Startup vs. Lifestyle Business (A Short Comparison from a Guy Who's Done Both)

Re:Startup vs. Lifestyle Business (A Short Comparison from a... by cstross on Saturday May 21, 2011 @08:45AM (#2570774)

I've done the startup thing (I was first programmer hire at Datacash in 1997; reverse takeover onto AIM in 2000, after which I left: acquired by Mastercard last year). And I've done the lifestyle thing -- self-employed full time for the past decade, doing very nicely but in a niche where it's almost impossible to scale up beyond sole trader.

If I'd stuck in the startup mode, I'd be dead.

See, startups are very demanding. And if you don't have great health, or a tendency towards stress-related illnesses, that's a very bad situation to be in. I've seen a friend die of it (hypertension plus 90 hour work weeks are a bad combination) and I was on course for it myself before I got out.

It doesn't matter if the startup is going to make you rich at the IPO if it kills you first. And it won't do the startup any good if one of the founder dies in harness, either.

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Re:Startup vs. Lifestyle Business (A Short Comparison from a... by davidw on Saturday May 21, 2011 @09:33AM (#2570838)

> doing very nicely but in a niche where it's almost impossible to scale up beyond sole trader.

cstross is a sci-fi author:-)

I think for many, that would be going from startups to writing would be from the frying pan into the fire in that they're both "black swan" industries. Glad it's worked for him, though.

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