
Entrepreneurshit - ndemoor
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2012/11/18/entrepreneurshit-the-blog-post-on-what-its-really-like/?awesm=bothsid.es_i2G&utm_source=t.co&utm_content=awesm-publisher&utm_medium=bothsid.es-twitter&utm_campaign=
======
minimax
A few (dissenting) points:

If you want to eat healthy at O'Hare, you can find a salad or sandwich in any
terminal. If you really want to blow your calorie budget, go find one of the
Goose Island bars in terminal 1 or 3. Have a Matilda. It's fantastic.

Next point: I really dislike working for bosses with a misplaced sense of
paternalism. If there are risks or uncertainties facing the business, don't
hide them from your employees. Transparency breeds trust, which you'll need if
you expect your engineers to put in the kind of hard work that's required when
a company is starting up.

Last point: look, if a life of flying around the country and working long
hours is your idea of a tortured life only a special breed of men known as
"entrepreneurs" can bear, then you need to pull your head out of your ass.
That life is stressful and that it takes hard work to get ahead are universal
truths. The rest of us aren't just coasting along in a risk-free world.

Double secret bonus last point: why all the cussing?

~~~
lsc
>Last point: look, if a life of flying around the country and working long
hours is your idea of a tortured life only a special breed of men known as
"entrepreneurs" can bear, then you need to pull your head out of your ass.
That life is stressful and that it takes hard work to get ahead are universal
truths. The rest of us aren't just coasting along in a risk-free world.

What I find especially amusing is that it seems to be the entrepreneurs that
are doing it with other people's money that complain so much about stress. the
"crazy people" that do it with our own money generally don't go in for that
kind of chest pounding.

The real problem here, I think, isn't the chest pounding, but the fact that
they really believe that depriving themselves of sleep is somehow helping the
company, and that sometimes they actually do it.

You can argue all day about the optimal number of work hours, and maybe have a
point that some people can effectively work more than the 35-40 hours a week
of "real work" that I advocate.

But sleep? Study after study has shown that shorting yourself on sleep does
horrible things to your performance, no matter how you measure performance. If
your performance really is critical to the performance of the company? the
most important thing for you to do is to get adequate sleep each and every
night.

~~~
mdda
If you're gambling with other people's money, it's in your interest to keep
complaining about how hard you're working, and how stressed out you are : It's
a positive signal to the people funding you.

If it's all your own money you're gambling with, complaining about the stress
might be taken as indicating you bit off more than you can chew : A negative
signal for employees.

~~~
lsc
That is also what I think is going on. However:

>If you're gambling with other people's money, it's in your interest to keep
complaining about how hard you're working, and how stressed out you are : It's
a positive signal to the people funding you.

This assumes that the people who are funding you are primarily evaluating you
on how hard you are working, and in this case, that they don't understand the
correlation between performance and sleep.

Now, I think, in most cases, you are right.

>If it's all your own money you're gambling with, complaining about the stress
might be taken as indicating you bit off more than you can chew : A negative
signal for employees.

Hm. I think the "bit off more than you can chew" applies as much to investors
as to employees.

Also, I've seen many, many middle managers pretend to work harder in an effort
to 'lead from the front' and get underlings to work harder. It works; as they
say, "it doesn't matter how early you show up, as long as you show up before
the boss. It doesn't matter how late you leave, as long as you leave after the
boss."

But this works on metrics that matter, too, not just on but-in-seat time. My
experience has been that if you publish any performance metric, your employees
will try to come close[1]. It's kindof irritating, sometimes; I mean, if _I_
wanted to do it, I wouldn't have hired you to do it, right? I need you to pick
up the slack precisely when I'm falling down. When I'm doing well? you can
slack off a bit. But eh, that seems to be how people work.

But those things apply to the people that the workers see as their direct
leaders, regardless of ownership structure.

I think the primary difference here is that when you work with someone else's
money, the goal is to get big, fast, or to die fast. What do they say? Fail
early?

If you are working with your own money, you usually have less to start with,
and because of that you usually are playing a much longer game. (I think that
most of the problems with having partners also come out in the 'long game' -
to the point where I think a solo founder actually has a advantage in the long
game, assuming that he or she has the personal earning power to keep the
company in business.)

[1]" it was shameful for the chief to be surpassed in valor by his companions;
shameful for the companions not to equal the valor of their chief. To survive
his fall in battle, was indelible infamy. To protect his person, and to adorn
his glory with the trophies of their own exploits, were the most sacred of
their duties."

Man, I love Gibbon. I mean, on a conscious level, I'm embarrassed to use
sweaty combat metaphors, but I do admit that it calls out to something buried
deep within the obsolete portions of my hind brain.

------
tinco
This sort of post is why I read HN, in my opinion posts like this should get
more upvotes than Steve's death.

For some reason I find it very reassuring to read articles that tell about all
the downsides of being an entrepreneur. It makes me feel like I know about all
the obstacles that are coming my way, but also confident that I could
handle/deal with them. Ofcourse this might be terribly naieve. But then comes
the article that naivety is an essential founder's trait, and I'm restored in
my faith :P

I wouldn't mind if every article submitted to HN was some founder's anecdote,
big or small, keep them coming :)

