(2007-03-28) Graham Reasons Against Startup

Paul Graham on the reasons people don't start a Start Up (Entrepreneur).

• In a sense, it's not a problem if you don't have a good idea, because most startups change their idea anyway. In the average Y-Combinator startup, I'd guess the 70% of the idea is new at the end of the first three months. Sometimes it's 100%. In fact, we're so sure the founders are more important than the initial idea that we're going to try something new this funding cycle. We're going to let people apply with no idea at all. If you want, you can answer the question on the application form that asks what you're going to do with "We have no idea." If you seem really good we'll accept you anyway. We're confident we can sit down with you and cook up some promising project.

  • So here's the brief recipe for getting startup ideas. Find something that's missing in your own life, and supply that need - no matter how specific to you it seems. Steve Wozniak built himself a computer; who knew so many other people would want them? A need that's narrow but genuine is a better starting point that one that's broad but hypothetical. So even if the problem is simply that you don't have a date on saturday night, if you can think of a way to fix that by writing software, you're onto something, because a lot of other people have the same problem.

• I wouldn't advise anyone with a family (Geeks With Kids) to start a startup. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, just that I don't want to take responsibility for advising it... What you can do, if you have a family and want to start a startup, is start a consulting business you can then gradually turn into a product business. Empirically the chances of pulling that off seem very small. You're never going to produce Google this way. But at least you'll never be without an income... Another way to decrease the risk is to join an existing startup instead of starting your own. Being one of the first employees of a startup is a lot like being a founder, in both the good ways and the bad.

• One reason people who've been out in the world for a year or two make better founders than people straight from college is that they know what they're avoiding. If their startup fails, they'll have to get a job, and they know how much jobs suck. (DayJob)

It's exciting to think we may be on the cusp of another shift like the one from farming to manufacturing. That's why I care about startups. Startups aren't interesting just because they're a way to make a lot of money. I couldn't care less about other ways to do that, like speculating in securities. At most those are interesting the way puzzles are. There's more going on with startups. They may represent one of those rare, historic shifts in the way wealth is created. (New Economy)