A crash course in the life of a Silicon Valley startup founder
Ever wondered what the life a startup founder in Silicon Valley felt like? Here is a short illustration of a founder’s life cycle in The Bay.
1.Found a startup. Create a cool website finishing in ‘.io’. Find a startup name that fits with ‘.io’. Brand your startup. Create t-shirts with your startups logo. Wear said t-shirt under your hoodie. Make your co-founders and interns wear said t-shirt. Give away said t-shirt to investors with your pitch-deck. Make everyone wear said t-shirt at Disrupt. Wash for SXSW. Berate friends for not wearing your branded t-shirt. Wash, rinse, repeat. Change hoodie.
2. You’ve made it. You now have a cool open-plan office with beanbags. You have vested-shares. You’ve given your staff shares. You can’t pay them. Instead you give them perks. Free Cold Brew Coffee. You’re staff is hungry. You’re starting to make money. You upgrade to a free-for-all quinoa salad bar. You’re feeling generous, you add kale, and serve clients said Cold Brew Coffee in a mason Jar. Clients help you pay for a pop-up food-truck. Your staff is happy and well fed and boasts said job perks with rival startup employees.
3. Founder life is stressful. You’re drinking too much coffee out of mason jars. You need to unwind from investors breathing down your hoodied-back. Start yoga. Get up at 5am to meditate. Get staff yoga classes as perks. Investors ask about sales projections. Pretend you’re meditating. Meditation is not working. Founder-friend invites you to Burning Man. Regret going to Burning Man. Start yoga and repeat until Coachella.
4. You’re on your way up. In your head, you feel like Elon Musk. Right, time to go buy a Tesla. Tesla doesn’t recharge properly. What would Elon Musk do? Take bus to work dangling keys of said Tesla. Become world expert on Space X. Bus doesn’t run your hours. Call Uber. Ask driver why he doesn’t own a Tesla. Smugly mention Tesla.
5. That’s it. You’ve exited and proudly wear your founder badge. You’ve cashed in your vested-shares. You’re somebody in Silicon Valley. You decide you will become an angel investor. You will help other starving startup founders. You will spread your knowledge of startupland. You are practically a philanthropist. You take immeasurable pleasure in watching new founders squirm. You receive a t-shirt during a pitch-deck. You become a mentor. You give wise mentor-like advice. You become a panelist at Disrupt. You make your first investment. You give wise mentor-like advice on Quora. Next step, Y Combinator. You give wise mentor-like advice to Techstar startups. Startup fails. You lose $250,000.
6. Being a role model is hard work. You need a holiday. No wait, a sabbatical. You tell everyone you’re taking a sabbatical to work on a disruptive idea. You plan how you will found a new startup during your sabbatical. You spend your sabbatical watching Netflix. You consider investing in your local Chinese take-away. You consider how to create the next ‘Uber for Chinese takeaways’. You go back to watching Netflix.
7. Silicon Valley has burnt you out. Your investments have burnt your hoodie pockets. You’ve bought a suit. There’s a cooler angel on this year’s panel. You’ve got a severe-bout of startupitis. You decide to quit. You quit. You tell other’s you’ve quit to work with startups. You travel. You’re not working with startups. You post selfies of your yoga. You meditate. You think about said startups. You wear said startup t-shirt while doing yoga.
8. You start a blog on @medium. You give life-advice. You give-mentor-like advice. You get a column in Business Insider. You write said column about Silicon Valley. You get in a a Twitter spat with Vivek Wadhwa. You consider investing in the next ‘Twitter for Instagrammers’. You change your LinkedIn to “Silicon Evangelist, Investor & Startup Guru”.
Tatjana is an entrepreneurship & innovation researcher, author, practitioner and columnist. Follow Tatjana de Kerros and sign up to her blog “The Startup Illusion”. And if you want more of this, recommend!
