Should you start a business?

Mark Suster, a leading US venture capitalist, recently published a signed article in TechCrunch, a well-known technology blogger, about his experience as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist Mark Schuster. Schuster founded its first company in 1999 and sold the london-based company to a French-listed company in 2005. The same year he founded a second company in Palo Alto and later sold it to Salesforce.com, who himself became vice president of Salesforce.com's product management. In 2007, Schuster entered GRP Partners as a general partner and began his career as a venture capitalist.

The following is a full text summary:

One of the most common questions entrepreneurs have asked me when they first meet me is: "Do you miss being an entrepreneur?" Do you want to go back to being an entrepreneur? “

The answer is yes. There is no denying the fact that the blood of the entrepreneur is flowing on me. I think it might be like a drug addiction (I'm not addicted to drugs). Entrepreneurship is really addictive. I know this is not going to sound very deep, but if you've been on a roller coaster in a start-up, you'll know what I mean.

But I am happy now and I enjoy the life of a venture capitalist. I'll talk about my different experiences as an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, that is to say, from both sides of the negotiating table.

As an entrepreneur

Someone in Quora letters asked me whether he should give up his comfortable job and become an entrepreneur. You might think I'd tell him, "Yes, of course it's a good idea." "But I often make the opposite suggestion," he said. I have to understand someone's personal experience and circumstances before I know if the entrepreneur is really right for that person.

This time, from the limited information, I think entrepreneurship is not a good idea for him. The following paragraph picks up his own reply:

“...... The life of an entrepreneur is very boring. Long working hours, away from family, low salary, high risk and pressure. The only time it looks attractive is when you read it on the TechCrunch. There is nothing bad about being an executive at a company. ”

It's not a lobbyist, that's what I think. I believe everyone has their own set of definitions for the characteristics of the entrepreneur. My definition is as follows:

* Not so important to status

* Don't follow the rules, dare to question authority

* able to cope with rather vague or uncertain situations

* be rejected, don't be discouraged, hear people say "no", still have confidence in their own ideas

* Very decisive. Even if the right probability is only 70%, a decision will be made to take action and correct the deviation.

* Have great confidence in your ideas and executive skills.

* Less sensitive to stress

* High Risk tolerance

* Not afraid of failure, nor ashamed of failure

* Be able to handle the following situations: long hours, business trips, lack of sleep, the time left for hobbies and other matters is reduced

To be honest, only a handful of people really enjoy the "pure" start-up environment: a few months without a paycheck, a few months without a "living" product, but a lot of tests, errors and rejections. Even many successful entrepreneurs have told me that next time they would rather buy a product than go back to a start-up to develop one.

When an idea has been validated and the risk is not that great, more people will like it, but I still don't think there are even many of them. And there are a lot of people, theoretically willing to start a business, but for them it is too expensive (home, property, student loans, etc.), the risk is too large.

Behind the success stories of Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and Groupon are the failures of most startups. In startups that are not sold, most employees often fail to get high returns. You can not read this ordinary, ordinary content on the Internet, only to see those high-profile disposal of the show (exit) or fiasco of the story. In tech journals, the news you read is mainly about financing, product launches, valuations and mergers, so readers don't really understand the chances of success.

I don't want to be negative. But when I talk to people who want to start a business, I begin by saying:

"You have to make sure that your business is tailored to your personality, that you are willing to take risks, and that, given your situation, you have to make sure you can afford that risk." You know, your startups are probably not going to get big financial rewards. If you know all this and you know what you're going to take, you still want to start a company, that's great! Entrepreneurship is the best experience I've had, but it's not for cowards. ”

The entrepreneurial process of great rejoicing and sadness

The introduction of the first version of the product is a very unusual experience. You've gone through the whole process: hiring people, raising cash, arguing the direction of development, setting the release date, and not releasing it, it feels as if you've screwed everything up, reorganized the team, rethought it, got back on track and moved fast. When the product is made, you watch people use it. Then there is the media coverage. You are not rejoicing is big sad, will not have a lot of insipid time.

