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Do You Like Working at a Startup or Just the Idea of Working at a Startup?


Over the past few years I have started to see an unnerving trend. Being an entrepreneur or working at a startup is now the “cool thing to do.” Before startups, working at a Hedge Fund was the “it” job. And by no means am I an expert in startups (yet) but my experience over the last few years has led me to observe and learn quite a bit.

During recent meetings, interviews and overall banter at bars with some of the well knowns in the startup community, this trend or obsession with startups has begun to show its face. I hope that this observation is only a small one and one that will not turn into (dare I say it) a bubble, or the bursting of a bubble for that matter.

So what is it like to work at an early stage startup?

Well, from the two years of experience that I have bootstrapping with BostInno, it is the hardest thing I have ever done in my entire life. Being an entrepreneur does not mean “working your own hours” or “being your own boss” as my esteemed professors at Babson College once taught me. It is a disease. You will give up everything for almost nothing at first. You will work from sunrise to sunset pissing off friends and family. And girlfriends/boyfriends, well they better be patient.

So why do it?

Because you are wired to make a difference. Sitting in a cubicle at a couple hundred or couple thousand person company just doesn’t do it for you. You need to be a part of something bigger than yourself. Determination, risk taking and passion are what you live by. You’d rather beg for forgiveness than ask for permission.

When your friends are all leaving the office at 5pm sharp you are just starting to get your third wind with an eye on at least 10 pm. And yet you’d never switch places, not even for a second. You are making decisions 10 times above your pay grade, you are attempting to start something from scratch and more importantly you have a team next to you that would take a bullet for you.

However, all of the sudden thanks to the movie The Social Network and the constant spotlight on internet entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Biz, Ev and Jack Dorsey, entrepreneurs are turning into the “cool kids on the block.” Last week, Business Insider wrote a piece on how the Twitter founders were partying all night in Vegas – ugh, they are not the Kardashian sisters. And consequently we are seeing an explosive amount of startups and entrepreneurs hitting coworking spaces and coffee shops all over the country.

“So what do you do?”

“I’m an entrepreneur bro, ya know working at a startup.”

“It’s a wild ride right? Let’s get some beers and talk about it.”

Now an influx of startups is certainly a good thing. It makes our job a lot easier but also a hell of a lot more frustrating. Every day we meet, talk, and listen to incredible founding stories from entrepreneurs. Stories that inspire me to push myself and that make me proud to then tell their story. But then all of the sudden this happens -  a few meetings with people who only want that title or association with a startup or being an entrepreneur. Their stories are half-assed and mostly end with…”I can’t wait until my first exit, raising money is going to be easy.” They only want to hang in the social scene and rub elbows with the folks that are actually building companies.

Newsflash: it is not about the exit, it is about the journey.  (But, don’t get me wrong, I’d love a huge exit under my belt.) That roller coaster of a lifetime full of ups and downs. Ups and downs so great you have to slap yourself and your team at the end of the day. Experiencing the incredible feelings of signing up real clients, generating actually revenues and building your team from scratch.

Experiences that no amount of money can buy. And yet some people are trying so hard for all of the wrong reasons.

via ifttt