How do you get over the fear of quitting your job to start a startup? | Hacker News Reader

How do you get over the fear of quitting your job to start a startup?

quora.com

22 pointsrpsubhub24 comments

My own hack: I've started bootstrapping in a totally unknown country. This way, even if the project fails, I won't feel like I've lost my time or my money, because of the great time I had discovering a new country.

Besides, choosing a cheap country to live in means you have more runway to bootstrap. Here in Vietnam, I spend less than $700 / month, so I have almost no money concerns.

I've written about it here: http://gregschlom.com/post/2300487726/geographic-arbitrage-h...

This is exactly what I was thinking of doing! I was looking at Costa Rica. The one problem, is I can't see this working well with a b2b type business that requires a lot of travelling.

Or you could take a less risky route: work on it at night and on the weekends until you start making enough money to quit your job. That's what I did.

This gets more difficult the older you get - corporate job, kids, mortgage, etc...

I dropped out of college during my last year because I couldn't handle the thought of not putting 100% of my chips down on my idea. After all, the university will always be there to collect tuition.

It has taken me over 3 years of blood, sweat, tears, missed payroll, busted relationships and credit card debt to get to the awesome place I am now: great salary, 13 employees, two awesome VCs backing me and the team.

It's been one hell of an experience, but i encourage anyone able to take the risk to do it. I've learned 10x what any MBA student would in just a few years.

Personally I just rephrased it...

How do you get over the fear of working jobs like this for the rest of your life and not doing what you know your heart wants to do? Quit and start a startup.

Works great if you're me. Your results may differ.

Stop thinking, just do it. The worst might be to spend a couple of months working on a project you love; the best might be to spend a couple of years working on a project you love.

What's the fear? Most startups fail, so you should be mentally ok with failing. (Of course, you should try with all your might to succeed, but just realize that even ALL your might may not be enough. :)

Save up enough money to self fund for a while. Put a lot of effort into it, learn a lot, do some cool stuff, and consider that worth your investment. If it succeeds, that's a great bonus!

Best way is to save up enough money to live off of for at least a year.

Just think of the fear as practice for all the times at the startup you'll be terrified that you've wasted N years of your life on something that suddenly looks bleak. Then try to erode it with rationality, or just think about how much fun being successful will be instead.

Very interesting point of embracing the fear associated with starting a startup. I thoroughly believe in working with individuals who have something to lose; without fear true motivation and commitment are far from commonplace.

> without fear true motivation and commitment are far from commonplace.

This is an alien mindset to me. Fear has never motivated any of my longer term planning or actions. Maybe if I had a family whose life and welfare depended utterly on my success in a risky endeavor, it would be different. But people in that position rarely found startups. Lost opportunities is the larger if more abstract issue for younger would-be founders, who often enjoy a surplus of appealing options.

I find the possibility of failure very real; it is this possibility that serves as one of many factors that motivates me. I realize that I almost see it as a game: the opportunity to lose makes me more competitive. This line of thinking is analogous to a poker game: no one is competitive unless the chips are worth something. Could you elaborate on your lost opportunity point? Are you suggesting that the inability to focus on a particular idea can be crippling?

I interpreted your 'fear' to mean a kind of desperation. My point about lost opportunities was that your average startup founder is not at a loss for options, so desperation is not the driving force of his day to day work. I'm a very competitive guy as well, but I wouldn't put that down to anything like fear. In competition I'm motivated predominantly by the positive side of winning rather than the negative side of losing. That's the case even if I go all in.

It's always interesting to hear of someone else's experience with these matters because it's all too easy to forget how different we all are. Thanks for weighing in.

You as well. I suppose I'm just rather nervous about pursuing this. I'm just about to graduate from college and have decided to pursue my startup idea.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Tarkin_Doctrine

Simple. Wait until you reach such an extreme of boredom that the fear evaporates.

What is the worst case scenario? Your startup fails and you get a job again? If the worst case scenario is that you're back where you are right now, then it's not a big leap to make.

