10 reasons you should start a startup before turning 25
After two months in my new life as an entrepreneur, having turned my back to the corporate world, all I can say is that it’s been so much fun – & hard work, that I believe, & I know that I made the right decision. Let alone that I strongly advocate all my mates to forget about six figure salaries costing them their souls and go it alone with the best people they’ve ever worked with, like I did with a team of guys a thousand times more talented than I am, to try and change the world. Becoming an entrepreneur when you’re still very young is, I think, the best way to become successful and to make your stakeholders (employees, clients, suppliers, investors) happy.
I’m turning 25 today, a good enough window of opportunity to provide you with 10 good enough reasons you should start a startup before turning 25. There you go. Before turning 25..
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You have no fancy habits: I’ve never, or hardly, ever been spoiled by perks like a corporate car, four-star hotels on business trips, & unlimited long distance phone calls. My lifestyle is still the one of the student I used to be until June 07: in many ways very inexpensive. And I don’t mind spending 100 hours working-sleeping-living in a room with a bunch of brilliant minds eating pizzas. If you’ve recognized yourself in this pattern, then this is the first reason you should consider starting a company.
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It is easier to raise business angel money: as a young entrepreneur, especially in Europe, raising VC money can prove extremely time-consuming and challenging. The venture capital crowd is an elitist herd that needs to show its limited partners (institutional investors providing them with the funds later invested in startups) a serious track record for the entrepreneurs they’ve bet on, just in case things turn wrong with their investees. Turning to business angels, whose decisions rely on a simpler governance since they invest their own money, is therefore the most viable option on the condition that you treat business angels like a VC – that is to say like a tough-minded, selective investor. By & large, there are two kinds of business angels: successful entrepreneurs, & successful executives who never found the time or will to start their own company. I regard being young when trying to raise angel money as a huge asset: angels want to have an impact, and the chance they’ll make the difference with a younger, more flexible mind is larger than with a seasoned former large-corp executive. Business angel are more likely to patronage youngsters than grey hairs.
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You most of the time have no family to take care of: before turning 25, you should still have at least a couple years to go before having babies and all that jazz. So, from a personal risk standpoint, taking professional risks is not risky. On top of this, you don’t have too tight a deadline to start getting a decent salary. Last, at the end of the day, hunger seriously makes you bootstrap your butt off.
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You face less social pressure: few of your former classmates but the entrepreneurs already make millions so you don’t feel like the tramp in the room at alumni reunions & events; today, you all eat pasta & rice, but when the time comes some of them will be reasonably wealthy (most probably those working in investment banking, market & risk finance & real estate), you’ll be the one with two exits on the tally.
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You haven’t been corrupted by ill corporate habits taken from procedural organization: politics, unethical struggles for promotion, pyramidal hierarchies, etc. I don’t know anything (almost; for instance in my last corporate experience, I was told ‘white’ on the one day, and ‘black’ on the other: it’s okay except when it’s about your career. So I started wondering whether people really cared, and I want no one except myself to take care about my career anymore) about it and feel good about being certain not to reproduce such wrong behavioral patterns in my startup.
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Ignorance is bliss…No fear, can-do attitude. That’s you. Same for us: we’re running for the next big thing: high risk, high return. We’re not there to play pussies & since the opportunity is huge, the chance that we have an impact on the world is significant. We deeply want to make of the world a better place. We’re embedding meaning in our quest. That may sound naive, but as Mahatma Gandhi once said: “Almost everything you do will seem insignificant, but it is important that you do it”.
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You have no regret for a job as an apparatchik in a large corp, since you don’t know how comfortable it can be & how hard it can be to find the guts to say “good bye” to.
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You have plenty of time to do it again: being an entrepreneur isn’t a job. It is a state of mind. Once you become an entrepreneur, you’re an entrepreneur for an entire lifetime. I can picture so many first time entrepreneurs who, in their fifties or even forties, know they’ll have time to build only one success story on their own – if not zero. This is a very frustrating situation because those who succeed most, financially speaking, are repeat entrepreneurs. Because repeat entrepreneurs learn not to repeat their mistakes and hence do things everyday better. As far as I’m concerned, I see starting young as a huge asset because I’ll have time to build a number of companies (say 5) over time.
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Your cost of failure is zero, not to say negative; say you fail and don’t want to do it again (which is unlikely) then you’re off to the job market at a premium because everybody’s looking for entrepreneur-minded people. An experience, be it a failure or a success, as an entrepreneur is worth every MBA-trained strategy consultants altogether. Your cost of failure may, depending on your cost of opportunity & the necessarily small amount of money you invested in your own venture, actually even be negative: failed entrepreneurs are a scarce resource on the job market. Those with large corp experiences are largely commiditized against those with startup ones.
