For the first 14 years of my life, we lived as missionaries in Central America. And, on top of that, we moved around tons. I moved 20 times before I was 21. So, I didn't really have tons of chances to develop lasting friendships aside from my parents, brothers and sisters like most teenagers. The first couple of times that I went against the parental flow, it was really rough.
So, there was an immense resistance when I wanted to get our of the family business (being preachers) and follow my own dream of being a software engineer. The first time my Dad found out that I had been on a BBS, I got grounded for a week. They talked me out of majoring in CS back in 93, because they were convinced that computers were a fad. Doh! And, they talked me into being a nurse so I could have a steady job. And, that's what I've been doing for money for 15 years.
I've been trying to escape nursing for 15 years. I've tried a bunch of different ideas: painting, sculpture, architecture, furniture design, Animation, Visual Effects... Non of which my family approved of or supported. Finally, I decided to go back and pursue my first love--programming and engineering. I've been chipping away at my schooling online for the past 5 years, and I'm done this semester. Meanwhile, my parents were trying to talk me out of it the entire time.
So, I'm now embarking on my first startup idea, a suite of online tools to make contract nurses lives easier. And, finally, after 15 years, they're a little excited about what I'm doing. Honestly, they only started coming around to the idea of my starting an online business since Startup School.
They finally understood that there might be something to these computer things after all.
My parents have been supportive since day 1 I picked up a programming book together with a business book; determined to create an e-commerce site for a local retailer. To be honest I see myself more as a business oriented person then as a hacker, but I thoroughly enjoy writing code nonetheless.
While in high school (I am now in my last 3 days) I had to travel a lot for various business projects and all throughout my family has supported me and never stopped me to pursue my dreams and goals. Since September '07 though, my IB diploma has been my primary focus and I've had to put off my goals and ideas up until this Friday. I fully agree that work experience adds tremendous value to your chances of success because theory never quite cuts it in reality. For anyone reading this, my age or younger I can not stress enough to go out and get an internship at a company in the field you want to later be in. Get experience by listening to those older then you but never shy away from giving your input. The most important lessons I learned from real-life experience are:
1. Only surround yourself with people who want you to be successful. Find those people that have integrity and character and don't bother with the rest.
2. Never underestimate the power of networking, and make it one of your top priorities for your business.
I am about to launch my first full blown company and will go to India for 2 months to work with a development team. It's an exciting time and my parents are very supportive of me and have faith in me. Which provides you with a great basis to start from because you'll run into enough people who won't.
Luckily, a few years ago, I was able to land an internship in Chicago for a few summers, which I think made my family realize I wanted something slightly more adventurous than middle class Ohio/Michigan. After graduating, I was able to obtain a full-time job in Washington DC, launch a successful micro business (less than 3k revenue in FY07) and launch a successful small business (revenue of around 85k in FY07).
For my parents and family, they've accepted that I'll be taking a very different path than the "family norm" and even though they don't understand exactly what I'm doing, they're happy because I'm happy. However, if I had decided to quit my "good" job, move to Boston and launch a startup with no experience running a previous business or living in a big city, I think they would have been extremely hesitant in their support.
My reasons for doing this kind of thing early:
1) The people. Like eisokant said, networking is extremely important and I take it seriously.
2) The experience. I'm not getting a huge amount of business experience from this, but it's still valuable to learn about.
3) Make some money to re-invest into future things.
All are hard to do and are important problems. Unfortunately, I've been unable to network around here due to location (Boston = sucky networking compared to the Bay Area) and time. And, of course, my parents are anti-supportive of it, so it's tough to find time to work and code amidst their demands and school.
So, where it is great if parents are supportive, I think there are many forms this support can come in, and some can be counter-productive.
Get a job, save the money, then quit the job and start your business. This is a sensible and clever solution, and trying to start a business by depending on your parents and bootstrapping and hunting for capital is frankly...stupid.
I can understand this, after all my dad was a civil engineer and worked at the same company for 30 years. They also think of starting a startup in the terms of starting a company in the past. For example, opening a store. I've pointed out that it's much different now for technology and web companies.
Either way, they're always pretty excited even if they don't quite get it.
Your average income will exceed US$100,000. You have a small chance of becoming a billionaire and a larger chance of getting nothing. You can repeat this process five or 10 times before you succeed - or take a US$100,000 job.
The contention is that parents see your likely income being below your true potential.
He also tried to start his own business when I was a kid. Unfortunately it flopped, taking a huge chunk of money with it. It took years for my parents to recover from that, and they didn't have much money to begin with. My dad has never attempted another business, but I think he regrets that.
That must be where I got the entrepreneurial bug from. When I suggested that I want to start my own business, my dad was supportive but wary, and my mum was wary but supportive, if you get what I'm saying. I can't fault either of them, because they've always supported me in everything I've done.
Money is always a sticky point with them, so I had to convince them that I had some idea what I was doing and that there was relatively little risk. Now is the time I can do risky stuff like this. The worst that could happen, I argued, is that I lose a few months of my life and living expenses for that time.
It turned out that's what did happen, and now I'm in a sticky position of trying to find a summer job in May, when no one wants to hire me for just 4 months (now 3.5). I'm returning to school in September to finish my undergrad. I don't consider my first startup attempt a failure, because I've learnt a lot.
The whole time, my parents have been supportive of the idea, but very concerned about money. I know I impressed them with how long I could survive on the money I had -- I definitely learnt how to live ridiculously cheap.
While I'm sure they'd love to see my startup succeed, they are sensible people and are always highlighting the advantages of more stable, 9-5 type of employment. We definitely don't see eye to eye on many things in that regard, however they are always interested in what's going on, what we've got planned, and are always there to celebrate the little successes. When it comes down to it, that's all that matters.
That, and maybe some seed investment :]
Personally my parents think I am crazy for attempting it. My father who ran his own business for 25+ years strongly encouraged me not to do the same. However, like him, I have the desire and he recognizes this.
Parents want the best for you, but don't necessarily know what is best for you.
I say this in defense of my non-supportive mother and somewhat-supportive father.
It depends on what you mean by "risky". My barely present parents never advocated I drive a car recklessly but they fully supported me (mentally, anyway) when I hopped in a van to travel with a band for a month even though I was completely broke at the time.
If I dropped out of college to start a business, I'm pretty sure my parents would kill me.