Should I get a job before I start my business?
- posted by: buymybook on 2015-02-05
- tagged:
growth, networking, business-capital
- score: 1
To make a long story short, I’m in a PhD program that I’m not very happy with. I’ve been in school for too long, I’m restless, and I’ve decided that publishing inane papers in today’s “publish or perish” academic climate is not the way for me to make an impact on the world. I’ve given up my romantic notions of the “life of the mind.”
Rather than posting another rant on Academia SE, I thought I’d start with my goal (a successful startup), and go from there.
Here’s the situation
- I’m 30 and I’ve spent nearly my entire life in school. I’m tired of academia.
- I have a lot of ideas for products, a solid technical education background (engineering undergrad and master’s degrees), and a good amount of experience with software development.
- I really don’t want to spend my life working to make someone else rich. I’ve already worked too hard and I’m willing to take the risks involved in working for myself.
- I’ve already built a successful local business in the two years that I’ve been in this town.
But…
- I don’t have a huge amount of savings that I could live off of for a while.
- As uninterested as I’ve become, my PhD program is still a job. They pay me a livable stipend, and I get health care and access to University resources.
- My local business, while successful, is more of a side income. I doubt I could live off of it.
- While I have the ideas and the technical skills, I don’t have the connections. I need people to bounce ideas around with, specifically people who are “in the loop” when it comes to the consumer market landscape. I get feedback on my ideas like “oh that sounds cool”, or “oh that’s dumb”. I need something more before I throw my energy into building a product/website/whatever.
#So, my question is…
- Should I get a job? Maybe working for a successful startup will help me make the connections I need, or at least learn more about the “unsolved problems” in a particular domain. I might also be able to save enough money to support myself while I explore some of my ideas.
- Should I try to get a job in Silicon Valley? I’m in the Midwest, at the moment. Maybe if I move closer to where the action is, I’ll meet more people. Then again, it’s expensive to live there…
- Or, should I try to expand my side business into a full-time thing? It’s working well so far, but I’m not confident that it’s scalable.
- Freelance/consult? Between that and my business, I might be able to scrape by. But it probably won’t leave me a whole lot of time to work on my own projects.
Dang. First world problems, right?
Answer 3361
To me the answer seems simple. Don’t quit your Ph.d. Finish it even if it seems dull at the moment. Here are the reasons for my answer:
- From what you write, you don’t have the idea for a startup at the moment, but you wish to, some day, to start your own business. If you still don’t have a clear idea of what that should be, then wait.
- If I understand your situation the right way, then you are not finished with your Ph.d. program. I guess the maximum time you have left would be something like three years? If you can’t stand that through, you will probably not walk the long mile with a business anyway. Even though it is exciting starting a business, it’s also hard and devastating at times. There will often be thousands of reasons to quit, not enough funds, competing business copying your ideas, difficulties finding the right employees etc.. From personal experience, one of the most valuable lessons I’ve learned, is doing one thing at the time and following through.
- Being at a university is a huge resource of network and brainpower. You got acces to all the newest research within any area, most of which you can access from being in a ph.d. program. You are closely linked to probably thousands of students that finish their studies and will be looking for jobs. Finding talent is one of the hardest things and you are surrounded by it, why would you look for it somewhere else? If you do a little work, you can probably get some bachelor or candidate students to try out some of your ideas.
- If you think your side-business isn’t scalable, then it probably isn’t! If you want to find out, then describe it and post it here and see what people think.
To start your own startup is hard and dedicated work. You need to be able to turn things in to your advantage, to me, being in a Ph.d. program is a lot of advantage.
This is my personal opinion. It’s not the only answer to your question, there are many answers. Finish what you started, unless you got something so compelling, that nothing else matters.
All content is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.