Is 30s too late as a first time founder? (never done anything biz related)
I've never built a business before so I'm wondering if applying to accelerators is even feasible. I see all these people younger than me, or people in my age range working on their 2nd/4th+ company.
I'm self taught, didn't go to a prestigious school, and I only got into tech 5-6 years ago so I consider myself pretty good at application development but not exactly someone who understands the deep computing fundamentals, nor do I have connections to startup founders or such people. However, I know what I know pretty well and have been able to build some application experiences for my employer and side projects that I am quite proud of..
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[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 87.7 ms ] threadIs it possible we are still mythologizing the Zuckerbergs of this world?
So definitely not late for you but it will take a lot of time, grinding, resources, and its an emotional rollercoaster! First step is to get some MVP going on and some basic business model and then apply to all the things. Good luck!
This matches my personal anecdata as well. Locally there are a number of tech startups founded by people in their 20s, but the ones that have gotten significant traction have been older. Which, at 38, keeps me from being discouraged. I mostly love my current gig, but there's a pretty solid chance that it'll be the last employer/employee relationship for me for a while.
This sort of worrying is an unnecessary that this community needs to leave behind.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/27/super-founders-median-age-of...
Key points here: Ignore what you see other people doing. It's about 99.9% an illusion.
Thanks
Often people are scared to talk to other professionals - accountants, lawyers, etc - because they think it will be crazy expensive. I've been really pleased with how affordable their services can be for basic consult, documents. It's only when you are in litigation that it gets crazy (don't ask me how I know). So - it might be just a couple hours (let's say $600 or so) for some of their time to get all your questions answered. In fact, I've found a brief coffee with a lawyer will often answer all my questions and that only if we have to do something with them after that point does the meter start running.
Point being: Get comfortable talking to these people, they are your allies.
IMHO this is really putting the cart before the horse. When you are bootstrapping, the first thing to understand is that you can only do 0.1% of all the things people will tell you that you "need" to do. That means what you really need to do is apply your own judgement identifying the critical work that will move the needle like understanding what people are willing to pay for and building it.
Of course you should use some minimal measures to protect yourself from legal risk (eg. start an LLC), but generally speaking your biggest risk is no one knowing or caring about what you are doing. Don't start by asking a bunch of experts as that will lead you down the path of "playing house" as PG describes in his Before the Startup essay (http://www.paulgraham.com/before.html)
There are light accelerators out there that take no equity, just a first right of refusal of funding kinda arrangement.
(Now queue the HN cloud haters telling me I can run anything on 3 raspberryPis or something)
To be clear - my original comment wasn't really intended to disparage incubators, accelerators, etc, but rather to say that you can spend a lot of time playing the whole startup game where often you are better off to just keep your head down and focus on your own work.
I'm 32 and just started a solopreneur bootstrapped business. I have much more confidence now than when I was in my 20s.
The biggest thing is that I'm more patient now. In your 20s, it's easy to feel like you need everything right now. But as you get older, you learn patience. I'm still impatient at times, but I also feel more comfortable saying I'll spend the next 4 years trying things, than trying to race to success and giving up at the first sign of trouble.
From what I've seen, the people who start successful businesses in their 20s are from generational wealth and can afford the career risk, or their parents are entrepreneurs. Then you also have the people who have been coding since they were 8 years old, so by the time they are 20 already have 10 years of experience. Plus, code has the wild scalability of infinite permissionless leverage (as does social media), so it's possible to make millions from your bedroom as a high school or college student.
In short, give it a shot for a year. If you hate it, you can always go back to a job to learn from your mistakes on someone else's dollar!
The one time I raised money for a startup I did great, and I'm sure it was my confidence. You know where my confidence came from? This logic: there are people who are dumber than I am, doing better than I am, at the same age. Therefore if I work hard and smart, I can definitely level up.
You've got this. Remember: if a midwit like me can do it, you definitely can!
Also, to what do you attribute the successes of those dumber people? Pure hard work?
For example, I am morbidly obese, 100+ lbs overweight. The data are very clear: that is extremely unhealthy. If I lived without comparing myself to other people, I would think it’s just fine, because eating right for me is insanely difficult and causes me to jones for food for hours at a time (e.g. eating at 6pm, getting hungry again at 8pm, and wanting food desperately until I finally get to sleep at 5:30 am is a normal day for me). Eating junk makes me feel integrated and whole—every time. Eating the right amount of calories is agony. Exercising makes me feel horrible.
Another example: my family wrecked their lives with drug consumption and nearly wrecked mine with terrible handling of relationships. But when I got away I learned by comparing my upbringing with others that those patterns were damaging, and that I didn’t have to visit that upon my own kids.
Comparisons like this are necessary for me calibrate my systems and actions.
Why do people dumber than I am sometimes do better? I never worried about that. I just figured that by working hard and using common sense I could usually replicate their success.
It's possible, but without this it's going to be very difficult.