A lot of people ask themselves this question.They mull over one or more of the following details:
1. The great majority of startups aren’t prosperous
My answer to the reason you need to begin a startup is straightforward: there is a particular sort of individual who only works at their peak capacity if there’s no predictable path to follow, the likelihood of success are low, plus they have to accept personal responsibility for failure (the opposite of most jobs at a big company).
2. For gifted technical folks, it is comparatively easy to get a job and make a large wages
Here is how I heard this about myself.High SchoolMy school from 6th to 12th level has been monitored. Early on pupils were put in the talented track or the track that was normal. Children got coursework that was more interesting, better teachers, and more often than not were approved to the very best universities. I had been smart but not intelligent enough to be considered “gifted” therefore that I was put to the regular course. What became clear to me was that once I was tracked regular there was no easy way. That motivated me to break into the greater track and pissed me off.
3. Huge companies offer opportunities to operate on very difficult Issues that often only happen at scale
Here is how I heard this about myself.High SchoolMy school from 6th to 12th level has been monitored. Early on pupils were put in the talented track or the track that was normal. Children got coursework that was more interesting, better teachers, and more often than not were approved to the very best universities. I had been smart but not intelligent enough to be considered “gifted” therefore that I was put to the regular course. What became clear to me was that once I was tracked regular there was no easy way. That motivated me to break into the greater track and pissed me off. I worked hard to be the smartest kid in my regular classes, my parents and I had to lobby my teachers for recommendations to more advanced classes, and I needed to excel at the electives and clubs dominated by gifted students (constitutional law and model UN). By junior year I had succeeded but my motivation didn’t stop. Rather than wanting to be as good as the kids in the gifted track, I realized that I could be better. While everyone else practiced violin I became a varsity athlete. When others did community service half heartedly, I joined the rescue squad for a cadet riding ambulances and helping people in my town and spent a summer volunteering in my court. By high school’s end all of this hard work paid off. . CollegeI got kicked out of Yale. Let me tell you what happened. Over a few years I lost all interest in classes, stopped attending, and low grades quickly followed. I didn’t wish to be an academic and it felt like that was all Yale was preparing me to do. By year my grades resulted in me being kicked out of school. About 2 months after being kicked out of school I suddenly felt pissed off again. I realized that a number of my pals, my school, and even some of my family members thought I would never graduate from college. My motivation came back instantly. When my year was through I went back to school, got A’s, made some great friends (Justin Kan was one of them), and graduated in the 2005 class. Doing startups was never my plan but looking at my history in college and high school I needed to be an underdog in order to motivate myself to succeed. Startups are the underdog, 99\% of the time . This was so motivating I didn’t even need to believe in our first idea to stay excited (remember… we started as an online reality TV show).
Throughout almost all of the history of Justin.tv and Twitch we were expected to lose. We were funded by YC in 2007 but it was as well-known as it is today and we were ignored by investors. After demo day however hard we tried we could only raise $180k in angel investment. As we built our business we couldn’t employ the most sought after engineers, couldn’t bring in the highest ranked VCs, and constantly fought to stay alive at a time when startups were considered horrible cash combusting businesses with no ability to monetize. On 5 occasions over 5 years we almost died.
Once needing a loan from Jack and Justin, and once once receiving a bandwidth bill had in our bank account having $ 1m in monthly expenses and less than2 months of runway. These adversities All were exactly what we needed to remain hungry. We couldn’t be killed, 8 years after we started we succeeded, and we wouldn’t go away. So for Those who are interested in tech (especially folks who work at big companies or are applying to work Huge companies), you should ask yourself these questions: Do I seek the hard challenges that most men and women shy away from? Do I thrive when I take personal responsibility for success or failure? The many jobs at big companies can’t offer you this experience.
For many people, the longer they work at a major company making a large salary, the higher their expenses rise, of starting a startup, and the lower their chances will be, even if that is their eventual objective.I cannot promise that doing a tech startup will make you rich (in fact the odds are against you becoming rich), but I can promise that it is one of the most difficult things you may select to do. It will push you past your limits, force you to learn and show you that once in a while the impossible is possible.