That's not the worst case scenario, that's the second best case scenario (the best being that your startup succeeds). The worst case is that you spend a lot of time floundering unsure if your startup will succeed or not. Meanwhile your debt is growing, your eating bologna sandwiches every night, your relationship with friends and/or family is strained because you're in a bad mood all the time or because you've borrowed money from them. Then you decide that your startup has failed and you try to move back into corporate jobs except it's harder to find one this time because you've got the experience of an entrepreneur not of a recent graduate or because the economy is down and demand is low, or a number of other reasons. You're going to find a job but it's taking longer and that debt number keeps growing. Your dream has turned into a nightmare that'll take 5-10 years to pay off.

That's the worst case scenario, and a good reason to take the decision very seriously.

These are my thoughts, although I'm still figuring things out and haven't had break-out success yet.

1. Launching a startup is a big deal. It's a great thing to do, but it's not for everyone and it shouldn't be taken lightly. If you're young and considering doing this, try working in one first. Start with one that has already raised capital and can pay you reasonably well-- no, you won't make the $85-100k available in corporate jobs in take-home cash; although if the company's successful, you'll do a bit better than that-- and learn on someone else's dime and risk. This means you won't get all the glory if the startup's a home run. It does give you a chance to learn what startups are about. If you can't find a startup you like, find a larger corporation and become an "intrapreneur".

2. Network and learn in your 20s. Zuckerberg is the exception, not the rule. Most successful startup entrepreneurs are going to be in their 30s; and most of those people spent their 20s diligently (and invisibly) working hard to learn about technology and also about people. Meet venture capitalists and see how they think. Meet (and become one of) the smart programmers you'll want to hire and see how they see the world. You're going to need a strong network if you want to do a startup because (a) you'll need meetings with investors and clients, and (b) you'll need a safety net if the startup doesn't work out.

3. Remember that startups aren't that much riskier than corporate jobs. The five-year survival rate of new companies isn't the infamous 10%, at least not when discussing serious technology companies with tech-savvy, full-time founders. It's actually about 50%. Now consider a corporate job: a lot of people end up "pigeonholed" with low visibility and minimal chances of advancement (once new people are being hired into the spots you deserve, this has happened to you) in corporate jobs. They fall off the "fast track" and will never get back on. This has more to do with political luck than skill or work ethic, and what are the odds of it happening? About fifty-fifty, after 5 years. So it seems to be a constant that any time you take a new job, there's about a 50% chance that you'll either lose that job, or it won't be worth it to come in to work, 5 years later. When you're young, the half-life of a job is probably less than that. In this light, startups aren't actually that dangerous. If you're 22 right now, there's over a 90 percent chance that you will lose a job involuntarily (layoffs, health problems, political misfortune, business failures) in the next 40 years. It turns out not to be such a big deal.

To your thorough response, i would simply add that experience with large established companies is a good way to get an understanding how these behemoths operate, what the typical pain points they have, and how mature companies establish processes for everything.

Moving on to a startup as an employee, esp. an early one, is also a great experience and usually gives you experience outside of your specific discipline (e.g. developer). Everyone wears multiple hats, you operate in a small environment, and you'll be privy to VC meetings/ pitch decks/ cap tables/ board meetings/ etc.

Networking throughout those experiences will serve you well when the time comes to start your own.

a) Redefine failure for yourself. Failing is not getting what/where you want. b) Don't fail.

If your heart tells you too, then you won't feel fear.

If you do feel fear, don't do a startup :-)

This is ridiculous.

Most people experience fear and anxiety when approaching risk, even if it's a risk they're absolutely willing to take. This whole "fear means you're not ready" meme only discourages people experiencing normal human emotion.

Well, screw that. If you feel fear, remember that all of us do, and if you're ready go for it! Don't let other folks tell you the stars will align and you'll magically "feel right" because you won't and it's no reason to hold back.

You are taking fear as a sign of shyness, which is a romantic view of what it really is. Fear results out of a subjective mismatch of your own perceived skills vs. the task ahead.

If in doubt (fear), you should probably spend more time and resources working on your skill set and finding out how (and if) you can be up to the task.

While "Just go for it" will certainly do if you know the guy personally and you're convinced that all he need is encouragement, generally stated (like in this thread) it is bad advice lacking both facts and perspective.

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