The gem of this post is that entrepreneurship is not exactly what it sounds, and there is nothing inherently bad about employment. The effort it takes to build a successful startup is far more great than “just being an employee”. Startups are not actually for everyone, and that doesn’t make them any better than well established companies.
entrepreneurship the hidden side
I have read so many articles and posts everywhere about startups. Missioniries of startups. And it is getting quite wild recently. There’s actually startups for startups. But, i’m not here to talk about startups at all. My concern is those people who are building these startups. The entrepreneurs.
A little bit about me, I worked on G&I, and then later Solus, before that I built EEBAx (https://wadjaafar.github.io), in 2014. So i think i know a bit about entrepreneurships. (in between, I taught at UofK and worked at Ashrafcom.)
don’t do it
Whenever i read any post on enterpneurship i scream inside don’t do it, idiot. There’s nothing inherently bad about employment at all! If you do have a fulltime job, don’t quit it! If you don’t have a fulltime job, you won’t succeed in your entrepreneurship endeavor at all!
If you really want to do it, then
do the homework
Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? I mean, there is no such title as entrepreneur, like what will be your real job description as an entrepreneur?
- If it is management, then you really ought to learn more about management. Managing people is the hardest thing at all
- If it is software, maybe you can better off work as a consultant, freelancer, etc. Just being a good software developer doesn’t mean you should be an entrepreneur. There’s no problem of just being technical savy
- If you have a huge capital, why not just investing on other startups. I see many people instead of investing on a well established startups, they would rather make a new business.
- the same greatly applies for business and marketing too
notes
i work at Solus, it happens to be my startup too. And it has been very tough, every time. Unlike, employment you have to take care about everything. Rents, salaries, bills, utility, internet and social deviation. I have not had any vacation in 4 years. The struggle is everywhere. I live in my office, the work is literally 24/7. Your job becomes your life and it is just so terrible. If you are reading this notes, consider entrepreneurship again.
The odds you become the next facebook is ZERO, if you are doing this to impress people, and monetize your suffering and (your fellow entrepreneurs as well), you are a psychopath. Don’t sell people (and yourself first) false imaginations. You are hallucinating. It is just disgustingly ugly.
But startups are really a nice place to work. They disrupt things! I hate stable situations, it is quite boring whenever thing went as smooth.
to live is to risk it all. Otherwise you’re just an inert chunk of randomly assembled molecules drifting wherever the universe blows you.
This post is not to discourage you from being an entrepreneur, it is just to tell you about the other hidden part of entrepreneurship. People always discuss and highligh the outcome part (be it a success or a failure). Rare actually discuss the day to day routine.
You can absolutely have a perfect life without being an entrepreneur at all!