Hacker News Reader

Comment by chrischen | Hacker News Reader

I think they make a great point on not starting a startup for the sake of Y Combinator.

To be honest I almost fell into that pitfall. But from my perspective it's also hard to not focus on the application so much. Because I'm a college student, I haven't had a job, I don't have much money, and I'll be forced to balance school with the project if I don't get into something like Y Combinator.

So putting effort into the application now can mean more time to focus on the product later if I'm accepted. So while Y Combinator can be an accelerator, I think it can also be a great initiator too in that it can give someone like me the first opportunity in my life to work full time on a passionate project without any other priorities.

View on HN

So putting effort into the application now can mean more time to focus on the product later if I'm accepted.

True, but remember you're riding on the "if I'm accepted" part. It's highly unlikely that you will be, especially if your application lacks the knowledge you're likely to gain during the process of developing your product. I'm not saying that it doesn't make sense for you to apply. Just keep in mind that every second you spend doing A is time that you could have spent doing B.

While I won't say I hated college, I was eager to get out and start my own company from day one. I seriously considered it a few times, but I'm glad I didn't go through with it. College has a lot of resources that are harder to come by on the outside. (I just graduated a few months ago, so it could be that I'm wrong and the resources are just as easy to tap into, but I haven't figured it out yet.)

Take advantage of the fact that other people are taking care of your finances, and spend your time improving yourself. Take advantage of the fact that you're surrounded by students who are quite possibly as ambitious as you, and make some connections with promising people. It could pay off in the future. I really recommend working on small projects during college, instead of trying to create an actual startup.

Sure you probably won't make money from doing this, but there are other benefits. Small projects don't have to be time-intensive, so you can still pass your classes and enjoy college life. They also provide a really good excuse for you to sit down and work alongside one of those promising classmates I mentioned earlier. Plus, taking a project from the initial phases through completion is bound to be a great learning experience. The phrase "learning experience" is a bit cliche and overused, but trust me, this is truly a field where learning pays off.

Also, consider the fact that all these talented people starting companies are really just out to make money. This limits their choices, consequently creating a large space out there for apps that aren't designed to make money. If you do a good enough job on the right project, you stand to gain a lot of attention, respect, experience, and opportunities.

I've been doing small projects before I was in high school. Frankly I feel college classes (at my college at least) are a waste of time and I don't want to be held back anymore. I don't care much about college life either. I'm not interested in the same things other people my age.

I have taken a project from initial phases through completion... when I was in high school. I even got a law firm to do the legal stuff pro Bono.

I'm not riding on being accepted to work on this. I'm just saying it would be a really good if I do get accepted. It would make it a lot easier for me. I still plan on working on it if I'm not accepted, just as I have done for countless previous projects from before I knew what a startup was.

I'm not getting much in return for the almost 20000 per year I spend on college (and I'm just not built to be told what to learn) and to be able to not only stop paying 20000 per year in pursuit of a degree to get a job I won't want (I will be self employed; no way I will be able to work for someone for more than a summer), but to be paid almost 20000 to do that, that sir is as ideal as it can get.

That is why it's a no-brainer for me to apply.

is someone slapping your wrists when you touch a keyboard? you are not being "held back", if college is easy then all the more time for you to be working on your own projects.

and you seem to have completely missed the point of this article, it is not 20k to work on a project so you dont have to deal with professors / employers.

Its easy in that the coursework is not challenging. There could be busy work, which take time. College work even if easy still takes time. "held back" I guess is not a good way to describe it then. What I mean is that its simply wasting time I could be spending completely on the startup. And yes, I do have lots of time to work on the startup and I do. I don't mean to imply that school is preventing me from working on it. I could have more time if there wasn't school. I could also be saving a lot of money if I don't pay for school.

>it is not 20k to work on a project so you dont have to deal with professors / employers.

But from my perspective that's what it potentially means.

In my opinion, if you aren't ready to balance school/work and your startup until your startup is self-sufficient, you aren't serious enough about your startup.