Ah, TechCrunch on the sound of applause! Then you get a call and people want to join. You knew this would happen, and your vision was accurate. VCs want to meet you. Life is beautiful. But Facebook was born! Now someone says you are the best day has passed. Is that so? No, I think we can still do a very promising. We just have to change our focus. Work on weekends and work at night. The team has lost a little faith in you. Venture capitalists put off the meeting until a few weeks later. What the hell is going on here? Just one months ago, they were all emailing you!

There are now 6 months. How about we change the direction a little bit? It's not a total change, it's just a slightly different way to make money. What if we give up the programs that compete with Facebook and look for other areas? Republish. Oh, that's great, our number of users is also on the rise. That's great! I like this new direction. It's all very good.

But...... The cash is only enough to last two months. Well, we're not getting paid for a few months, and junior developers need a paycheck. I think we can take the rest of the money a little longer. Are we going to tell everyone about this? Can they accept that our cash can only handle 3, maybe 4 months? If we did, would they start contacting their friends and looking for their next job?

New product launch It was great, and there was a good article, and the meeting with the VCS went well. Talk about 9 months of business partners to express their love for our products! That's wonderful! 2 million dollars in venture capital, life can not be better. Your good friends want to join. The heavens! Google has acquired our major business partners. What the? Is Google unsure whether it intends to fulfill its contract with us? Are we going to have to convince everyone again now? But we have a deal!

You can't believe it. You drank 8 bottles of beer that night, even tequila. But the next morning, you regroup. We'll find a way. It's not easy to start a company. Now go back to work.

Anyone who has worked at a start-up will know that this description is not exaggerated, or even a "gentle version." Each of these events (and of course the names of specific companies) occurs in a company that I have worked for or worked closely with. Most of them happen in the last 12 months. And the events I experienced were much worse.

I remember just a few months before I was married, I didn't know if I was going to lose my job. It was 2002, the Internet in the winter, we are running out of cash. I remember an employee asking me if he would like to fill out a form to help him get a home loan, and we had only enough money for 3 months. What do you say to him in this situation? I remember there was a merger deal that went down at the last minute, and I was in a bar meeting and thinking about how to go bankrupt (luckily, we didn't get there later).

Venture capitalists are also very disruptive. One investor threatened me that I would not support my next round of financing unless I gave him more stock. He is unwilling to invest more money, but he has "the right to stop". I had only enough cash for 10 days, and he was going to take 2 weeks off. He told me, "too bad, I'll come back and deal with it." "I really told him to go and ask him to sue me." It's a real thing, someone can testify. I hung up the phone, and then he called and said, "Well, it's a deal." ”

So, I learned this lesson a long time ago: a lot of venture capitalists are waiting until you have no way to go before they say whether to invest again. This is the way they minimize risk and maximize leverage. I swear I'll never do that when I'm a venture capitalist. Many venture capitalists are unaware of how much this will hit the team's confidence. It's called a trifle shrewd and a big fool.

But nothing can bring you joy like a startup. When I got the first million dollar contract, when I appeared on the cover of Europe's most famous venture capital magazine (Tornado Insider), when I bought a competitor we had long wanted to beat, when I walked into the London Underground Office, There is nothing to replace the joy of seeing every workstation using our products.

But starting a business may put you at the bottom of the mood, and there's nothing worse than cutting 60 people in a day. I have done this, it is a test of the soul, because you have to let close friends to leave the company. When you've struggled for months, won a deal, and ended up in a row, you'll sleep uneasily for days. Sometimes your will will be tested when you show up on the stage, your product demo crashes, or you learn that your competitor has raised large sums of money, or that one of your top team members has resigned.

Once, 30 minutes before an important board meeting, my senior vice president of sales and marketing resigned.

And this is the startup that always put you in the extreme, joy, frustration and loneliness are all very strong. This is the start-up roller coaster I miss.