Paul Graham recently gave a lecture as part of Sam Altman’s startup class at Stanford. If you have seen the talk or read the essay you will find most of his advice quite counterintuitive. He practically gives reasons as to why you should _NOT_ do a startup. I highly recommend it. This, however, is my take on it.

*Image source: *https://www.flickr.com/photos/davesoldano/9270357585

I agree with his school of thought and think one should work in a startup [or startup like environment] or atleast have a job before one actually thinks about his/her own startup. And here’s why.

Error rate

Startups have a high error rate. First time entrepreneurs make a lot of mistakes. With good guidance, one can lower the error rate but no matter what you do, you will make mistakes. Ask any founder of the number of mistakes they have done. Experience can lower that. And if you have a job; before the startup; you get to learn from the mistakes of the organization and build your own spidey sense.

Network

Hiring for a startup is hard. There is always more work and the pay isn’t always great. One needs people who are committed and believe in your vision. Its difficult to convience/sell this to complete strangers and relatively easier to do it to a co-worker or a friend. Also, interviewing random people can sometimes go wrong. An hour long conversation can never be compared to years of working together. Its no wonder that most successful startups are started by alums of corporations like Google, Facebook, PayPal, LinkedIn, etc. and have a lot of friends joining them at different stages.

Skills

You should to have a skill and make yourself useful in a startup. You are on a shoestring budget for the initial years and carrying the deadweight will lower the chances of your startup’s survival. Startups whose founders have no skill and call themselves a CxO just because they had thought of some idea are bound to fail. Your idea is worthless without execution. And execution comes from skills. So, gather skills before you startup. College doesn’t provide skills, it provides education. Skills come from work. Preferably technical skills like engineering, design or sales.

Mentors

They are very crucial to reduce that error rate of your startup. This might be your boss from your previous organization who has seen you grow and knows what you are capable of or a customer with whom you have worked or your colleague who was better than you at things. The chances are that you’ll get better and contextual advice from them rather than someone who has 10 companies under their belt and has very less time to invest in you and your startup.

Real world mechanics

Fortunately or unfortunately the real world doesn’t work the way college works. Its different, I don’t know whether its easy or hard as everyone has their own experiences but its different. Its easier to first get to know this world and then plunge into the weird world of startup.

Social ettiques

Continuing with the previous point of real world mechanisms, business networking isn’t social networking. Or atleast its not for people who are busy. Knowing your limits comes from working in a work environment i.e. an organization. This is not college where your goal is to be popular and increase your friends count. Try to make meaningful connections and not friends. No one respects or takes a troll seriously.

Ideas

Take time to find ideas. There is a lot to do in the world. We were promised invisibility cloaks and all we have is self exploding messages. The world outside of college has a lot of problems. Find the ones which hit a nerve with you, find a solution and ask your friends is it worth your time. You’ll find your startup idea in your passions.