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Agree or Disagree: Entrepreneurship is a privilege

D

DeletedUser0287

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I am speaking solely on productocracy type businesses. Not the just pay the bills type of businesses.

The startup culture is all about, rags to riches, zero to hero, I work so hard, etc.

I am starting to realize that entrepreneurship is actually a priviledge thing. Hear me out. If an average income person wants to build a business, they gotta make huge sacrifices for the time being. Just because most if not all productocracy businesses require substantial capital and time to get it going.

A wealthy person starting a business, doesn’t have to cut back much at all and continue living life as is without making sacrifices because they got capital.

Poor person trying to start a business? Full on cut everything out of life to even have a sliver of a chance.

So pretty anything that requires significant capital is a priviledge thing, due to the fact that those with money don’t have to sacrifice. Just hate how the startup culture is all about, everyone has an equal chance.

Edit: Still working on my business regardless though.
 
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GoGetter24

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Yes a lot of lies and bullshit circulates around about this.

The first thing that must be understood is the power law of return. Thiel talks about this in his zero-to-one book. "Theoretically" everyone can get rich with a startup, but if you look at who does get rich and where, there are a lot of patterns. The internet, supposedly "democratizing" everything, actually resulted in most of the big name tech companies coming out of the San Francisco bay area.

Claiming it's just about having a good idea and working hard is complete bullshit. Instagram was not a good idea. It's dead simple. People were already sharing pictures on the internet long before Instagram. But instagram got a bit of traction so they hit it with multiple rounds of funding until it blew up. Instragram simply would not have become a household name were it not for the millions pumped into marketing it. Mass popularity is bought.

This is all because of the power law of return. The VCs pump huge cash into 10 ventures, multiplying investments by around 10 at each stage of confirmed progress, because they know due to the power law curve that the 9 that fail are irrelevant as long as they get 1 that blows up.

This is the same reason that people say "your first 1 million is the hardest", because after that you're up in the blade of the power law curve, and a 1% shift horizontally causes a 10% shift vertically. E.g. once you create an offer that reliably converts, and you know an ad for it costs $1 per click, and it makes you back $5 lifetime customer value, it's just a case of pumping money into the ads, and managing fulfillment and cash flow in order to blow it up.

This is why the best step from being poor is not to launch into some capital heavy business, but to focus on building a marketable skill and reputation for that skill, until you can make enough income per hour to save up money and reinvest it in business pursuits.

It's not about jumping from being a shoe store clerk into opening a restaurant chain. Those concepts are just foolhardy and encourage more failure than is necessary. That's why you've got 1000 guys grinding away at their fluff blog getting nowhere, because one guy pulled it off once and 10000 people heard about it. It's about increasing your active income, from your marketable skill, first. I.e. getting to the point of sale, not being some lowly unskilled (or skilled) laborer at the bottom of a corporate hierarchy. After that it's much much easier to build more passive income (leveraged) projects, because you've got more surplus income, more savings, and a skill & reputation you can fall back on if your passive projects fail.
 
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D

Deleted50669

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Your life is only limited by the laws of physics. That level of success is not guaranteed to anyone, rich or poor, though the rich have higher access to resources.

On the flip side, the rich tend not to have the same drive as the poor. I have a wealthy friend who could start a business at any moment, probably without even working in it, and he doesn't because he doesn't have to. The less choices you have in life, the more appealing the prospect of freedom becomes.
 

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Being an average or low income person is a privilege because hard times make strong men.


talking bout hard times

they are at the door !

if you want to grow through adversity you will be happy my man !


hint : people won't really know how to adapt to chaos after a life of comfort and luxury




chickens are always happy and well fed before being cooked



Boiling frog - Wikipedia


The-Boiling-Frog-Syndrome.jpg



.
.
 

jpanarra

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Entrepreneurship is not a privilege, its human nature. A lot of people strive for something bigger in their lives and contribute to society in ways you don't even realize is entrepreneurship.

The scope of owning your own business is vast and it's found in every single human civilization you can think of. However, there are some limitations to how you can scale depending on where you are. For example, you can't be as successful as Jeff Bezos in China. Speaking of China which is considered a communist country in the modern world, go to the streets of any major city there and you'll find business owners and innovators swarming the streets trying to sell or entertain in exchange of money.

Reality is, entrepreneurship is everywhere. It is scaling a business that's different where you go in the different parts of the world due to government control and economics. But to categorize it as a privilege or not is a weird way of wording it.

The fact is, you're already on this forum and you write good English and it might even be native to you. Which means you probably have access to free internet and capital. Which means you're already 'privileged' compared to the rest of the world and is probably in the top 1% of the world's population.

