Venture Reflection 1 - The case for starting now.

I've been meaning to write this for so long that it's actually now 2 months! Oof.

You should get started, like right now.

I'm super bullish on this these days, double so now that I'm in venture. And it's not so much because I myself can open a bunch of doors (I can't, obviously, as I'm also just getting started). But it's more because I'm meeting more people on the other side of it having recently started their own companies and am coming to the realization that for many many people, it's actually way easier to do this than ever. Here's why.

1. Angel, preseed, and seed funding are still relatively healthy and probably will be for some time.
2. Ideas are easier to execute now than ever before, mostly because GPT is around
3. The difference I've seen between people who talk about wanting to start a company and people who actually do, is actually not about the individual or character, it's 100% about the environment (more on this a little later).
4. The timing, as of 2024 June is absolutely right. There's a bunch of new tech in the door, a lot of new things to learn, and when there's new things to learn and new tech to use, there's always lots of opportunities. Think, geocities before the Django framework. That's where we are, right now. IF we are at the start of another boom cycle, the big wins are going to be made early on while the field is still relatively green.
5. As Garry put it in one of his podcasts, large sized companies are rife with internal political sniping that, frankly, no one really needs to be a part of. No happiness and no 'win' is found there. Only more gradations of unhappiness and despair...

I meet a lot of people who talk about wanting to start a company. They have the spark. They see an idea, they want to pursue it, but don't. Here's some things that will help you get over the cliff. Some of this might be a little spicy.

• You're probably not starting one cause you're hanging out with the wrong people. Lots of people will naysay an idea, lots of people will prefer security to something risky, and lots of people will look at something and think - oh I could build that too. What I have seen is that once you start putting yourself in environments with more founders and more venture people, you'll learn that actually there's lots of people - LOTS OF PEOPLE - who are actually really excited by people who start new things, who get passionate about their projects, and want to make the very best things for the world. This is where it's helpful to be properly located if possible, certain cities just breed this culture way better than others and companies and teams are a product of the environment in which they arise.
• You're probably not starting one cause you're worried about money. A very valid concern. But lots of people view this thing as binary. My take on it is this: Keep your job, but save 10% of your energy and time to work on your new venture. You can get early validation pretty early on, and given how cheap the tools are now because of GPT and everything, you can probably validate your idea faster and cheaper than you've ever been able to before. And there's multiple forms of validation. Maybe you run ads to a dummy site and measure traffic and sign ups. Maybe you gauge by sign ups from key industry members. Maybe you put in on reddit and see what feedback comes in and see whether that translates into sign ups or emails. You can do a lot to figure out if something is financially worthwhile, all without writing a single line of code - just by going to Squarespace and throwing up a site. Once you have validation, then the path can be relatively straightforward and there are actually LOTS of people whose job it is to write 1st checks into companies. Look around on LinkedIn, or PM me and we can figure something out.
• You're probably worried about failure - especially public failure. This one is hard cause it's all personal and stuff, but let's look at it through another lens. If I were being pitched by a repeat founder, my attitude about that company already improves significantly. If I'm hiring an engineer who started a company, I'm incredibly interested in what they have to bring to the table. If I'm going on a date with someone, and they have a passionate thing that failed to launch, I'd be really interested in learning more about that. You get the point. And you never actually need to completely fail in a big implosion. Even side projects can fail, but at least if you put effort into it it'll be a good talking point. Failure is actually a fantastic indicator for future success.
• You're probably worried about the amount of time it takes, or you would rather go hang out with your friends. We're all getting older, I get that. And work life balance is sometimes really important. And honestly, if you have kids I'm not going to advocate for you to start something. Maybe there's a life circumstance where doing it is OK, but generally I'm pretty mindful that kids should come first most of the time (though honestly, there are benefits for them to see their parents hustle, but that's another topic). IF, however, you're relatively free and not constrained, and are literally just drinking away your Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings instead of trying to build something...you have to ask, are you already dead? A little spicey, but look at it through the lens of growth and there's a couple sayings that come to mind. One comes from the neighborhood activities - anything not actively growing is dying. Growth is key to the human experience, and certain activities lead to more growth than others. The other part? PG calls out companies and ideas that are default dead. We've seen other ideas where capital compounds to make good companies even better, and worse companies flame out faster. It's not a hard leap to imagine that things from a group perspective would apply at a personal one too.
• You probably feel like you don't have an idea, or a good idea. This one is actually the hardest for me to counter, cause I myself flip into and out of this mode all the time. Especially as we get older and we see more the world, we tend to realize how many different ways and different paths to success their are. For this, the most helpful piece of advice I ever received on this topic was to suspend disbelief. Part of this you can realize by going to more founder events. Surround yourself, again, with people in the business of starting companies and get to learn more problems. When we're knee deep in the present, it's hard to figure out the edges of our reality and to look forward. This is one thing youth has as an advantage, which is they come to a situation with the beginner's mind and they thing - why not? Why not make something better, do something faster? The only other way I've seen this achieved? Hone your craft and continue to be excellent at it. By virtue of pursuing excellence in your field you will see the problems as they arise.

That's it! That's what I've been wanting to share. Let me know what you think!