~~~
DanielRibeiro
The OP, Mark Suster, is frequently on the front page of HN[1]. But many of his
insights don't get this far. For those, you have RSS[2] and Youtube
subscriptions[3], as he is also the host of "This week in Venture Capital".

HN is great for finding some gems. For others, you can use the referrals as
good start digging spots.

[1]
[http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=bot...](http://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=bothsidesofthetable.com&start=0)

[2] <http://feeds.feedburner.com/BothSidesOfTheTable>

[3] <http://www.youtube.com/channel/SWkbknrWhbJws>

~~~
jonathanjaeger
This Week in Startups and This Week in Venture Capital are my favorite
podcasts -- not because of the difference in subject matter (there is
overlap), but in the tone and insights.

------
lubujackson
This is all true... if you play the VC game of growing your business before
you have revenue to support the growth. The fact is many web-based businesses
can be built without spending all your time raising money that you need
because of a self-fulfilling burn-rate crisis. Some businesses need VC, but
you should ALWAYS avoid VC if you can.

~~~
gfodor
Yeah I'd tend to agree here -- a lot of this stress in this article can be
mitigated by a) attacking an idea that leads to revenue quickly, or at least
can be market validated clearly quickly and b) only raising the stakes (ie,
raising money, going after "whale" purchase orders) once this revenue or
validation has materialized. As a nice side effect, the process of raising
money or landing sales once you've got some validation not only reduces the
risk of failure but also makes the process a lot easier and less time
consuming anyway. (Kickstarter is a hell of a way to do this nowadays.)

It's still going to be a stressful ride but getting a few things like this
right early on can basically "de-leverage" your risk profile in starting a
company from being (metaphorically) 100x to "merely" 10x.

------
paraschopra
I may be in the minority here (and I certainly have nothing against Mark), but
I really dislike such _implicit_ glamorization and heroism of entrepreneur
hardships. There two specific problems with the post: a) in general (unless
you are lucky), all good things require hard work so what's so special about
entrepreneurship?; b) this interpretation of entrepreneurship is clouded by a
specific type of startup (and I am guessing for a founder with a specific
personality type who gets a kick out of such emotional turmoil -- I am
probably like that but it doesn't change the argument).

Athletes, politicians, charity workers, soldiers, scientists and many others
work hard even when outcomes are unpredictable. Even people with so-called
"normal" jobs may require episodes of such unpredictability and hard work. Why
specifically elevate entrepreneurship?

And, frankly, such lifestyle even for an entrepreneur is a choice. I see no
point in re-iterating the obvious that doing a startup _may_ be hard if you
are aiming to build a huge business. If it were easy, most people would be
doing it, no? I fail to see the whole point of the article.