To keep things in perspective, my salary from my full-time job is in the ballpark of 50k a year. That puts me in the top .30% in the world.
 
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SquatchMan

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The "P" word. Almost as bad as the "D" word.

I am starting to realize that entrepreneurship is actually a priviledge thing. Hear me out. If an average income person wants to build a business, they gotta make huge sacrifices for the time being. Just because most if not all productocracy businesses require substantial capital and time to get it going.

Um ok...

You're just realizing that starting a business when you're poor requires sacrifice???

I'm confused. Lots of average/poor users on this forum have started successful businesses... including the founder of the forum. It requires more work + some creative thinking.

Don't think you'll find much sympathy (or whatever you're looking for by posting this thread) on this forum.
 

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AFMKelvin

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Go back to reddit with this privilige rant.

Even the Silicon Valley kids had to work hard to get to a position to start a start up. They have the technical skills that they've earned through years of hard work. Those skills allowed them to work for multi million dollar companies where naturally you'll get some very good connections to angel investors.

So in a sense they are at the right place and the right time because they have very specialized skills that are needed in that time and place. But privilege did not put them there.
 
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PizzaOnTheRoof

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Money = Time = Energy

If you’re lacking one, you can make up for it with the other two.
 

Xeon

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Yes a lot of lies and bullshit circulates around about this.

The first thing that must be understood is the power law of return. Thiel talks about this in his zero-to-one book. "Theoretically" everyone can get rich with a startup, but if you look at who does get rich and where, there are a lot of patterns. The internet, supposedly "democratizing" everything, actually resulted in most of the big name tech companies coming out of the San Francisco bay area.

Claiming it's just about having a good idea and working hard is complete bullshit. Instagram was not a good idea. It's dead simple. People were already sharing pictures on the internet long before Instagram. But instagram got a bit of traction so they hit it with multiple rounds of funding until it blew up. Instragram simply would not have become a household name were it not for the millions pumped into marketing it. Mass popularity is bought.

This is all because of the power law of return. The VCs pump huge cash into 10 ventures, multiplying investments by around 10 at each stage of confirmed progress, because they know due to the power law curve that the 9 that fail are irrelevant as long as they get 1 that blows up.

This is the same reason that people say "your first 1 million is the hardest", because after that you're up in the blade of the power law curve, and a 1% shift horizontally causes a 10% shift vertically. E.g. once you create an offer that reliably converts, and you know an ad for it costs $1 per click, and it makes you back $5 lifetime customer value, it's just a case of pumping money into the ads, and managing fulfillment and cash flow in order to blow it up.

This is why the best step from being poor is not to launch into some capital heavy business, but to focus on building a marketable skill and reputation for that skill, until you can make enough income per hour to save up money and reinvest it in business pursuits.

It's not about jumping from being a shoe store clerk into opening a restaurant chain. Those concepts are just foolhardy and encourage more failure than is necessary. That's why you've got 1000 guys grinding away at their fluff blog getting nowhere, because one guy pulled it off once and 10000 people heard about it. It's about increasing your active income, from your marketable skill, first. I.e. getting to the point of sale, not being some lowly unskilled (or skilled) laborer at the bottom of a corporate hierarchy. After that it's much much easier to build more passive income (leveraged) projects, because you've got more surplus income, more savings, and a skill & reputation you can fall back on if your passive projects fail.

The above might belong to Reddit r/unpopularopinion, but it really is the cold hard truth which many do not accept. This is gold.
 

Andreas Thiel

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Money = Time = Energy
If you’re lacking one, you can make up for it with the other two.
But money buys you the time of a hundred people.

It does not have to be a true or false thing. The question is to what degree it is true.

I fear that the trend towards the zero marginal cost society will make it more and more true (is it Eroom's Law that suggests that?).
All the areas where it is possible to create value in the future will be playing fields with insane entry barriers.
Starting a business might be impossible then, unless new regulatory mechanisms are implemented.

There might be two trends cancelling each other out. In the past there has been more bias and pedigree played a bigger role.
That issue is disappearing while low hanging fruit are disappearing (in other words, the route to the adjacent possible gets longer).

This is why the best step from being poor is not to launch into some capital heavy business, but to focus on building a marketable skill and reputation for that skill, until you can make enough income per hour to save up money and reinvest it in business pursuits.

That might not be a viable way 15 - 20 years from now, depending on technological progress.
 
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Last edited:

ChrisV

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I’m afraid for you for when @MJ DeMarco finds this thread.

You’re being a victim.

