As someone in mid-30s with a child, I absolutely could not imagine founding a startup based on hope. We do need the 20-somethings to go out on a limb
I agree the idealistic 20-somethings are important. I don't think they should be handed tens of millions of dollars and trotted out like show ponies.
(There's also the financial risk, which for me is easier to absorb now. At 19 I didn't care, at 30 something I did, and now I'm lucky enough to not have to care much).
Even monthlies have a value in the worst case scenario.
It seems a very specific Venn intersection to utilize technology to a high degree, but also to imagine and prepare for its worst case failure.
Maybe the NZ tech-prepper crowd?
The off-site backup storage was required by several of our largest customers due to the critical nature of our software.
The risk from not being able to recover your data because of something wrong with your process (like, you are not backing up all the data you need) dwarfs the risk from backblaze to lose your data
Of course, that risk may be entirely acceptable; it's all about risk mitigation and trade-offs, not perfect security.
The solution is to do both, or all three (or n), where #3 is another backup process. And to test the backups of all processes by trying to read or restore them (onto empty disks) regularly.
I.e., somewhere on a continuum between zero or minimal and the above, depending on how critical your business is.
Because Murphy's Law.
Edited to add:
And how critical your job is (to you).
Of course there is much more to the whole issue, like funds, PHBs, etc.
- Bildert.
The other 999 are doing free idea-invalidation.
I have a child and is going to have another one this year. I have this crazy idea that is big if true but 99.9% it would fail. I would totally do it if I was without a family. This idea is VC type idea.
Now I am working on some idea that is 99% going to feed my family but it is boring as hell and no VC would look at it.
My idea is to create a prediction market where people bet on REAL world events under REAL name with FAKE money. All predictions are public and we can rank every user's prediction ability in each category by his ROI.
I have created a MVP where people bet on cryptos: https://rankvestor.com/. I wanted to start with finantial market.
Now I have to stop this project because I am moving my family to Japan because I don't believe in the future of China. I have to work for a Japan company to keep my visa. In my spare time, I work on a Japanese study app that gives me some money every month.
BTW, if anyone likes this idea, feel free to take it and implement it :)
Back then I would climb for a couple hours in the morning for fun and then work until 8pm or later. Get beers, go to bed, do it again. Every day, most weekends, most holidays. It didn’t feel hard because it’s what I was meant to be doing. So much fun.
Now I can’t string together 2 focused hours. I’d rather take the kids to the park, or have to take someone to the doctor, or a sport, or whatever. Even if I had to work a “regular” job, the idea that I would work any harder than absolutely necessary, at the expense of time with my family? Not a chance.
I’m not saying you must be 20s or 30s or whatever. You just must care more about the venture than other things.
(In my experience).
In some cases people are wrong or even crazy, but fundamentally I don't meet many 20 somethings with both the conviction that they are right, the organization skills to do the logistics, and the wisdom to not jump at pointless things.
I certainly didn't do it right when I tried to start a company at 19.
VC provides capital and connections.
Young founders provide ideas and work.
VC can't / doesn't want to have ideas or do the work, but young founders can't access capital and connections.
To speak to up thread, most people who have been working in industry for 20+ years limit their aspirations to what they believe is possible, which is far shy of what's actually possible. Thus, it takes a young/dumb/crazy enough founder to even take the shot.
Furthermore, by scaling and making multiple bets, VC packages risk into more palatable ranges for investors.
We can point at and decry excesses and metastisized business models on both VC and founder sides (e.g. SoftBank Vision Fund and Theranos), but the underlying bargain is fair and effective.
And I mean, Wework is an ok business idea, the problem is the cult around the person (only to show it's not only a matter of age)
Just because you’re not in a place to start a business doesn’t mean other people your age aren’t. So don’t make universal and ageist comments about how 20-somethings are better at starting companies than 30-somethings.
There are more twentysomethings without families, able to burn the candle at both ends, and not take a salary while a vision comes together than thirtysomethings. That isn’t an ageist proposition because it doesn’t imply many people in their fifties don’t do it.
None of the above are necessary for a founder. But they’re selected for, explicitly and implicitly, which means a random pool of start-up founders will tend to bias young.