To be fair, I did write about how is it in the life of an entrepreneur
(specifically it was about my day):
[http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/startup-an-emotional-
ro...](http://paraschopra.com/blog/personal/startup-an-emotional-roller-
coaster-ride.htm) but my aim there was to document how is the day in life of a
founder at a startup that is still in early days and I tried hard to avoid
generalizing or glamorizing the hardships. Looking back, I think I should have
been more specific and objective in documenting the day (rather than making
generalizations on the nature of entrepreneurship and heroism contained in
living through such a day).

------
pjsullivan3
After coming off a failure I think the part that really resonated with me
talking about the fear of disappointment. I've been so afraid of disappointing
others that believed in me and thought they wouldn't look at me with the same
amount of respect. What I've found is that they saw it as much more of
accomplishment then I almost did.

The other part is "You’re unemployable. You’re an entrepreneur." I am now in
the process of meeting lots and lots of companies, big, small, new, old, re-
invented and I'm finding that maybe its a case of once you've been a CEO you
will always be a CEO. We will see what comes.

~~~
xal
You mean that you hear from companies that they don't want to hire you because
you have been an entrepreneur? That can't be right, it's the kind of person
everyone seeks. Hack, I've paid millions in the past buying companies mostly
to hire such people.

~~~
carlio
It means that once you've been in that position, you can't stomach being an
underling any more, you're too impertinent and used to making decisions rather
than following them. That's my take on it at least.

~~~
pjsullivan3
Yea thats what I am getting at, but I also feel that when your an entrepreneur
you have an attitude that may not be in line with a more corporate setting.

------
Lucadg
in other words this life sometimes sucks but it way better than working for
somebody else. I'd rather have some deep lows, some very steep highs and a
constant background noise saying "you're going to fail", than sitting there,
watching out of the window and knowing I am not testing my full potential.
Because when you try to reach your limits you always fall, that's when you
know them. Then you stand up again and go for the next limit. Once you tasted
that, there's no way back.

------
ryanackley
As I was reading this, I couldn't help but juxtapose this article on top of
the first world problems meme on everything this guy was saying.

"I had to miss a full day with my family, camping in the mountains...to raise
$150 million"

Poor guy! This would be more relevant coming from someone who utterly failed.

------
nhangen
This is the most complete and representative post on entrepreneurship I've
ever read, at least according to my own experiences. I do listen to Mark's
podcast, but this is by far the best of his best.

------
scott_meade
Wish there were more explanation as to "why?". If someone enjoys voluntarily
living such an unsustainable lifestyle, fine. Everyone needs to get their
thrills somehow.

But when it comes to playing with other peoples' plans, emotions, money and
lives; then for "the rush" seems like a thin reason to live every day wearing
a game face for employees, creditors, and family.

Glad to have Amy Hoy pointing out that Suster's view of the world is far from
the only definition of entrepreneur!

------
dschiptsov
There are many types of entrepreneurs but we could define a two major groups -
those who are seeking a niche to make money by what they produce and love to
do, and those who are seeking a niche to become a middle-men, a parasite, a
cheater, a wise-guy, a "manager" of others.

It seems that in every kind of business, including criminal, those who are
capable to produce have very few troubles, while the second group, the wast
majority, have much more suffering, just because, well, no one really need
them.

So, before thinking about entrepreneurship, become good at something first.
Then you will be able to create and notice opportunities. It doesn't not work
in opposite direction - one cannot create an opportunity being of no good in
any other field.

------
rdl
If you live in the Bay Area, there's not a whole lot of travel which can't be
done in your car. That's the whole point of being in the capital. Maybe it's
different if you're in LA.

I go to Vegas a couple times a year for conferences (which I could skip, but I
enjoy them), and have met with investors and BD partners in Seattle, but if I
had to do a business without going more than 10 miles from I-280 in the Bay
Area, it could be done. (I'm curious if you could do it without leaving
MV/PA/MP!)

(with enterprise or b2b, maybe there's a little bit more call to go to DC,
maybe Boston, NYC, maybe a few other cities, but absolutely not for consumer,
and if you don't enjoy travel, you could probably get away with no travel.)

------
pelargir
Some people become entrepreneurs because they want to make loads of money.
Others do it for the freedom and lifestyle it affords them. It just depends on
what your priorities are. Personally, I prefer setting my own hours over
driving a BMW.

------
bryanjclark
Observation: nearly every single slide in that presentation that describes
entrepreneurs exclusively features men in the (bad) clip art.

Just sayin': you can do better than that.

------
antonioevans
On point 100% as usual. You are focused, you are afraid, and you are
resilient. One thing you do see due to the ups and downs is the future. By
eating the shit in your industry you see whats going on. You
know...fuck...this is going to happen in at least 3-6 months. Not saying you
can do anything about it but you can be part of the "conversation".

------
feniv
Great post. Knowing that there are so many others out there going through the
same unforgiving grind day in and day out is a strange kind of inspiration.
Thanks!

------
dools
Haha "I only have $6,000 in the bank!!".

