Ask HN: how to spend your (early) 20s?

Re:Ask HN: how to spend your (early) 20s? by HoyaSaxa on Wednesday June 22, 2011 @09:35PM (#2686240)

Not a bad strategy. I have already started a company which has been my number learning experience. I definitely know what I would do differently. Just to clarify the venture was not a failure, but also far away from being a "big" startup (read: slightly cash positive). My number 1 piece of advice (although I don't know how much it is worth) is to network. It is crazy how mindless some investors truly are. It seems if you can get 1 person with a pretty big name in the tech industry behind your project, you can get the whole gang. Obviously you need a great product, but it seems the true value in startups today is the name.

Are you the business or engineer side (or both)?

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Re:Ask HN: how to spend your (early) 20s? by keiferski on Wednesday June 22, 2011 @09:44PM (#2686270)

Yeah, you're probably right on the networking, although investors right now might be affected by the bubble situation. Networking in general is a good practice, though.

I'm striving to be both the business and the engineer, although I have much more experience with business (family and small money-making projects I've done through the years.) Ideally, I'd like to build the site entirely myself and then bring on a technical wizard (for salary or a small chunk of equity) to be the CTO. Call me selfish, but I want to have control over my business - no huge dilution to co-founders and investors for me, thanks.

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