Should you start your startup and become an entrepreneur?

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

During the meeting of entrepreneurs and investors, which was attended by such iconic personalities as Ben Horowitz, Matt Coler and Justin Rosenstein. There was a debate about the future of entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley. Among other things, various thoughts were voiced about who should (or should not) become an entrepreneur in the IT field. If you have ever considered the idea of creating and developing your startup, we advise you to read this post..

To begin with, you may well not need to rush through the waves of entrepreneurship and launch your own startup. The market is already overheated in the Silicon Valley ecosystem: there are already too many startups and entrepreneurs. Yes, many people think more startups are needed; but venture capitalists and seasoned business people think differently. Both points of view are a kind of extreme (and the same extreme is promoted through the media, so it is not surprising that not everyone can immediately understand whether they have an urgent vital need to become an entrepreneur).

The first reason to still start your own business and launch your IT project is your unlimited passion for the business and the idea that you want to base it on.: you see that your idea can only be realized by starting your own business and by founding your own company (even if it consists of several people). Passion and passion for an idea and a business are factors that are more important than experience: Entrepreneurship is hard work associated with the need to constantly deal with the challenges and difficulties that life will throw at you.

Believe in yourself and start a business only after making sure that you have sufficient minimum knowledge and resources to start. Best of all (both for you and for others) - if the project is launched by an existing team that does not need to work for a long time. Yes, not everyone will be able to invest all their knowledge and experience at once; not everyone is able to optimize their resource and time expenditures - but the majority can still implement this approach, which means that it is necessary to approach starting a new business from this point of view.

If you are not seeking to maximize your contribution to a common cause, it is reasonable to assume that you are optimizing your living space and your personal preferences. By the way, the freedom to choose your way of life and the desire for the most flexible schedule and style of work are also a sufficient reason to try yourself in the field of entrepreneurship.

Even the desire to work on only one specific problem or only with certain people is a sufficient incentive for entrepreneurial activity. Perhaps starting your own company will give you the fullness of self-realization: instead of wasting your time looking for a company that would suit you, maybe just create your own, where everything suits you?

If you decide to become an entrepreneur, there is also a Dark Side.… This is what should not be the motive for starting your own entrepreneurial journey: the desire to become your own boss in a large company. Evernote CEO Phil Libin summarizes the negative side of this ambition well:

People succumb to the stereotype of the CEO of the company: they say, this is the person at the top of the business pyramid who gives orders to everyone. And this stereotype motivates some; but in reality everything looks different.

This is how it happens in real life: you are not everyone's boss - everyone around you tells you what to do: your subordinates, clients, partners, users, the media - they are your boss. Before I became CEO, I never had so many people to whom I had to report.

The life of most CEOs is the need to be accountable to everyone around; at least that's how most CEOs I know live. If you love to command and enjoy power over people, join the army or become a politician. But just don't become an entrepreneur for this.

Entrepreneurship and running your own company sounds like luxury places. The media have turned many entrepreneurs into real idols, but this is just a colorful narrative, nothing more.… In reality, there are many years of work behind the success stories of big bosses that you have no idea about, even if you are also moving in the right direction.

As an entrepreneur, you are confident that you are talented and that talent is the only thing that will help you maximize the financial return from your endeavor. Another misconception. In reality, even some 100th Facebook developer makes more money a year than 99% of entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley.… If you have such a cool talent, then you can easily identify a company with high growth potential and relatively low risks - and then receive generous compensation from them by getting a job with them.

If the years show that you are wrong in your assessment of what is happening, you can always try again. In 2-3 attempts, you will receive significant money for your work and at the same time make a significant contribution to valuable and important achievements that can affect the life of the planet. If you decide to launch a new Google or a second Facebook, you most likely will not succeed at all, you will fail and you will be content with much lower earnings for many years. It takes a lot of time to succeed or fail, so don't delay with the choice: you only have a few attempts.

Yes, there are corporations that treat employees like a horrible cartoon, but there are, you know, good companies. work for one of these companies or work for yourself; but for no reason in the world should you stay where at the end of your working day your soul is exhausted.

Yes, this position sounds selfish. But the best entrepreneurs start the best projects (or, in extreme cases, become the best employees in good companies). Behind entrepreneurship, in addition to personal gain, there is always a macro-effect from the realization of talent outside the narrow framework (as there is a micro-effect from unrealized opportunities and skills). Becoming an entrepreneur is only worthwhile if you are confident that you are striving for this macro effect.

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