I feel like the abstract problem here is that too many people decide first they want to be an entrepreneur, and then search around for ideas and projects to work on. Most of the great tech companies started with a project that suddenly, almost unexpectedly, started to get a lot of traction before the founders were even working on it full-time. Google, Yahoo and Facebook were all dorm room projects. AirBNB was founded because Chesky and Gebbia needed help paying the bills, so they rented out their living room. Steve Wozniak built the Apple I while still an employee at HP.
This approach to startup work is probably better than the “jump in and go” approach, because it means the founders are never desperate. If your dorm room project doesn’t take off, you can just go back and finish your degree. If you’re working part time as a consultant and part time as an entrepreneur, you have an infinite runway because your consulting work pays the bills.
For reference, I know people who are professional entrepreneurs in the sense of doing it the other way around than you say, but they are not in a software/startup kind of business. They usually do things like open hot dog stands and similar easy fast food, open small bars, start a drywall business because even a non-professional manager can judge the quality of the work (horizontal? vertical? right angle? then it is OK) and search for similar ideas. I think it is partly about having skills like negotiation and organization so basically their profits can be interpreted as representing their more timid employees who don’t have the cojones to argue down the prices of a vendor and then also demand a longer payment term, partly swimming in the small market gaps of large businesses, and partly about being bolder about tax avoidance than big businesses.
Your first sentence doesn’t seem to me to match the rest. It seems like much stronger advice, objecting to many more founders. The rest is about not committing to one project too early, while the first sounds like a much stronger advice against not being an entrepreneur for the sake of being an entrepreneur. Steve Jobs wanted to be an entrepreneur and tried a lot of things. Similarly, I think Zuckerberg wanted to be an entrepreneur, but it’s harder to tell because his first commercial project was successful.
Also, some people complain that the “infinite runway” makes people fail to give up on bad projects. And, worse, to concentrate on the parts that interest them, rather than tackling a full product with sales and marketing.
I feel like the abstract problem here is that too many people decide first they want to be an entrepreneur, and then search around for ideas and projects to work on. Most of the great tech companies started with a project that suddenly, almost unexpectedly, started to get a lot of traction before the founders were even working on it full-time. Google, Yahoo and Facebook were all dorm room projects. AirBNB was founded because Chesky and Gebbia needed help paying the bills, so they rented out their living room. Steve Wozniak built the Apple I while still an employee at HP.
This approach to startup work is probably better than the “jump in and go” approach, because it means the founders are never desperate. If your dorm room project doesn’t take off, you can just go back and finish your degree. If you’re working part time as a consultant and part time as an entrepreneur, you have an infinite runway because your consulting work pays the bills.
For reference, I know people who are professional entrepreneurs in the sense of doing it the other way around than you say, but they are not in a software/startup kind of business. They usually do things like open hot dog stands and similar easy fast food, open small bars, start a drywall business because even a non-professional manager can judge the quality of the work (horizontal? vertical? right angle? then it is OK) and search for similar ideas. I think it is partly about having skills like negotiation and organization so basically their profits can be interpreted as representing their more timid employees who don’t have the cojones to argue down the prices of a vendor and then also demand a longer payment term, partly swimming in the small market gaps of large businesses, and partly about being bolder about tax avoidance than big businesses.
Your first sentence doesn’t seem to me to match the rest. It seems like much stronger advice, objecting to many more founders. The rest is about not committing to one project too early, while the first sounds like a much stronger advice against not being an entrepreneur for the sake of being an entrepreneur. Steve Jobs wanted to be an entrepreneur and tried a lot of things. Similarly, I think Zuckerberg wanted to be an entrepreneur, but it’s harder to tell because his first commercial project was successful.
Also, some people complain that the “infinite runway” makes people fail to give up on bad projects. And, worse, to concentrate on the parts that interest them, rather than tackling a full product with sales and marketing.