WHY do you want to do a startup? Because it's fashionable?
Working at a startup is a good goal-- it's a fun work environment with a small tight-knit team.
STARTING a startup should be fueled by either a missionary zeal or a desire to gamble with 2+ years of your life to make a big pile of money (the average time to liquidity for VC backed startups is ~7 years). If you don't have one of those two, I can all but promise you'll burn out and/or get bored.
My advice: wait for an idea/market that you love to pop into your head that you can't ignore. In the meantime, work at a startup for a decent salary (don't sacrifice much salary for options-- it's a sucker's bet).
I want to start a startup because I:
- Want to do something I care about, slash it's meaningful to me. I'm tired of realizing other people's ideas.
- I want to make important decisions and have responsibility for their repercussions.
- I want to create a lifestyle that I'd enjoy more for myself, including not having to be tied to a specific location.
- I want to do something 'important' (a relative term, I know). I'm tired of wasting my time and talent on silly projects and bug fixes.
- Money is important but not everything. Ideally I'd be earning as much as I do now from my corporate gig but that's not even necessary.
I'm willing to gamble a couple of years of my life, but as I said, I'm not sure what to do/make. I agree that working for options is a sucker's bet, hence leaving a previous startup after working there a year.
Don't "do what you love"... "Love what you do". Aim at something rewarding in autonomy and mastery rather than holding out for a "cause" (if you want to maximize happiness). If you find a cause ("something important") anytime during this process, you can chase that too. But if you look at 100 people who really love what they do with their lives, I think it's surprising how few of those jobs fall into the "something important" bucket.
Working at a startup is a good goal-- it's a fun work environment with a small tight-knit team.
STARTING a startup should be fueled by either a missionary zeal or a desire to gamble with 2+ years of your life to make a big pile of money (the average time to liquidity for VC backed startups is ~7 years). If you don't have one of those two, I can all but promise you'll burn out and/or get bored.
My advice: wait for an idea/market that you love to pop into your head that you can't ignore. In the meantime, work at a startup for a decent salary (don't sacrifice much salary for options-- it's a sucker's bet).