There are 5 good reasons to build a startup and 1 bad one
As a startup mentor and investor, I spend much of my day speaking with early-stage startup founders.
Some are still in college, others retired. Some are based in the US; many are overseas. Some have already founded their startup while others are debating what to do. Founders come from all walks of life with a kaleidoscope of backgrounds and experience.
But it’s usually easily to tell which ones will become successful founders and which ones should stick with regular jobs.
Here’s the 5 reasons why you’d be a great startup founder, and the biggest reason many people want to be founder who shouldn’t.
Every day at an early-stage startup is a roller coaster. You get a customer excited about your product, then they transfer to a new job. A big investor says your startup is a perfect fit for their portfolio. Then their investment committee votes no.
You feel like there’s no hope, that you’re wasting your time, then a huge purchase order drops into your email. You’re ready to celebrate the win when your head of engineering says she’s leaving for another job. You’re celebrating shipping the product when a bug takes down the system and you have to scramble all night to fix it. Aargh.
At a startup, it’s 3 steps forward and 2.9 steps back. On a good day. The business hangs in the balance. You can never relax and enjoy your success for more than a few minutes before something goes seriously wrong. You’re ready to give up when a customer tweets that your product is the best thing ever.
If you need stability in your life and knowing where your next paycheck is coming from, there’s plenty of corporate jobs. If you crave adventure, need constant stimulation, you’ll love being a startup founder.
In a company of 2 people, or even 20, you get to wear a lot of hats. In fact, you have no choice but to wear a lot of hats.
Enjoy marketing? Great — you get to do sales. And the website. And user interface design. Oh, and the accounting, too. And guess who’s responsible for fundraising? And shipping. And making coffee.
Not a full stack engineer? You are one now! You get to code everything from the machine learning algo to the database to the user interface. And customer support. And sales engineering. And going to all the trade shows.
Half my corporate friends want to become managers. The other half are managers who complain they miss doing real work. Guess what? At an early-stage startup, you have to be both manager and do-er. Architect, plan and execute.
If you like being a specialist and want to be the expert in one thing, don’t become a founder. You’ll hate it. If you like doing something different every hour of every day, you’ll love it here.
Hate working for your stupid boss who makes you waste your days on useless projects because the big boss is even stupider? Want to tear your hair out while building products nobody wants because nobody bothered asking the customers?
The greatest thing about starting a business is you get to be the boss. You get to make the decisions. Which sounds like fun, but with great power comes…well you know the rest.
You have to deal with the consequences of not just your own decisions, but everyone else’s, too. There’s nobody else to blame when the buck stops with you.
Are you ready to take responsibility not only for the company but the mental and financial well-being of the entire staff? Great. You’re ready to be a founder.
You can be a small cog in a big machine and get paid well for your time. Or you can decide that making a difference is more important than getting a steady paycheck.
You don’t need to find a way to save the earth or cure cancer to feel your time is being used productively. Just knowing you’re bringing a smile to people’s faces can feel more satisfying than being one of thousands of replaceable worker bees focusing on a tiny part of any product.
If you want to feel your time is being used productively even if it means struggling to get paid, you’ll enjoy being a founder.
By far the most important reason to build a startup is that you have a burning need to solve a specific problem. If nobody else is going to do it, you feel there’s absolutely no choice but to do it yourself. The startup is not an opportunity, it’s a mission.
You might feel the need to solve a technical problem like building a test tool you need or applying AI to optimize software testing or advertising spend. After building the tool for your own use, you realize there’s millions of other people who need it, too.
Or maybe you’re obsessed with a societal problem, like finding ways to reduce CO2 emissions, helping people suffering from autism, or bringing internet connectivity to unconnected places.
For the best founders, the problem always comes first. It’s killing them that nobody else is building a good solution. They come up with their own solution, then develop the business plan, and finally figure out a suitable funding model for the business.
When meeting these founders, it’s usually clear that whether their startup is suitable for venture investment or not (and most aren’t), they’ll find a way to get their solution out into the world, even if that means selling their mother’s home. Because the problem needs to be solved, and they’re on a mission to solve it.