Startup CEOs – The Panhandlers of the Internet | Hacker News Reader

Startup CEOs – The Panhandlers of the Internet

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9 pointsnano817 comments

The not being in debt is something I've worried about. I'm going to graduate college in a year and a half, and will have a monstrous pile of student loan debt. That would mean that I would need to be paid enough to subsistence-live and pay at least something on my loans.

That probably makes me not the best choice to invest in :(

You're going to have to get busy making passive income streams to beat down that debt. I have the same issue.

i'd point out the fact that you don't have to follow the "standard tech startup" checklist if you have a good idea.

get a real job to help pay down your bills, save up, and work on your company in your free time. or work on your startup most of the time and do consulting/freelance work to make ends meet.

That's pretty much what I'm planning on doing - I had an excellent internship this summer at a great web company, and I am really looking forward to continue to work there.

That said, the romance and adventure of eating ramen and working morning, noon, and night to make something interesting and new is attractive. There's plenty of the rest of my life, too, though, I suppose :)

i really hate pointing it out, but working on a scrappy startup straight out of school is either for the exceptionally talented or for the people who have/had the financial support of their parents.

Indeed. And as much as I'd like to think that I'm talented and have good ideas, I'm not going to risk being financially screwed to try them out right away.

Looking at the founders who dropped out of school, or built an idea into an empire, a common thread does seem to be a measure of financial stability, if not complete freedom from debt.

Here's hoping that day comes someday.

i think that would be an interesting statistic to look into. how many YC founders come from well-off families? how many successful tech company founders come from well-off families?

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