Ask HN: I'm 19. Should I leave my education for my startup?
I have 2 more years left before I graduate with a Bachelor's degree in computer science. I started helping a start up for quite a while and now we got our first seed round. I can take a maximum of a year leave from university to work on the start up full time. But I have to come back to my university after that or the university will kick me out.
The founders want me to join as a founder as well with stakes. But on the condition that I leave my education after a year if the company is successful by then. Otherwise, I can join as an employee for as long as I want.
I'm not 100% sure if I want to leave my education. But I want to be a founder at the same time and I think that this startup has a lot of potential. What should I do?
63 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 109 ms ] threadSo, go to school for another year, and then if the startup is doing well, take senior year off--you can always go and finish later (like, credits are usually good up to five years).
That seems to be the most conservative/least risky approach.
You wouldn't by chance be their tech person, would you?
I also happen to be the tech person. But I'm not the only one. So they can still survive without me.
Alarm bells ringing here. They are probably well meaning and honest, but the potential impact in the event they're not can be horrible.
You'll want it iron clad in writing now what you'll get after a year and how it is structured.
You want to make sure it's done in a tax efficient way. There are several complications here: If they award you shares or options after a year, you either lose out on the value increase in that year, or you risk getting taxed on the different between whatever price they offer it to you at and the market value in a year. If you're putting your education on hold now, presumably you would like to gain from the potential increase in value over the coming year. Especially as most startups never reach the dizzying heights of multi-billion dollar valuations and the biggest multiples on valuation you might see might very well come in the coming year.
Depending on jurisdiction there are many ways to protect both your interests (getting part of the value increase over the coming year, and avoid excessive taxes) and theirs (making sure you don't run off after getting your shares, and ensuring you have strong reasons to stay). E.g. an option plan starting now with a "cliff" that means the first chunk doesn't vest until a year from now (though options are tax inefficient most places), or letting you buy shares now (at presumably rock bottom valuation) with some claw-back provisions if you leave before certain conditions are met.
The only way of knowing what'll be best for you is to make sure to talk to a lawyer and/or accountant versed in local tax law. Many places will be willing to give you an initial consultation for free or a low fee, and will be able to at least advice you what they think will be feasible to achieve before you need to commit to paying more to actually sort out the paperwork.
(If the current founders are not willing to work with you to get proper paper work in place, run for the hills - in that case they likely have no intention of honouring whatever they've talked to you about; if everything is above board, a proper agreement will safeguard their interests as much as yours)
Unless you personally have some idea that you just cannot get out of your head and you spend every waking moment on it and its getting traction like crazy and already making you enough money to pay your school bills, and even when you're in class you're thinking about ways to boost sales and new product ideas, stay in school and finish your degree.
I can predict, and be probabilistically accurate, that the startup that you're considering is going to fail. Or worse, get just enough traction to be acqui-hired where you will then be discriminated against at the hiring company because you don't have a college degree. Finish your degree.
One of the biggest challenges you will face early on is that you don't know enough to know what is and what isn't important. You have to make guesses. Don't stress it, everyone does, but having a CS degree on your resume will help you more through out your career than having "dropped out of school to work at failed startup X". Finish your degree.
Think about what it looks like when you are 29 looking back at your choices at 19. These are the choices :
1) Got their CS degree at 21 - went on to ...
2) Dropped out of school to work at <x> which failed
3) Dropped out of school to work at <x> which was later acquired by <y>.
4) Dropped out of school to work at <x> which made the front page of the Wall St Journal when they crossed a $100B valuation in just 5 years.
Guess what #4 isn't going to happen. #3 is the next least likely, #2 is the most likely, #1 is completely within your control and guaranteed. Go for the sure thing, get your degree.
FINISH YOUR DEGREE!
Sure, I know several people who went back and finished their degree, taking night classes in their late-20's or 30's or whatever. However, those people had to BUST THEIR ASSES to make it happen. It required several times more effort than it would have to simply complete it in the first place when you're young and untethered.
The more you age, and the more responsibilities you take on in terms of job, rent/mortgage, marriage/family, etc... the harder and harder it is to make room for night classes (much less becoming voluntarily unemployed, and forgoing salary to return to school full-time). College is a window. It never completely shuts, but the open space does slowly close over time.
Second, sign the fucking document, if the startup is successful great, if not bail on the fucker and finish your degree. If there are no metrics for success even better, if they insist that there are metrics use "going concern" which means that if the business stopped taking revenue that day that it could survive for 2 years with out making any cuts. (Most startups fail this test giving you leeway to leave)
Don't worry though - you'll find someone to take a chance on you. After all good developers are hard to find, and they're going to underpay you anyway because you don't have a degree.
That's when you're going to go back to school. Now it's going to be a lot harder than it was the first time, at least it was for me. You'll probably be married (I was). Probably have a mortgage (I did). In other words, up and quitting your job so you can become a full-time student probably isn't going to be an option. So you're going to take morning and evening classes. You're not going to have your pick of the classes either - you're going to settle for classes you need to graduate that's offered at a time you can take them. Oh and group projects are going to be a real bear. Trust me on that one. Hang in there, you'll get your degree. But it won't be all it could have been due to all the concessions you've been forced to make along the way.
