Comment by swombat | Hacker News Reader

Comment by swombat | Hacker News Reader

Don't drop out of school. You've got all the time in the world, what's the rush? Your early twenties (let alone the time before you're even 20) are there to be enjoyed, not spent hacking away at a start-up 15-hours a day.

Here's how it will happen if you start up now. Your first start-up will be an unmitigated disaster. Your second one will be slightly less so, but still fail. Your third will break even. Your fourth will finally make you a reasonable sum of money. Then your fifth will make you rich. Allow for 1-3 years per start-up - with this, you'll probably be very wealthy by the time you're 27. However, you'll also have wasted the best years of your life working your ass off.

Wait a little, and chances are you might even be able to skip one of those failed start-up - after all, life experience does count for something. Finish school. Go to a cool university. Learn lots of interesting stuff. Meet lots of really interesting people (that you'll be able to recruit into your future ventures, among other things - but more importantly, some of them will be your best friends for the rest of your life - money cannot buy that). Sleep with lots of girls. Get drunk. Enjoy life. Wear sun-screen. Erm. Anyway, you can always start up after uni. If anything, it will be easier, since a) you'll be wiser to the ways of the world; at the moment your inexperience pretty much guarantees dismal failure, b) maybe we won't be in the middle of a credit crunch then.

We will work that much harder to prove doubters wrong.

The rush is to learn. If we fail now, oh well. We are that much closer and had a reason and motivation to learn.

A startup doesn't mean we can't have fun.

A credit crunch has very little effect on our idea.

You're spending a lot of time arguing against any negative opinion that's given. It's great to see that you have a positive attitude, but you did post asking for advice ;)

Perhaps you have your mind made up already- But part of the criticism process is taking in what everyone says; I hope you wouldn't just argue against an opinion because it disagrees with what you've already decided.

I do hope things work out well for you and the startup.

You are 17 years old and about to drop out of high school...I personally would advise you to at the least, finish school and get into a cool university and experience life outside the comfort zone of your parents' house. There's still a lot to learn, see and experience out there.

However, that does not necessarily mean that you completely stop working on your startup. While being committed is important, there is a right time for everything and it may not be the best time to drop out of school... suppose an year down the line, you change your mind- it will be a lot harder and for you to get into good universities. The risks vs. benefits at this stage may be out of whack.

The important thing is that the idea should not die and should always be on the backburner until the time is right and you have the matured view of the world [and how cruel it can be] to make the whole scheme of things to work in your favor.

Just my 2 cents...

Honestly curious- have you experienced bringing an idea on the backburner back to life? I've always felt like if immediate action isn't taken and maintained to move an idea forward it dies.

I'd love to hear your perspective here, I'm interested.

I've done that a number of times. I have to, because in my life, ideas are constantly jostling for first place, and falling to the side.

I'm blessed with an ability to focus very sharply on one idea and do great things with it, but that blessing is a curse too since while I'm focused, I tend to ignore all the other stuff.

On the other hand, I've also got a bad habit of starting many more things than I can finish. As a result, most of my ideas have been on the backburner for some time. Eventually, they have to become the focus, but being on the backburner doesn't mean they're gone (though some of them certainly do change and evolve and even die while on the backburner... but I don't get too attached to a single idea).

I just brought one back a couple weeks ago (http://eve-language.blogspot.com/). I'd started it 3 weeks before my startup, and then let it die to focus on something that might actually make money, and am now bringing it back as a hobby project.

If you're really passionate about something, it's not going to die just because you spend some time on other stuff.

I think the "strike while the anvil is hot" phenomena is largely because of survivorship bias. Most of the time, if you drop an idea after 2 weeks, you're not going to come back to it. But that's because most ideas that are only 2 weeks old aren't very good and should probably be abandoned anyways. While if you've been turning the idea over in your head for 2-3 years (as Eve had been, before I started working on it), another 18 months isn't going to make much difference.

We will work that much harder to prove doubters wrong.

No one here's doubted your ability to deliver eventually. Just the wisdom of dropping out of school to start a start-up at 17.

A top quality for any entrepreneurs is the ability to judge risk accurately. If you drop out of school now, you probably lack that ability, because you're taking a risk with an unlimited downside potential, and those are never good.

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