know
each other here.

~~~
mixmax
I think it certainly is. That's probably why there are startup hubs. My
argument was more that connectedness to other entrepreneurs probably isn't one
of the three most defining characters of succesful entrepreneurs.

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japherwocky
Am I the only one who thinks articles like this are pure fluff? tl;dr -

"Successful people (like me) try real hard."

"Successful people (like me) hang out in my elite San Francisco pack of
friends."

"Successful people (like me) have _sparks_ in their eyes, but not _stars_."

this is not news or hacking, it's ego stroking. /flameoff

~~~
tom
It's not news, or hacking, but something that's as important to the success of
a startup - the startup life. It's an acknowledgment, or maybe an admission
that doing this is hard, that there are definite commonalities among those who
pull it off, that it's easier to go it with a community around you.

Running a startup, creating a startup, living a startup is freakin hard. I've
done it multiple times before my trip through TechStars, and man, now that
I've experienced (and continue to experience it, as not a day goes by that I
don't talk to at least one other founder, a mentor, or an advisor) this way,
I'm sold and happy I'll never have to go it alone again.

He sees it too. I hope for your benefit that if you're doing this, if you're
trying to really start something (not just read YC) that you seek out others
who are doing the same. It could mean the difference between your success or
failure.

~~~
japherwocky
Sounds like you both are sipping from the same giant pot of kool-aid.

Seriously, "the startup life"? A startup's success or failure rides on
_associating with the trendy crowd_?

Blech, let's get back to writing a lot of good code and listening to user
feedback.

~~~
tom
You're drawing conclusions where they don't exist.

The "startup life", the life of a startup founder is in fact, hard. Building a
product is hard. Building a company is hard. Building anything of value is
hard. It has nothing to do with a trendy crowd or a decidedly non-trendy
crowd, it has entirely to do with folks who are having, have recently, or will
have a lot of the same challenges as you. I'm not sure why it's hard to
understand having friends who've been there, done that, or are doing it is
very, very helpful. I'm glad you're able to do it all on your own, but some of
us either aren't, or have realized it's a waste of time to. Being a martyr
will help you much less than having the smarts to ask folks who can help you
not waste time on the things that don't actually move your business forward,
but can only impede progress - there's your value. Man, this kool aid is yummy
... it tastes like improving my odds ... and that tastes great!

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Mongoose
This is a great example of how the comments on HN are often more useful than
the articles themselves. Thanks, everyone.

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mhartl
_The startups that are still alive are the ones who remained in touch._

Causation runs both ways on this one. It's a lot more fun to hang out with
other entrepreneurs when your own startup is kicking ass---and a lot less fun
when it's dying. When your startup is struggling, hearing other entrepreneurs
talk about how great things are going is like being in a dead-end marriage and
hearing other couples talk about how madly in love they are.

~~~
holdenk
I don't know about that. I've got a small network of friends still in school
doing two different startups, and I enjoy talking to him about how its going,
even though they are currently much more successful than I am (I wimped out
and took a 9-5 to pay off the student loans).

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bbsabelli
4\. They don't read blog posts about Entrepreneurs?

~~~
ccarpenterg
They are not prejudiced.

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hristov
Alright you have listed the symptoms ... do you have any ideas as to the cure?

