Startups Are Overrated

Not everything we work on is a startup, nor should it be.

Startups are hot in 2015 and have been for years — no secret there. Founders are heroes and entrepreneurship is sexy. I’d imagine this is the reason I keep hearing about the “startups” people are working on, thinking about working on, or possibly might should be working on. The scariest thing about all the startup hype is how many people I see starting business with no idea why they've actually started a business.

One of the most frequent questions I field is “When should people do a startup?” It’s a great question with a quite a few answers. Startups exist for a growing amount of reasons and co-founders have different visions and end goals when they kick off new ventures. When this question pops up, I flip it and pose it to my audiences with an inevitable mix of the following responses:

Why should we do a startup?

1) To be our own boss.

2) To create the perfect, “cool” work culture.

3) To wear whatever we want to the office.

4) To make mad guap. (Yes, this is actually a frequent answer.)

5) To change the world.

The list goes on, but none of these are wrong to be honest. They’re all reasons to do a startup and all of these outcomes are possible.

Yet, for every crowd of people I see who want to do a startup, I’ll show you the vast majority of people who won’t (and most likely never will) take the first step toward said venture. This isn't surprising by any means, which is why my follow up to “Why should we do a startup?” is always this:

Why DON’T we actually do a startup?

1) There’s no time.

2) The capital just isn't there right now.

3) I hear most startups fail.

4) I don’t have the skills to build what I want to build.

Let me be clear — I love entrepreneurship and am a pretty big proponent of starting businesses, but I fully understand the reservations of most people when it comes to launching a venture. What I tell people at this point is a truth that I've come to from various ventures of my own and advising others on theirs…

Reality: Startups Suck

There, I said it. I teach entrepreneurship at a university and run a creative dev shop that helps people launch ventures. Believe me when I say I’m not doing myself any favors by saying this out loud, let alone publishing it.

Even so, it’s the truth. Startups are a tough, ball-crushing, long night working, no sleep getting, not sure you’re sane existence. If you talk to any co-founder, they’ll probably tell you that’s only the half of it. The awesome startup office with a ping pong table, keg, and Nerf gun wars is the exception not the rule. Free lunches every day because you’re funded and have no worries isn't as common as we pretend. You start work at 6am and then you don’t go home for two days. You eat a banana and Top Ramen for lunch and dinner because those are the only two things in the fridge, you haven’t gone shopping in 3 weeks, and you’re not sure if that check to your lawyer is going to clear so you’re have to wait at least another week to shop anyway. For those with savings and a spouse, it’s not much better from what I hear. You might be “comfortable” to start, but every month you burn into your savings to make your “thing” work is another month closer to not having savings if your “thing” doesn't work.

The Zuckerbergs, and Cubans, and Bezoses of the world are anomalies, yet the majority of people I talk to expect equal success when they’re envisioning their startup. I’d be remiss if I didn't say otherwise.

Why should you really do a startup?

So…you should do a startup for approximately one reason in my opinion: you think you can change the world. (I mention this in another article, but I’ll give you the TL:DR below.)

Changing the world sounds lofty, but that’s the mentality that you have to have to be an entrepreneur. Frankly, it’s too hard otherwise. With that, I don’t necessarily mean “cure cancer” change the world. I mean “my website helps people do the work that they love” or “that guy felt more confident in the shirt I made and he just nailed his job interview” change the world. You have to have the mentality that what you do, whatever it is, is going to put someone in a better place because you did it THAT well.

So if you’re not quite at a change the world mentality, what should you be doing?

Introducing, the Side Project

The Side Project is the perfect alternative to starting a business. Keep your day job, build something awesome in your down time, figure out the next move. All the “fun” of a startup with less pain in your ass. It’s beautiful.

Full disclosure: you may not enjoy the upside of a rocket ship startup, but that’s the price you pay. Lower risk, lower return. The Side Project does have a ton of it’s very own upside, however.

1. Legitimacy — Entrepreneurship academics generally agree that legitimacy (or lack thereof) is a huge hurdle in securing funding for a venture and/or buy-in from stakeholders. The Side Project is a great way to point to a thing you built as an example of work you can do, whether for a potential client, boss, or investor down the road. Think of it a living, breathing piece in your portfolio and get to work. Worst case scenario, you get some cool press or even some side cash while you build your entrepreneurial resume.
2. Skills — Coffitivity started as a way for Justin to learn how to code, Nicole to learn more web design, and for Matt to hone his iOS development. The skills picked up while actually DOING something versus studying and planning are invaluable. For instance, my communication skills have improved an insane amount over the past two years of Coffitivity simply because I've been tweeting/Facebooking fans, emailing support, and writing or Skyping interviews with media outlets. On top of that, we figured out very quickly what we didn't know and we were forced to track down information on how to solve our problems. Resources like Lynda, Code Academy, and Skillshare have become our best friends. The journey has been wild, but I can point out a handful of tangible things I've learned in the process. You can’t fake that experience.
3. Low Pressure Passion Testing — Back to thinking about why we should or shouldn't dive into a startup. A big driver of being able to “change the world” is being excited about what you’re working on. What better way to gauge excitement than trying out a low-commitment version of a potential startup? Taking on a side project is like test driving a car before you buy it. What I’ve found is that if a project is the project, I end up thinking about it all the time. It becomes consuming and almost impossible to stop turning wheels over throughout the day. If this is the case, you might start thinking about what your project looks like as a business. If that’s not the case, it’s OK! You still get the other benefits of a Side Project and you've saved time, money, and a fair share of headaches.
4. Validating an Idea — This last one is a tiny different from testing your passion. Think of your Side Project as the MVP of whatever you might want to work on down the road. It’s a great low cost, low time commitment way to test an idea because frankly, even if you’re 100% passionate about your idea, it may not have the trimmings of a good business. As my good buddy Tommy says, shipping an MVP is the best way to Not Waste Your Life and I completely agree. This means figuring out the simplest form of your idea and seeing if people want it. If you don’t have a market willing to buy your product, you don’t have a business. Until your MVP has been validated, your potential startup is still a Side Project. Maybe it turns into something bigger down the road, maybe it continues to be a valuable side project and nothing more. Both are fine, just understand that there’s a difference.

The reality is, startups are cool, but they’re not always the answer to the problem we’re trying to solve. It’s about time we stop talking about starting new businesses until we know a business is really what we want to do. Instead, let’s get head down working on little projects that we enjoy and can learn something from. If and when we realize our Side Project should be something more, let’s make it so, but not a second before. Startups are overrated and if you’re in one soley for the sake of being in one, your time and resources are probably better spent elsewhere.

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