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You will get rich faster than if you had worn dark suits because you’re working and hence creating value for yourself rather than for someone else.
Convincing enough?
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Excellent post…. And, well, I can’t believe you didn’t mention that you were creating a business back in December… I hope I’ll know a little more soon, and, well, welcome to the “Entrepreneur” side!
I agree, excellent post, and a happy birthday!
10 times true.
I’ll print this on my business card, on my business plan and on the door of the company…
That’s FABULOUS
Happy Birthday!
Not to be contradictory, but it really isn’t all that hard to give up the comp car and all that jazz. I had it. I could care less about it for the fact my boss was an [insert expletive] who didn’t care about ethics or social responsibility, much less his employees – and I was the right-hand-gal of the CEO for quite a few companies.
Blech. Nevermind that.
Yoyeux anniversaire.
Totally agree to the all list.
the most important for me are :
9 -> Started u-lik when i was 25 mainly because i did it once before that deadline.
After 1.5 years back in finance and i was feeling the pressure of 7 and 4 growing.
Let’s go guys ;-D
You forgot that VCs like young people because young people tend to be more overconfident than people that have seen failure.
And that overconfidence allows VCs to actually control them better (this goes hand in hand that a you entrepreneur has less experience doing negotiations)
This leaves me an hour and 10 minutes to make my start-up.
A good idea anyone ?
This is a good article, but at the same time, spending some time in corporate life can also help motivate someone to really work hard as an entrepreneur and make it on his or her own. It ultimately depends upon the type of individual, and whether he or she needs to experience the limitations of corporate life first before desiring success in a entrepreneurial venture. Regards.
Great post. Do it when your 25, 30, 35 and 45. It gets easier every time.
[...] 10 reasons to start a company before you’re 25 – Do it! [...]
Happy Birthday Jérémy!
You already have your gift, and growing!
Kisses and cheers with a coffee, (before my fancy habit number 1 of metro riding)
Happy Birthday Jeremy and well done. You’re right : entrepreneur is a state of mind. And having participated with you to the Tech It easy thing for the last few months I can tell you I have been impressed with the leadership qualities you’ve shown so far.
This post reminds me of a Paul Graham essay in which he reminded us that the average age of Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google founder at the time they started was 24. Some of the reasons you mention here can also be found in that other essay from Paul : Why to not not start a startup.
All the best to you, Jeremy : you’re in the right frame of mind and I’m sure you’ll end up succeeding, with this startup or another one.
number 1 and 10 are my big reasons. I’m 25 so I better hurry up and leap.
Well, I just want to say that even though I’m happy that Jeremy does what he does before 25, I don’t think that this is a general rule. Starting a business can be very rewarding, while being risky and difficult, but it’s more a question of the right match between person and opportunity, then it is between age and opportunity. I hope all of you, who are “just an hour or year too late,” bear that in mind
Très bon post
“And I don’t mind spending 100 hours working-sleeping-living in a room with a bunch of brilliant minds eating pizzas. If you’ve recognized yourself in this pattern, then this is the first reason you should consider starting a company.”
Même si je sais me contenter de peux et qu’avec un bon laptop et de la passion, l’envie de coder est toujours la.
La preuve : je viens de racheter un nouveau laptop à titre peso juste pour apprendre à coder en .net
Mais quant même, la quarantaine approchant je deviens fainéant. Moin envie de coder ceetains “machins” je préfère parfois jsute faire l’architecture et suivre le développement confié à mon équipe.
Je suis devenu un bourgeois !!!! ;=)
[...] Hey Young Entrepreneurs – this is a fantastic little feature over at TechItEasy.org – 10 reasons to start your own business before age 25 [...]
Hello,
Interesting article.
We building a free Entrepreneurs Investors community. Our idea is to bring to entrepreneurs advice that will help them in the growth process. It ll be great if you can join us!
I leave you the decision to publish the address of the website (thestreetmarket.com).
Thanks and good work!
Hi…Spot on..I agree with all the points..Good Luck.
Am presenting to a group of uni students on Saturday about starting up – will use these to give them a really clear picture of why now!
Interesting thoughts.
thats good
http://www.teachingutomakemoney.com
Hi ,
Nice to read and not difficult to follow.
All those young people who are about to enter the real life after finishing their academics and prior to start a new beginning have to read this and try to follow.
K L N Reddy
Welcome to the world of entrepreneurship! The life blood of the worlds economy as it turns out… Entrepreneurs are the only means of a stable lifelong income, that cannot be touched by any government currency crisis. As An Entrepreneurial Trait…You will always find a way to make money.
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