And 1 that will make things more complicated…
So you’ve always had in mind to build your own startup (or company). You’ve read a lot or maybe you have close friends who have been down this path before so you know the sacrifices that come with entrepreneurship and you have realistic expectations about the potential upsides. You’re “just” wondering when the hell is the right time for you to start.
While “now” is definitely better than “never”, there’s one particular moment in life that makes things much easier than any other. That’s the moment I chose to start ohmygeorge! , my first venture, a CandyCrush-style trading platform (yes, you read that right, and if you’re curious you can find out about the rational behind this weird idea in my previous post), because transitioning to entrepreneurship was then as smooth as it could ever be (that is only to say less difficult than at any other point of time in my life). It was right when I turned 30. Here are a few signs that you may want to consider to identify your own sweet spot.
You’ve realised that your opportunity cost is low
Let’s face it, even if you’re a corporate hot shot - that is if you’ve been to an Ivy League University (or whatever the equivalent might be in your country) and have been formally acknowledged from day 1 as a High Potential by your boss’ big boss - chances are around 30 you’re not giving up on a VP position at a Fortune 500 company if you choose to go off the fast track you’ve been told you’re on. And even better, you can probably allow yourself to wander for a couple of years and do a decent come back should you find out along the way that after all corporate life was a better fit for you. So stop thinking you’re trading your promising corporate career for a shot at entrepreneurship, because it simply isn’t true. If you agree with this statement, congratulations, you’ve reached this first milestone. And by the way, your odds of building a sustainable company are greater than reaching C-level at your big Corp. Just saying.
You’ve accumulated some savings
Sure, your opportunity cost is even lower when you’re just out of university. But thinking that you can start your own venture with $0 is very, very optimistic. Cash is king, and even though starting a company has never been cheaper, the more cash you have the longer you’ll survive, therefore the more iterations you’ll be able to make and consequently the more chances you’ll have at finding that f***ing product/market fit. So if like a good millennial you spent in your mid-twenties whatever you were making on travels and beers (not judging), it’s probably only by the time you turn 30 that you’ll have accumulated enough savings to bootstrap for a year ($20–30K?) without having to sell cereal boxes for a living (yes it shows an extreme level of motivation and yes it’s a nice story to tell at startup events, but had they had the choice, the AirBnB founders would most certainly have preferred to focus on their product at that time, and you should too).
You’ve found your life partner
You may not have heard that one before, and to be honest I couldn’t find any statistics to back my argument, but my guess is that you have at least 10 times better odds at building a successful startup if you’ve found your life partner before you start. The reason is bifold. First, Tinder-ing (or the like) is time consuming and potentially death-threatening for your venture. It drains your energy and focus away, and the drama that may be associated with your successive romances, exacerbated by the emotional roller-coster of entrepreneurship, can kill your business in a glimpse. Second, having a hidden co-founder that will stand by you no matter what puts you in a much more stable emotional state and financial situation than if you were single, out until dawn every Saturday night in the hope of getting lucky. On the upside, if your partner can bear with your mood swings (not to say chronic depressions), you can be sure he/she is the right person to marry.
If you’ve passed each of these 3 milestones, stop hesitating, right now is the best moment in your life to start your first venture. But hurry! That window won’t stay open for long, there’s another milestone that is probably around the corner that will most likely jeopardise your entrepreneurial chances.
You’ve had a first child
As strong as your inner drive for entrepreneurship might be, your priorities will shift when your first child will be born. From that moment onwards, everything else will be secondary, which is both normal and expected. If you could foresee that it would be difficult to successfully build a family at the same time than a great corporate career, entrepreneurship will likely make it next to impossible, and your venture will always be the thing you will compromise over the other, which again, is normal and expected. So what are you waiting for, go build your first company already!
I write without filter about the joy and the pain of entrepreneurship, based on the lessons learned building my first venture, ohmygeorge! . This is not a story of an overnight success startup making the world a better place, so I suppose you don’t have to believe anything I say or follow any advice I give, but you may want to avoid the mistakes I make. Follow my journey on Medium.
