Thanks for the feedback. I'm young as well and working through debt. The point isn't necessarily to venture out and start a company but to begin inculcating a founder-like outlook on how you work and approach life, even in the largest organizations. Finding opportunity, approaching work with a beginner's mind, etc. can be done in any organization, large or small.
It is always valuable to know how business works. As much as engineers deride the 'suits' I've known brilliant engineers who couldn't make a profit at a lemonade stand if their life depended on it.
A small anecdote. I talked with the CEO of a startup who was looking for a CTO. They were building a brand which they would leverage into an advertising magnet using crowd sourced content. "Great, but online advertising comes from Google, why would Google sell ads on your product?" was my response. They had a great product idea, and good execution, but the business of advertising online really was built around search ads, nearly everything else was remnants. The missing piece was fitting into the existing infrastructure in a way that could fund them until they could pull in advertisers directly.
Difference between thinking like an engineer and thinking like a founder. Where does your idea add value, how much value does it add, and how much of that can you keep after you give away enough to facilitate adoption of your product.
As I re-read your article with less quickness to reply, I see you're making exactly that point. I'm mostly pre-occupied lately with that very tension between working for one's self and working for others, so my response had a fair bit of that going into it. Great post.
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Thanks for the feedback. I'm young as well and working through debt. The point isn't necessarily to venture out and start a company but to begin inculcating a founder-like outlook on how you work and approach life, even in the largest organizations. Finding opportunity, approaching work with a beginner's mind, etc. can be done in any organization, large or small.
It is always valuable to know how business works. As much as engineers deride the 'suits' I've known brilliant engineers who couldn't make a profit at a lemonade stand if their life depended on it.
A small anecdote. I talked with the CEO of a startup who was looking for a CTO. They were building a brand which they would leverage into an advertising magnet using crowd sourced content. "Great, but online advertising comes from Google, why would Google sell ads on your product?" was my response. They had a great product idea, and good execution, but the business of advertising online really was built around search ads, nearly everything else was remnants. The missing piece was fitting into the existing infrastructure in a way that could fund them until they could pull in advertisers directly.
Difference between thinking like an engineer and thinking like a founder. Where does your idea add value, how much value does it add, and how much of that can you keep after you give away enough to facilitate adoption of your product.
The point isn't necessarily to venture out and start a company
The point is that your title "Why You Should Quit Your Job to Be a Founder" contradicts your explanation here. So it is a link bait title.
I did however like the article.
As I re-read your article with less quickness to reply, I see you're making exactly that point. I'm mostly pre-occupied lately with that very tension between working for one's self and working for others, so my response had a fair bit of that going into it. Great post.
Really appreciate that. Best of luck - sounds like we're in similar spots in life.