~~~
flyinRyan
$6k is nothing unless you have a stable, steady stream of income.

~~~
dools
No, $0 is nothing.

------
SagelyGuru
I don't know about the article but this is one of the best HN headlines I had
seen in a long time :)

------
FrankFrank
Yep. And we will keep the grind going. There is no try.

------
slaxman
This is powerful stuff!

------
jamesjguthrie
Great article!

------
ahoyhere
This is ONE way to be an entrepreneur, certainly not the only one.

I don't mean to brag, because I'm sure none of you care about my "little
dipshit company," but there are people out there who deserve to know that this
kind of adrenaline junkie lifestyle as described in the article is not
"entrepreneurship" as a whole but just one type of person's interpretation of
it.

We, for example, got back a couple weeks ago from a 2-week trip to Arizona. We
(biz owners (my husband + I) plus our employee) went to attend a conference in
Scottsdale -- not to demand speaking slots or to impress anyone, just to
learn, to experience it.

Because, hey, Arizona is gorgeous in October, we had decided to extend our
trip and rent a convertible, and a 4-bedroom house in beautiful Sedona, AZ
with a private pool and heated spa tub, for a week. We spent 3 days of that as
a company retreat, and then the rest was just my husband & I hanging out.

During the 3 days when we were working, we all used the spa every night to
stargaze. In the middle of the days, we'd take a break and go hiking. When our
employee went home, we just bummed around a day, then we rented a jeep and
went off-roading.

This year, my husband and I decided to draw about $160k of profit out of our
biz to pay for a mortgage down payment and various fixings for our new (old)
house. Then we bought a nice car, in cash. (Honestly I would have preferred to
get a loan, but there was a problem with the fact that we hadn't gotten our PA
driver's licenses yet. Long boring story. Patched over, as so often, with
money.)

Our finances are secure. Our products may be "boring"… but they are growing
very nicely and our customers are happy. Our employee can feel secure about
her salary. We own 100% of our company… nobody can tell us what to do, except
possibly the government, but they don't seem to care. Certainly we don't have
to worry about SEC filings.

This weekend, I co-taught a bootcamp as part of my favorite product, 30x500.
It's only on a weekend because that's when the majority of my students can
attend. I plan to take the next couple days off, just cuz. I can do that
whenever, of course… and often do, because I have a chronic illness which is
exacerbated by stress. So I keep stress low and live a very chillaxed kind of
life.

I expect that, as a 3- or maybe 4-person company, we'll break $1 million in
gross yearly revenue in the next 24 mos… probably more like 12-18. All without
begging, nagging, scrambling, fundraising, pitch-decking, obsessive emailing,
jockeying, etc.

My biggest stress this year is about how to reinvest another six figures into
our biz so we pay less taxes (and changing bookkeepers). I don't like paying
taxes more than we have to, but honestly I'm not sure what to spend it on
after we max out our 401(k)s.

I expect downvotes for this. Probably because it sounds like I'm bragging.
Probably because the reason the above article is so popular is because people
like it when authors "get real" about the "harsh realities" of running a
business. Deep inside, they believe that if it doesn't hurt horribly, it must
not be worth it. So this kind of "truth" is appealing, and what I say will be
labeled as some kind of crazy outlier, I got lucky, I'm famous, etc, etc.,
surely nobody could really make this kind of money off time tracking so I must
be embroidering the truth, etc.

But if you want to create a business -- as opposed to a drama-filled life --
there truly is a less painful way:

Create a small product for small business which creates value, then charge
money for it.

It's stupid simple. It's not easy, but then again, it's not all that hard,
either. And it works, over and over and over again.

Yes, our first year building the product income streams while consulting kinda
sucked… but it didn't suck at THIS level described by the post author. The
main suckitude came from the fact that the more we worked on our real
products, the less we wanted to consult… we still never had to travel away
from our families, stump, beg, wheedle, or go without money. And we don't have
to convince somebody else to buy us, fund us, love us, millions of people to
use what we made, to make that short & minor sacrifice pay off.

Sometimes pain is meaningful and necessary. But sometimes it's just pain.

