The illusiveness of startups

^{"Stay Hungry Stay Foolish". Steve Jobs
The startup game is rigged! Noah benes.}

Over the past few years, we have seen an unprecedented growth in the start-up industry, if at all we can speak of start-ups as an economy sector with some common features.

Many well-known IT businessmen are talking about a new market bubble, others are making refutations, but this is not what is going to be said. Before our eyes are examples of Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and other stars who have become rich through the realization of their ideas and start-ups. Many of them preferred education this way, and young students sometimes feel that studying at an institute is a waste of time. In our country, the truth is that study gives you a chance to postpone military service, which for many is an additional plus, but this is a topic for a separate article. Let my attitude towards this be beyond the narrative brackets. I recently came across an article about this guy, and I want to offer you a translation of it.

In 2005, Steve Jobs gave his famous Stanford speech (Stanford Commencement Speech), in which he spoke of the futility of visiting universities.

Stanford speech of Steve Jobs with Russian translation

“There is no point in studying: I had no idea what I want to do in life, or how the college will help me to understand this.”
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Jobs's statement resonates with the behavior of today's youth; more and more students drop out of school trying to grab luck by the tail. In fact, in January 2014, the US National Center for the Analysis of Perennial Data in Education (CALDER) reported that more than 40 percent of full-time students do not receive a bachelor's degree for six years. Of course, not everyone leaves the university in pursuit of entrepreneurial success. However, many do.

I am an entrepreneur myself. I have my own startup and we are currently developing a mobile application that can compete with Craigslist and other similar sites. Last year I seriously considered giving up my studies in order to devote all my time to the development of our product. I was incredibly passionate, and equally confident in my enormous potential, able to forever change the process of buying and selling.

After some time, the entire startup team broke up and quarreled among themselves. Then thinking about what could have happened if I had quit my studies, I realized that I had been deceived.

Modern entrepreneurs no longer adhere to the traditional model of professional success; work for many years, and one day come to success. Instead, today's students are bribed by the Zuckerberg model. Young, aspiring entrepreneurs believe that with a brilliant idea and a small amount of luck, they too can become billionaires, potentially overnight.

Entrepreneurs choose the lie of likely success, not paying attention to the frightening statistics that contradict such thinking (80 percent of startups fail within 18 months). I also closed my eyes to this. It is difficult to avoid exaggerating their abilities. However, after a whole year of work was wasted in a matter of hours, I opened my eyes and saw the illusiveness of such an approach.

Most realist entrepreneurs know that each of them is far from the next Steve Jobs, but this does not prevent them from keeping their dreams firmly on their feet and achieving unprecedented success. Entrepreneurial students dream of being at the helm of their company with $ 2 million of initial investment and do not consider selling their startup for $ 100 thousand for an acceptable and reasonable deed.

As a result, pseudo-entrepreneurs abandon their studies and say goodbye to the “system”. Then hello startup industry. Of course, only as long as they are not thrown out with a mass of stuffed cones and impending student loan payments. Such an end does not even require statistical evidence. Most startups fail and everyone cannot instantly become the next billionaire.

Meanwhile, I have nothing against high hopes. I myself have restored my startup with a new team, and I also dream of a quick success. However, I am not going to drop out. If everything goes unimportant, then at least a degree in finance will guarantee a normal existence.

Of course, there are circumstances in which it is necessary to drop out of school in order to build a business, but these cases are quite few and rare. In addition, if you are a young student, I can guarantee that you do not know anything about starting a successful company.

It is easy to come up with an idea, the ability to embody it separates the failure from success stories. As a student, you have the opportunity to take advantage of a huge collective experience that can help in building your future business.

In short, if you are a beginner entrepreneur, then most likely you see everything in pink. I am acutely aware of the potential failure and the chances of success, and I ask you to heed the warning - with startups, the jokes are bad. Be on the safe side and do not drop out of school, but never stop working in the given direction of transforming your dream into reality and stay hungry, remain foolish .