Startups / Tech Q&A
Thinking about setting up or working for a startup or in tech, but not sure if that’s for you? Read on…
Questions answered by Pras
What is a startup?
To me a ‘startup’ is just a new term for an old thing - one or more entrepreneurs setting up either a for profit or non profit enterprise, often ‘bootstrapping’ as in using little money or no money to set up their venture. And even though the word ‘startup’ seems pretty recent, the term was actually used as far back as the 1550s.
Why are people now so interested in startups?
For a long time, world-beating, successful startups were mostly found in the USA in two waves of industrialisation - by people like Edison, Ford and Rockefeller in the 2nd Industrial Revolution and then by people like Gates and Jobs in the 3rd Industrial Revolution which was spearheaded by modern computing and microprocessors.
Now definitions vary but many people say we are in the midst of a 4th Industrial Revolution spearheaded by advances in AI such as Machine Learning - and the rest of the world is finally getting in on the act. Silicon Valley and the Bay Area is still the number one place for tech in the world, but China is now number one for hardware and the UK and London in particular is the number one for Fintech or Financial Technology. But it’s not just Fintech - Deepmind, one of the most advanced AI companies in the world spun out of UCL and is still based in London.
So startups are always to do with tech?
No, not at all - there are startups in all sorts of sectors ranging from dog food through to fashion through to popcorn! There are also more and more social enterprises now as well, which are businesses that have social aims instead of just focussing on profit. These days though you will need some sort of tech to help a startup succeed, be it a website or an app, and so even if you have a popcorn startup you will probably learn some things about tech particularly on the marketing and distribution side.
How do I know if startup life is for me?
Well, it’s a hard question to answer, but does the thought of being your own boss, creating something new and being at the cutting edge excite you? Does it excite you more than the fear of failing? If so startup life might indeed be for you.
Sure, but what are the downsides?
Startup life is incredibly hard, especially if you are a founder. It can often be super stressful, particularly if you are running low on cash and close to going out of business. It can take a huge toll on your mental health and social life, and your friends won’t understand what it is that you really do. It is also a sliding scale though - if you are employee number 100 at a fast growing and successful startup, there is a lot less risk than starting out on your own, and your job will be more like a traditional office job. Even there though you won’t have the certainty that you will have at a big corporate - WeWork is a famous example of a startup that was supported to be worth billions and is now close to collapse.
Should I go into a startup straight out of uni?
Even though I’m in the startup world myself, the sensible advice would be to not go straight into a startup out of uni. Of course many startup founders like Gates, Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg even dropped out of uni to launch hugely successful startups. But they are the exception, not the rule.
The advantage that a few years in a corporate job gives you is the training and skills that come with working at a large company, as well as giving your CV a recognisable brand name that you might not get at a startup. It might also give you sector based knowledge that makes you more likely to succeed in a startup - for example, if you are an engineer who goes into engineering, chances are that after a few years you will notice a gap in the market that your average person couldn’t.
That is the sensible advice, but as I said, there are people who go straight into startups from uni and become very successful - those people though also took on more risk.
What qualifications do I need?
In theory, you need nothing! Jack Ma - the founder of Alibaba and the richest man in China - famously has never written a line of code or completed a single sale. He was also rejected by Harvard ten times and even rejected for a job at KFC when they opened a restaurant in his hometown. He was however, like so many entrepreneurs, a visionary - in 1999 he invited 18 of his friends to his apartment to convince them to join him in building Alibaba, and most of them thought he was crazy - here’s a video of when he made that legendary pitch.
Having said that, for every visionary entrepreneur who’s succeeded, there are hundreds of others that have failed. And there are certain qualifications that are more helpful than others for startups. The most obvious of course are any degrees relating to computing, as coders are always in high demand. Following that, degrees in business, marketing or strategy are also helpful. But a lot of it, like many other professions, is learning on the job. And the good and bad thing in startups is that there is no accredited qualification like there is in say Law.
How can I find out more while I’m at uni?
There are a few ways you can get involved while studying. You can follow startup publications like TechCrunch or influential blogs like Stratechery on Twitter to keep in touch with what’s going on in startup land. You could try to get an internship or some work experience in a startup during your summer holidays. You could learn more about coding and tech (if it’s not a part of your degree) through free online courses on platforms like Coursera. There are also accelerators and launchpads like Entrepreneur First that you could apply to for when you graduate as these give you a few months of exposure to that world which also look good on your CV.