As a junior developer trying to create a profitable startup - the answer is you typically need some capital to pay living expenses before your company takes off. This can be 6 months to a year (take minimum expenses in a medium cost of living city, maybe 20k for 12 months). If you're starting from a savings account of $2,000 after college you're going to need a get a junior job and save that $18,000. The other option is to seek funding, which is a great idea but not garunteed when you need a solid plan to pay rent in 2 months.

You're right - ideally if you can create a profitable startup there's no need to knock down doors for a job. That's the dream I'm chasing and I'm sure a lot of others are too.

> You're right - ideally if you can create a profitable startup there's no need to knock down doors for a job.

Exactly with both you and the parent. This path saves you from spending your valuable time, skills and energy on leetcode/hackerrank puzzles just for a job and there's no need to do this or knock down doors for one if your startup is profitable.

I would rather create a startup with a solid business-model which requires limited funding that later pays itself (I know it is easier said than done) than to subject myself to frivolous whiteboard programming tasks that are never used in practice. But note that raising too much capital, trades in more control to VCs to decide the fate of your startup.

I find it worth the risk to carry on with working on a startup to bypass the interview games. So please keep going with your startup plans.

This is really comforting to hear. I've actually started and operated two unrelated businesses I used to fund my college expenses so I'm relatively well versed in the process of finding a problem / niche and developing around it.

To be frank, burning time doing leetcode makes me hate coding because I don't find it interesting or a decent use of time (outside of building up a stupid toy skill to pass interviews).