I hate the word ‘privilege’.. not to be harsh but, it’s really just liberal, left wing crybabying

Dude, half of these people started businesses while working the night shift at Denny’s

I mean yes, statistically successful entrepreneurs are more likely to have come from wealth and have a good education, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

I mean yea if you’re trying to start a business that needs a lot of startup capita
l sure.. but there are tons of people on here that started books, apps, websites.. stuff that didn’t cost a lot to start.

I think this stems from the ‘takes money to make money’ myth
 

Rawseed

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Claiming it's just about having a good idea and working hard is complete bullshit. Instagram was not a good idea. It's dead simple. People were already sharing pictures on the internet long before Instagram. But instagram got a bit of traction so they hit it with multiple rounds of funding until it blew up. Instragram simply would not have become a household name were it not for the millions pumped into marketing it. Mass popularity is bought.

I have to disagree with you here. It's easier to buy popularity with money, but mass popularity can't be bought. At least not today. If it could be bought, then all those VC funded startups wouldn't have failed.

Also, there are a number of bootstrapped startups with high valuations. Clickfunnels comes to mind. Ash Maurya's work is all about bootstrapped scalable businesses.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1449305172/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

This is why the best step from being poor is not to launch into some capital heavy business, but to focus on building a marketable skill and reputation for that skill, until you can make enough income per hour to save up money and reinvest it in business pursuits.

This sounds very Slowlane. I'm a physician. My medical knowledge and experience are "marketable skills" and my medical license is a great barrier to entry. But, I'm clearly in the slow lane.

Fastlaners come along and hire people like me to work in their clinics and hospitals. They bypass the years it takes to acquire the "marketable skill" and instead create a marketable product/service.

Unless the marketable skills you were referring to were marketing, value creation, sales, understanding business, understanding risk, delayed gratification, focus, hard work, overcoming procrastination, etc...
 
Last edited:

ChrisV

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GoGetter24

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This sounds very Slowlane. I'm a physician. My medical knowledge and experience are "marketable skills" and my medical license is a great barrier to entry. But, I'm clearly in the slow lane.
You can reach the fastlane much faster than a guy without those skills, if you wound back your expenses to a small fraction of your income. The problem is (not saying this is you) that people tend to match their consumption to their income, so dentists go riding around in sportscars and then start a family which they teach to expect a certain level of comfort, etc, instead of investing the surplus. You're also in a strong position to attempt healthcare rollups if you so wish to swing for the fastlane fence.

At least not today. If it could be bought, then all those VC funded startups wouldn't have failed.
That's just not how it works. Working in jobs makes people used to highly deterministic outcomes. But business isn't like that at all. All of their shots received the same due diligence and the same tests for 10x (ultra scalability). That doesn't mean they deterministically make any of the shots land. They can only shoot and see. This is precisely the problem as to why so many people fail at business: because they're falsely bringing a deterministic mindset to a probabilistic situation.
 
D

DeletedUser0287

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I’m afraid for you for when @MJ DeMarco finds this thread.

You’re being a victim.

I hate the word ‘privilege’.. not to be harsh but, it’s really just liberal, left wing crybabying

Dude, half of these people started businesses while working the night shift at Denny’s

I mean yes, statistically successful entrepreneurs are more likely to have come from wealth and have a good education, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

I mean yea if you’re trying to start a business that needs a lot of startup capita
l sure.. but there are tons of people on here that started books, apps, websites.. stuff that didn’t cost a lot to start.

I think this stems from the ‘takes money to make money’ myth

Just made this thread for others opinions thats all, but yeah I am speaking solely about Productocracy businesses like I said in the OP. Not other Blog or crap like that. Wasn't talking about those low barrier "Me-Too" businesses. Which is a complete waste of time to do based on my experience. Anyone can start those and capital is rarely a limiting variable. Its the Productocracy businesses (Real Business) for change that cost a lot because they require a ton of R&D. R&D ain't free. Especially with a physical product development. Only your app/website example is one that you can be productocracy and cost almost nothing. Unfortunately, my business venture is in the productocracy. It is where I can provide the most value...or so I think.
 
D

Deleted50669

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Yes a lot of lies and bullshit circulates around about this.

The first thing that must be understood is the power law of return. Thiel talks about this in his zero-to-one book. "Theoretically" everyone can get rich with a startup, but if you look at who does get rich and where, there are a lot of patterns. The internet, supposedly "democratizing" everything, actually resulted in most of the big name tech companies coming out of the San Francisco bay area.