My own son is starting his Sophomore year in college as a Math & Computer Science double major and he's about to turn 19 in a few weeks. By the way he was 3 when I graduated - he attended my graduation. I'll give you the same advice I've given him. One, computer science isn't enough. You really need the math. Software development is much more a commodity skill than it used to be and now the key differentiator is your mathematical and analysis skills. Two, be thinking about an advanced degree, not just stopping after your undergraduate education. Three, you need to be doing internships and working on interesting problems during your education. Finally, when you graduate you'll have the skills and know-how to make a startup succeed and you'll have plenty experience to allow you to derive creative solutions to problems.
Good luck!
http://jacquesmattheij.com/Dropping+out+is+probably+not+for+...
'With stakes' would need to be defined as well as how strong the business is. Start-ups fail roughly 90% of the time, and there will be plenty of them to choose from when your education is completed.
Good luck with your choice!
So ask yourself a few questions: Is having you on board the only way the startup will succeed? If yes, then ditch those losers and do something better. If no, then you probably should be finishing your degree as the sensible thing that normal people do.
Most "entrepreneurs" work their entire life and are far more likely to create a stomach ulcer than the next Facebook. You might say, "Mark Zukerberg was a college dropout, and he did alright" but Zuck dropped out from Harvard. Dropping out from Harvard means that he got into Harvard, and it is not the same thing as dropping out of a public university. I'm not trying to be mean, but I don't want to see you lose some very valuable years off your life because you got caught up in a pipe dream.
You didn't give a lot of detail about the start up, but this opportunity is likely small potatoes and is only exciting sounding because you are 19 and money seems a lot different to younger people.
On the flip side, this could be valuable experience for you. Take a year off, and when the company is obviously floundering, ditch them and go back to school. If the company has managed to secure a billion dollar valuation, then congrats, you'll be rich. But don't stick around for a second year if the company hasn't obviously made it by that point.
> I want to be a founder
Two years down the road may seem like a long time but it flies by (e.g. it probably feels like yesterday you were in high school).
> I think that this startup has a lot of potential
Every founder thinks this but the fact is most of them fail. That doesn't mean founding a startup is a foolish endeavor - just that it should be kept in mind as inherently risky when making the decision.
> What should I do?
Since you can return to school in a year with basically no penalty (you would have "lost" a year, but you would have learned/experienced a lot of real-life stuff in the meantime) it might be worth giving it a year and seeing how it goes. Keep in mind a year may not be enough time to see if it will ultimately be successful or not - many incredibly successful companies didn't look like much at the end of their first year and many companies that fail linger on for much more than a year.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2015/06/20/the-startup-illusion/
You're only young once. Why waste your youth working, when you have the rest of your life to work? Explore school, explore intellectual pursuits, learn things that actually interest you without the constant stress of worrying about work.
Your startup idea will likely not make any money, you have less than a 5% chance of success. Go with the numbers and enhance yourself by staying in school.
I believe your success is purely based on how you attack the challenge of success. If you can take control of your education, social life and whatever else you need to succeed then you certainly don't need college. However, if you can't do these things then you'll be making the biggest mistake of your life.
If you want to be a founder, you'll never be comfortable taking the "safe" route. Go for it. Do it when you're young and you're able to take risk. No regrets, whichever path you take. Good luck.
1. Most startups fail. That's true of funded startups; indeed, it's true of startups with institutional A and B rounds!
2. Most teams have a story they tell themselves about why they're different than all the other doomed startups. The story might be valid. Or maybe not. Either way: the existence of the story doesn't predict anything. Story or no, in the metaphorical poker game of business, every new startup is a jack-high hand, at best. Don't kid yourself that you're holding even a middle pair.
3. There's a narrative about how easy it is to start a startup in your 20s that is, I think, mostly bullshit. I've been doing startups non-stop since I was 18, got married & had first kid at 21, and, coming up on 17 years with my partner (both life & biz), am now on my Nth startup.
4. There's another narrative about how easy it is to go to school when you're 18-21. That narrative is not bullshit. It is very, very hard to collect college credits once your real life starts.
5. No matter what you do, unless you get much luckier than most of us, you will always have a gnawing concern that life is passing you by or that you're missing opportunities. If you're going to be a startup person, you are going to become over-sensitized to opportunity costs. The feeling that you must jump on "this" precise opportunity is almost always going to be wrong.
Keep that stuff in mind when you make the decision.
I don't have the insider info you have! So finally I'll tell you this, do a list of pros and cons, be truthful, analyze it and decide. Good luck with your choice.
On the question of whether you should leave, I think it may be helpful to think of this startup as a high school love. Imagine you're 15 or so, and just met the guy/girl of your dreams, and are infatuated. You picture yourselves being together forever, getting married, settling down and living long happy lives together. You want to drop out of high school so you can get a job so you can move in together. It'll be amazing!
Most adults will look at that story and know the answer. You're just infatuated because it's your first love. It's probably not going to work out anyway, once you do live together. There will be more loves and more opportunities.
Now to give you the other perspective. I know a bunch of people who dropped out of college to be founders or founder-ish roles. Some of them founded or joined incredible startups (Stripe is a great example), have made a meaningful impact on the world (and a bunch of money too, though it probably matters less to them).
Of course, it's very hard for you to tell which of those situations this is...
My advice for you? Make sure you earn your degree. You will have further opportunities to found a startup.
Thus, when thinking of doing a start-up, ask yourself: in the reasonably likely event that the start-up fails, are you okay with that outcome?
If you end up in a couple of years time with neither the start-up nor a degree, are you okay with that?
If your answer is 'yes, sure, there's plenty more to life than start-ups and degrees' then by all means go for it.
If your answer is 'hell no, I really want at least one!' then play it safe.