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This is partly YCs fault because they basically groom startups and usher them into the maw of VCs while glorifying the exploitative VC model

I believe this is a part of culture that VCs are creating. I've been interviewing lately and I've noticed certain personality traits among YC founders that I'll call "Business Sheldon." I saw it a bit 5 years ago when I went to Startup School, but it's pretty pervasive now, so much so that I see it as a red flag. If you've seen the latest season of Silicon Valley, the character that Dan Mintz played touches upon this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzbwLktN60c

> Be a founder, even if you have no experience.

Easier said than done. Lots of people leave school without the faintest clue what they want to do. Getting a job somewhere gives people training and experience and maybe even credibility before they strike it out on their own.

Me and my previous co-founder founded a startup with both of us having no experience. It was a very bad decision for the company, but extremely valuable for our personal growth. It also allowed us to skip the biggest parts of the usual career ladder.

It's certainly not the best route for everyone, but definitely one worth considering.

It's great for you. It's pretty bad for any employees who have to pay for your mistakes as you get your personal growth on and skip career ladders.

I think being a founder is a great option right out of school--if you are working for yourself, responsible for your own mistakes, and not actively harming anyone else in your quest for personal achievement.

FWIW I've worked with "experienced" founders who also had no idea what they were doing (in many but not all ways). There's never a guarantee that you won't be working for people who will make you deal with their mistakes.

Heck, there is no guarantee that you won't be working for someone like that in any type of company, regardless of "maturity" or sector.

Bad managers (and most bad management - from death marches to protoduction - can be boiled down to "makes the people who report to them pay for the manager's mistakes") exist even in supposedly mature companies with good corporate cultures.

Con of startups, these are the people you might end up working for.

What's good for your personal growth was other people trying to make a living at a company being run by people who don't know what they are doing. Maybe it's fine, but that level of uncertainty is definitely a con.

I very much agree with you (as someone who has since worked for such people too).

Luckily we mostly had temporary interns as employees, and I can confidently say that they had a good experience, as we are still in touch.

The biggest problems of the inexperience were that we had to ramp up our skills on the job (for me programming), including the mistakes you make there, which killed a lot of the runway, and the lack of business knowledge which ultimately lead to us running out of money.

> Easier said than done. Lots of people leave school without the faintest clue what they want to do.

The rest of the startup game - building a product, pivoting correctly, building a team, overcoming oowerful rivals - is such a huge challenge, that gaining entry level experience before finishing school is perhaps the most straightforward piece of the puzzle.

  Anyone can start a business, and anyone should.  The things you mentioned - "pivoting" "overcoming powerful rivals" - goodness.  How about simply starting a business that earns more money then it spends. Do that and you will learn most any lesson you need to know about being a "founder."

The economics of internet-scale software businesses make this harder than opening a hardware store and selling nails and rope for more than they cost from the wholesaler. It often does require lots of risk capital. If you don't have it, you need a rich partner who does. If you don't know any rich people that want to go into business with you, you need to employ people who provide this service at a price -- and often that price is that you, in effect, become their employee, rather than their partner. This is the silicon valley VC model.

It's possible to build "boutique" scale internet software businesses, but it's harder than ever, and you still need to be well-off enough to "risk" some time that you would otherwise be working on definitely-getting-a-paycheck type work.

In short "start a profitable business instead working for one" and "start a business that's profitable right away instead of taking VC funding" are both rather useless pieces of advice for somebody who doesn't have the means or background to do either.

There are of course more choices about what to do with your life. You should explore those too. Maybe you'd be happier as an auto mechanic or a nurse. That kind of work is available almost anywhere in the country so you won't have the "three body problem" of having to live away from your or your spouse's family, or both.

I disagree with your entire post. It has never been easier to start q business online or otherwise. It has never been easier to start a business with virtually no investment or financial stake. It has never been easier to learn how to start a business in most any field and never been easier to find customers.

I'm not sure what you are defining as risk or difficulty. I can list a dozen day-one-profitable businesses right here that a person could start before tomorrow morning for less than $100 investment.

You could start them with little investment, but your time is also worth (a lot of) money. That's not coming from anywhere if you work for any startup, including your own. You might make that money back later, you might not. In the end that is part of your investment and it's a gamble. If you do not have the financial cushion required to sustain you for the amount of months it needs to become profitable for you, you cannot do it.

Baloney. Those are excuses. If you have no money the opportunity to make some/plenty is abundant and all around you. Everything else is excuses and procrastination. You dont need other people's money. You need to sell something.

That would be great! What are they?

Buy a WHMCS license and a VPS. Go to YouTube to learn how to use it. Set up a simple brochure site. Join a $0 start fee affiliate program. You are now in the hosting business.

Too tough?

Spend $100 on a Beaver Builder license. YouTube to learn. You are now in the small business website building service.

Too tough?

Call a business and tell them you can help their local SEO for a price greater than $20/month. Once the check clears, get them an Advice local account. Pocket the difference.

Too tough?

Call a local business and tell them (true) that 92% of all visitors will seek out their business in a second source other than their home page. For $100 you will setup their Facebook page. For another 100 you will train them to post to it and reply to reviews.

Too tough?

Call a local company and tell them you can handle their social media strategy. If they have T, FB, LI, and IG then great. If not then charge 100 to build them. Signup for Hootsuite. Post to their accounts for the entire week on a Monday morning.

Too tough?

Call a small business and tell them that the number one way to generate repeat business is through a regular email newsletter to previous customers. Sell for $250/month. Signup for Outbound Engine agency program. Profit.

Too tough? Call a business and tell them that chat tech on the front of their site can increase lead flow by as much as 11x. Signup for Apex Chat account, charge $20 per less. (Apex charges you $10)

On and on. It's never been harder to start Facebook or Amazon or Google because we already have Facebook and Amazon and google. But divest yourself from needing approval and applause and you start to see one big truth: its really really easy to make a lot of money online.

> It's possible to build "boutique" scale internet software businesses, but it's harder than ever,

Can you expand a bit on the "harder than ever" point? I've observed a couple of phase changes since the 90s, but I don't think I've seen that particular needle move very much in the past ten years.

> Don’t take VC money for more than %10 of your equity in total.

Good luck man.

Build things for which there's actual demand and real hard problems are being solved and they won't need it.

Build Uber for X and rightly it'll fail without VC money.

Agreed. Yesterday, I replied back with similar sentiments. I was immediately down voted. I second that theory of yours where all the risk seems rational when you are one of the founders.