Archive for March 24th, 2007
Startup founder, what is your age?
Targeted Audience: Entrepreneurs
Two days back, I attended a panel discussion on handling
startup financing. During networking session, I introduced myself to a
gentleman and explained him my background and what I was looking for.
After lot of “discouraging” discussions, he asked me, “Since how long you have been into this industry?”
“More than a year”, I replied.
“Well, then its too early for you. It is a tough game. It
looks lucrative, but it is very painful. You better switch your focus to
something else”, he warned me.
“But I am working with highly experienced team”, I tried to
justify.
“Doesn’t matter! You are still new and nobody knows you. I
am in this industry for so long, and I am still struggling for more than 1.5
years”, he insisted on his warning.
I didn’t have to think a lot to figure out why he might be still struggling.
No, I don’t mind taking devil’s advocate, but I will certainly mind paying
attention to bozo’s warning.
I understand the importance of work experience. But again,
there are lots of downfalls as well of staying in the industry for long time.
Microsoft Corporation, Steve Jobs of Apple Computers are very well known to us.
Young graduates like Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo Inc., Larry Page and
Sergey Brin of Google Corporation proved that you could start your company when
you are a student.
Please note that, all people we discussed above did not have
hereditary success or wealth. No matter how much success they achieved today,
they were once just ordinary kids without any special powers. At some point,
they decided to take the road less taken and so can we.
Here are some important advantages that we can have when we
are young:
No expertise, no domain constraint: The myth is that we
should have solid experience before we even think to start our own company. You
might be surprised to learn that it is very helpful to have less or no experience
while starting our company.
Lot of experience
will put limitations on the areas in which we can start our company. Being a
young founder, we are free to think in any direction. We can explore an idea
from any field.
Peak energy phase: The most important requirements of
startup are to put long hours, to bear greater stress, and to stretch ourselves
beyond our abilities. We are the only one who has to do all development work
without any administrative support and without any comfortable infrastructure.
Young founders have this strong mileage over anybody else that they have
maximum stamina that they can invest in their entrepreneurial venture.
it is very hard to break the trap of comfort zone once you start working with
big companies. Young founders have strong advantage that they are not bogged
down dip into the comfort zone trap. We can live cheaply, when we are young,
and this is critically important for startups. One of the common reasons why
startup fails is that they run out of money. Without other responsibilities
like kids and mortgages associated with us, we can live on practically very
small income, and this gives us an edge over older founders, because the main
cost in startups is people.
Our ignorance is bliss: One of the most hidden advantages of
being young is our ignorance about how complex this entrepreneurial world is.
We are innocent when we are young and we don’t know how hard it is to start our
own company. So we have an ability to take risk.
Of course, there are many advantages as well to start with
good experience background, but at least there are not substantial
disadvantages to start early. Please read my previous post why it is important
to start ASAP.
What do you think? What is your expectation and observation that what should be the age of startup founder? Do you think it is wise to wait, or it is smart to start?