~~~
jessedhillon
_I expect downvotes for this._

I upvoted, but I think this is an important point:

Mark Suster is a VC, and so his perspective will of course have to reinforce a
view of the world that justifies the kind of entrepreneurship which requires
large financing rounds -- unless he is a very honest individual who can accept
that he does a job which is based on principles which he personally cannot
endorse (I doubt this).

Conversely, you have a business that revolves around the idea that small(er)
ideas can be scaled to large profits -- relative to lower expectations than VC
financing, and relative to effort. What I mean is, from what I can tell: as a
business, 30x500 forwards the idea that ~$0.5M/yr going into your own pocket
for ~40 hrs/wk on a predictable basis is a preferable outcome to the
proposition of applying a massive effort toward a very small chance for a
single $10M-$100M+ payout.

This is a valid viewpoint as well, but it should be noted that you have an
interest in forwarding this kind of a story as a valuable model of
entrepreneurship.

I hope you understand that I'm not passing judgment on your model of
entrepreneurship, i.e. I'm not saying you have a "little dipshit company." I
don't have a preference to either.

~~~
a5seo
You make it sound like an either-or (income or shot at $10M-100M exit), but
it's not.

I was pulling a 500k per year in income from a web business I founded AND got
a $10M+ exit. It depends a lot on the business model and multiples.

My advice would be to continue to build the business and balance income and
reinvestment until someone makes you an offer that allows you to retire.

Btw, my definition of "allows you to retire" is $250k/yr after tax, drawing no
more than 2% of your portfolio indefinitely with a 95% chance of portfolio
survival at age 95 assuming below avg market return of 4% and above avg
volatility of 10%. If you're in your 30's, that's probably going to be around
$20M. It goes down as you get older.

~~~
ahoyhere
You could easily reach that definition of "retire" with a very part-time
effort on a small biz product, instead of a huge liquidity event, too. Not a
huge fan of Tim Ferris' whole schtick, but the idea of semi-retirement is a
very good one.

~~~
jessedhillon
What I really appreciate about your approach is that you are willing to
identify and stick to specific dollar amounts. Hell, the name of your course
is two numbers multiplied! Nice work, really. In SV entrepreneurship circles,
I rarely hear people talk about what specific numbers they have in mind as an
outcome, I think because the numbers are so big, so rare and so far away that
it sounds silly to discuss them with any sort of specificity.

~~~
ahoyhere
Thanks! You're right, in SV, people rarely talk about _real_ numbers… even to
the point of never discussing how much money a founder actually makes from an
$x mil exit. Which, to me, is astonishing, since on the other hand all people
talk about is numbers (exit numbers)… but not the ones that count for most
people.

If you look at the amount of yearly income you want/need, and then look at
products vs built-to-sell startups, it's pretty clear how easy it is to
achieve that income on a paid product and how hard it is to achieve it from a
liquidity event.