Claiming it's just about having a good idea and working hard is complete bullshit. Instagram was not a good idea. It's dead simple. People were already sharing pictures on the internet long before Instagram. But instagram got a bit of traction so they hit it with multiple rounds of funding until it blew up. Instragram simply would not have become a household name were it not for the millions pumped into marketing it. Mass popularity is bought.

This is all because of the power law of return. The VCs pump huge cash into 10 ventures, multiplying investments by around 10 at each stage of confirmed progress, because they know due to the power law curve that the 9 that fail are irrelevant as long as they get 1 that blows up.

This is the same reason that people say "your first 1 million is the hardest", because after that you're up in the blade of the power law curve, and a 1% shift horizontally causes a 10% shift vertically. E.g. once you create an offer that reliably converts, and you know an ad for it costs $1 per click, and it makes you back $5 lifetime customer value, it's just a case of pumping money into the ads, and managing fulfillment and cash flow in order to blow it up.

This is why the best step from being poor is not to launch into some capital heavy business, but to focus on building a marketable skill and reputation for that skill, until you can make enough income per hour to save up money and reinvest it in business pursuits.

It's not about jumping from being a shoe store clerk into opening a restaurant chain. Those concepts are just foolhardy and encourage more failure than is necessary. That's why you've got 1000 guys grinding away at their fluff blog getting nowhere, because one guy pulled it off once and 10000 people heard about it. It's about increasing your active income, from your marketable skill, first. I.e. getting to the point of sale, not being some lowly unskilled (or skilled) laborer at the bottom of a corporate hierarchy. After that it's much much easier to build more passive income (leveraged) projects, because you've got more surplus income, more savings, and a skill & reputation you can fall back on if your passive projects fail.

So you're saying that I'm wasting my time learning software development without living in San Francisco.
 
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ChrisV

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Only your app/website example is one that you can be productocracy and cost almost nothing. Unfortunately, my business venture is in the productocracy. It is where I can provide the most value...or so I think.
Didn’t mean to come off as harsh in my reply, but yea I get the impression you’re talking about your specific biz, which we don’t have the details of.

I just don’t want you to get caught up in the ‘its too hard’ or ‘its not fair’ type thinking. It will kill you before you even start. I promise you that. Get creative. Bootstrap if you have to. Talk to Venture Capitalists or Angel Investors. Most Investors won’t invest until you have proof/sales but if you have a really good idea there are VC firms that will believe in you. Just gotta get the right ones. Crowdfunding (kickstarter) imo is changing the face of business. They love productocracies. So many great products are being launched on kickstarter. There’s even equity crowdfunding where people who invest now own part of your business.

Don’t worry about why something can’t be done. Think about ways it can be done. Google it if you have to. Just the people who succeed are the ones who figure out how to get around the mountain rather than saying ‘we can’t’
 

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A wealthy person starting a business, doesn’t have to cut back much at all and continue living life as is without making sacrifices because they got capital.

Poor person trying to start a business? Full on cut everything out of life to even have a sliver of a chance.
And bro, no one is saying this shit is easy. It’s not.

It requires sacrifice, ripping your hair out, crying wives, parents who give up on you, friends who think you’re a delusional moron with your head in the clouds. If it were easy than every caveman and gecko would do it. That being said, we argue that it's still better than the alternative. So you suck it up, drive your 12 year old car for a bit, water the fruit bearing tree then you’ll have something you can eat from your whole life. But do the rich have an advantage? Sure. So what do you do? Join them! Then the next business you start you’ll be in the same position as them. Everyone’s gotta start somewhere.
 

MJ DeMarco

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Just hate how the startup culture is all about, everyone has an equal chance.

My books have nothing to do with the "startup culture" but about creating a small business that sets you free. You can create a small business and a productocracy.

You don't need money to start, but you will need TIME and a COMMITMENT. Human capital (learned skills) can compensate for a lack of cash.

As for the Silicon Valley cult, I'd imagine there's some truth to your assertion that getting into that circle requires a minimum amount of money, INSIDERS contacts, and the right amount of globalist sentiment.
 
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Whoever started using the word "privelege" in this way has started something about nothing. Dumb, but not sure why, just a bit victom-ish. That's not a position to aspire to. To my mind there's a bit too much navel gazing here. Call me old fashioned.
 

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Go back to reddit with this privilige rant.

Even the Silicon Valley kids had to work hard to get to a position to start a start up. They have the technical skills that they've earned through years of hard work. Those skills allowed them to work for multi million dollar companies where naturally you'll get some very good connections to angel investors.

So in a sense they are at the right place and the right time because they have very specialized skills that are needed in that time and place. But privilege did not put them there.
Bingo! As the saying goes, success happens when preparedness meets opportunity!
 

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