It's not that I'm not ready. It's the fact that I even have to balance it.

Also the startup is much more interesting. School is just an unnecessary impedance to the startup and if I am serious about it I wouldn't even care about school (which I don't). The problem is my parent's aren't going to pay for me to relocate to silicon valley or fund a risky project. They'd rather fund college.

So my options are to find a way to fund myself so I have a legitimate reason to focus full time on the startup, or balance school and startup. The problem is I have a hard time enforcing a balance and the startup gets more of the attention.

So ideally I want to be in a position where I need no balance and focus solely on the startup.

You should know that a startup does not mean you do all the time only the things you like. Besides writing code (which is the best part :) ) sometimes you need to do customer support, boring paper-work, leave the best party to restart your servers, even clean your office by yourself. And may other things I can not remember right know...

This isn't the first project I've done. I did a project while I was learning the language and honestly I just wanted to go to sleep every night at 3am. It wasn't the fun that even got me through coding the damn thing. Fun isn't necessarily the reason I push myself through the work. So I more than know there are tough challenges and unpleasent experiences to come. It's really the satisfaction everytime I overcome a challenge and the results that lure me to the end.

your startup will force you to make sloppy compromises.

I agree that when you balance your startup and your work/school, one or the other will suffer. I know I have not given my heart to any of the contracting projects I was working on. I mean, I worked on what I was paid to work on when I was getting paid to work on it, but they just weren't getting the same value they would have if I was thinking about their problems in the shower instead of mine, you know? I didn't feel good about that.

So yeah, I feel a lot better about myself now that I'm full-time on my company. But even then, you have sloppy compromises. I don't have investors, so I always have the option of the 'honorable death' rather than doing something slimy, but the market forces you to make sloppy compromises.

Me, I have always had a deep hatred of marketing in nearly all its forms. And guess what, now I'm the marketing guy. Granted, I am a fairly truthful and transparent marketing guy; I generally try to avoid (or at least tell you ahead of time) if I have any 'perverse incentives.' but still, I now spend probably 20% of my time bragging about myself, an activity I maybe enjoy, but certainly don't admire. I mean, really, my biggest flaw is my massive ego. In my heart of hearts, I believe I can do anything. You have to carefully control that sort of thing.

edit: removed baseless speculation about running a company with investors.

I agree. I'm only now 'ramen profitable' (well, I'm 'opportunity cost profitable' if you don't count what I spend on expansion, and I'm growing by around 20% a month.) I only went full time a few months ago. (well, actually this is the second time I've gone full-time)

Looking back, I'd have needed something north of $200K to get where I am now, to learn what I learned. Hardware mistakes get expensive fast, and I was at this for 3 years before it took off.

Who is going to keep feeding me cash after my second failure? my third? Me, that's who. Who is going to support two people to write a book that is likely never going to repay the expense of keeping us alive for the period of time it took to write it, much less to cover the opportunity costs? I did.

The thing is, if I went with investors, I would have needed to take the 'pretend you are doing something new' path, and to charge what look to me like ridiculous prices. Now, maybe they'd also bring on marketing people that would make those ridiculous prices tenable, but going with investors, I'd have probably been either dead or bought out by now.

i can see where he is coming from with this statement. I recently got knocked back from a goverment backed startup program here in ireland which i had my heart set on from i first heard about the programme at the start of this year.

I had two ideas i was looking to develop and i went with the one i thought had the most potential and the one i was most interested in, even disscussed it with the people who had to goverment tender to manage the program.

They where looking for great things such as exportable and high potential amongst other things. My idea really did tick all the boxes but as i filled out the application form, it was a far way from what they where looking for and for that i didnt make the interview stages.

But now im at the stage where i can demo one of the ideas at a local barcamp next week and im quite happy to move on a prove some people wrong who didn t believe my idea ticked certain boxes.

And yes i will be applying for ycombinator with my other idea which i have deemed more YC-esque

Reply on news.ycombinator.com