1) Nobody cares who your parents are. That's one of the key pieces of magic in Silicon Valley and entrepreneurship in general.
2) Good ideas can't be bought. Everyone faces challenges and mountains to climb in starting a venture -- access to capital is just one of them. While having easier access to cash is helpful in the recipe, it's far from a determinant for success.
I disagree. People with good ideas and small inheritances are more likely to work for others since they lack the safety net. With them goes their ideas.
People might not care who your parents are but they care how much money you have and who you are connected to.
Counterpoint: I'm only working on something other than my own ideas because I don't have the capital/savings backing to just chuck down a few hundred to incorporate and start raising capital, all the while paying rent and buying food.
I ask this honestly because you seem like a sharp guy and I'm genuinely curious: what's stopping you from working a dev job for 6-12 months, saving 2-3k/month of a 8-10k/month paycheck, and then starting your own thing when you have 6-12 months of personal runway in the bank?
I re-iterate that this is not meant to be snarky, but I meet several people who express this idea and many of them seem to be stuck in local optima that can be easily escaped with a little persistence.
Edit: a bit of nuance. I know most people in the world can't easily get 8-10k/mo salaries. But talented developers in the US (or willing to work remotely) can. I don't mean to be insensitive to people with more constrained opportunities.
>a bit of nuance. I know most people in the world can't easily get 8-10k/mo salaries. But talented developers in the US (or willing to work remotely) can.
No, we can't, if we don't live in Silicon Valley. I would call myself "talented", but the highest salary offer I've ever received was $87k/year. The lowest was around $72k/year. The average was around $80k/year.
Mind, most of these offers sounded better once you factored in things like stock options, working for a start-up, or really nice health insurance with stock options, but still. Outside of Silicon Valley, it's not at all routine to earn $120k/year as a programmer, even a reasonably good one.
EDIT: and I don't live in some Hicksville, either. I live in Massachusetts.
Comments
Things to remember:
1) Nobody cares who your parents are. That's one of the key pieces of magic in Silicon Valley and entrepreneurship in general.
2) Good ideas can't be bought. Everyone faces challenges and mountains to climb in starting a venture -- access to capital is just one of them. While having easier access to cash is helpful in the recipe, it's far from a determinant for success.
I disagree. People with good ideas and small inheritances are more likely to work for others since they lack the safety net. With them goes their ideas.
People might not care who your parents are but they care how much money you have and who you are connected to.
> People with good ideas and small inheritances are more likely to work for others since they lack the safety net.
This doesn't seem to be the case historically. AFAIK, the vast majority of successful entrepreneurs in the valley came from middle class backgrounds.
Counterpoint: I'm only working on something other than my own ideas because I don't have the capital/savings backing to just chuck down a few hundred to incorporate and start raising capital, all the while paying rent and buying food.
I ask this honestly because you seem like a sharp guy and I'm genuinely curious: what's stopping you from working a dev job for 6-12 months, saving 2-3k/month of a 8-10k/month paycheck, and then starting your own thing when you have 6-12 months of personal runway in the bank?
I re-iterate that this is not meant to be snarky, but I meet several people who express this idea and many of them seem to be stuck in local optima that can be easily escaped with a little persistence.
Edit: a bit of nuance. I know most people in the world can't easily get 8-10k/mo salaries. But talented developers in the US (or willing to work remotely) can. I don't mean to be insensitive to people with more constrained opportunities.
>a bit of nuance. I know most people in the world can't easily get 8-10k/mo salaries. But talented developers in the US (or willing to work remotely) can.
No, we can't, if we don't live in Silicon Valley. I would call myself "talented", but the highest salary offer I've ever received was $87k/year. The lowest was around $72k/year. The average was around $80k/year.
Mind, most of these offers sounded better once you factored in things like stock options, working for a start-up, or really nice health insurance with stock options, but still. Outside of Silicon Valley, it's not at all routine to earn $120k/year as a programmer, even a reasonably good one.
EDIT: and I don't live in some Hicksville, either. I live in Massachusetts.
You're definitely right about #2, but if you're starting your own VC firm, good ideas are definitely bought ;)
I think that having a family history in a certain business (like hotels) would make that firm more valuable for hotel-related startups.