So you’ve always had in mind to build your own startup (or company). You’ve read a lot or maybe you have close friends who have been down this path before so you know the sacrifices that come with entrepreneurship and you have realistic expectations about the potential upsides. You’re “just” wondering when the hell is the right time for you to start.
While “now” is definitely better than “never”, there’s one particular moment in life that makes things much easier than any other. That’s the moment I chose to start ohmygeorge! , my first venture, a CandyCrush-style trading platform (yes, you read that right, and if you’re curious you can find out about the rational behind this weird idea in my previous post), because transitioning to entrepreneurship was then as smooth as it could ever be (that is only to say less difficult than at any other point of time in my life). It was right when I turned 30. Here are a few signs that you may want to consider to identify your own sweet spot.
You’ve realised that your opportunity cost is low
Let’s face it, even if you’re a corporate hot shot - that is if you’ve been to an Ivy League University (or whatever the equivalent might be in your country) and have been formally acknowledged from day 1 as a High Potential by your boss’ big boss - chances are around 30 you’re not giving up on a VP position at a Fortune 500 company if you choose to go off the fast track you’ve been told you’re on. And even better, you can probably allow yourself to wander for a couple of years and do a decent come back should you find out along the way that after all corporate life was a better fit for you. So stop thinking you’re trading your promising corporate career for a shot at entrepreneurship, because it simply isn’t true. If you agree with this statement, congratulations, you’ve reached this first milestone. And by the way, your odds of building a sustainable company are greater than reaching C-level at your big Corp. Just saying.
You’ve accumulated some savings
Sure, your opportunity cost is even lower when you’re just out of university. But thinking that you can start your own venture with $0 is very, very optimistic. Cash is king, and even though starting a company has never been cheaper, the more cash you have the longer you’ll survive, therefore the more iterations you’ll be able to make and consequently the more chances you’ll have at finding that f***ing product/market fit. So if like a good millennial you spent in your mid-twenties whatever you were making on travels and beers (not judging), it’s probably only by the time you turn 30 that you’ll have accumulated enough savings to bootstrap for a year ($20–30K?) without having to sell cereal boxes for a living (yes it shows an extreme level of motivation and yes it’s a nice story to tell at startup events, but had they had the choice, the AirBnB founders would most certainly have preferred to focus on their product at that time, and you should too).
You’ve found your life partner
You may not have heard that one before, and to be honest I couldn’t find any statistics to back my argument, but my guess is that you have at least 10 times better odds at building a successful startup if you’ve found your life partner before you start. The reason is bifold. First, Tinder-ing (or the like) is time consuming and potentially death-threatening for your venture. It drains your energy and focus away, and the drama that may be associated with your successive romances, exacerbated by the emotional roller-coster of entrepreneurship, can kill your business in a glimpse. Second, having a hidden co-founder that will stand by you no matter what puts you in a much more stable emotional state and financial situation than if you were single, out until dawn every Saturday night in the hope of getting lucky. On the upside, if your partner can bear with your mood swings (not to say chronic depressions), you can be sure he/she is the right person to marry.
If you’ve passed each of these 3 milestones, stop hesitating, right now is the best moment in your life to start your first venture. But hurry! That window won’t stay open for long, there’s another milestone that is probably around the corner that will most likely jeopardise your entrepreneurial chances.
You’ve had a first child
As strong as your inner drive for entrepreneurship might be, your priorities will shift when your first child will be born. From that moment onwards, everything else will be secondary, which is both normal and expected. If you could foresee that it would be difficult to successfully build a family at the same time than a great corporate career, entrepreneurship will likely make it next to impossible, and your venture will always be the thing you will compromise over the other, which again, is normal and expected. So what are you waiting for, go build your first company already!
I write without filter about the joy and the pain of entrepreneurship, based on the lessons learned building my first venture, ohmygeorge! . This is not a story of an overnight success startup making the world a better place, so I suppose you don’t have to believe anything I say or follow any advice I give, but you may want to avoid the mistakes I make. Follow my journey on Medium.