Allow me to divulge a secret about my past three spring breaks. I have not been going to crazy college island parties in the Caribbean as I may claim to friends. Instead, I have been sneaking down to Florida to spend a few days with my grandparents. I get a glimpse of the good life — the retiree life — for nearly a week. I can unbuckle my pants, kick back on the sofa after feasting on a hearty meal, watch the Wheel of Fortune while grumbling about “youths” failing to fix their divots on the golf course, and pass out by 8:30 p.m. It is one of the most relaxing and edifying experiences I look forward to each year.
An admittedly cliché but nevertheless pleasant piece of the travel package is the opportunity to listen to two wiser voices respond to aspects of my life. This past break, one of the main decisions I wrestled with was what to do with my summer: should I seek an internship or deepen my involvement with a startup? Conveniently situated in a community of kind sages, I had no problem finding helpful advice about my life decision. I was surprised by how many advised me to take the risk-averse choice to seek an internship even though my instincts told me to work on my startup.
The argument I got from the wiser folks essentially pointed to the fact that having experience working for an established company is an indispensable life skill. I believe strongly in my idea, so it took me a while to swallow this point. Wouldn’t the skills I get by developing my own business be far more valuable? Further, even if the startup failed, what do I have to lose? I don’t yet have enough financial capital that a significant loss would be a life setback, nor would the opportunity cost be that high because an intern’s net pay after living expenses is minimal.
I looked at what my classmates were doing with their summers, and wondered why more University students did not venture into entrepreneurship. For the most part, it seems that taking the conservative approach and interning at an established corporation was commonplace. Certainly there must be a reason.
An article by the Wall Street Journal cited that 75 percent of startups fail, showing that the odds are against you if you take the entrepreneurship route. Aside from the small amount of money one gets working in an internship, my time with knowledgeable grandparents helped me realize that the experience working for a larger company is a prerequisite — at least, for most startups.
More than a résumé line, experience in an established corporate setting helps an entrepreneur see what the current challenges facing an industry are, and how larger companies make decisions that overcome — or don’t overcome — these challenges. With this insight, an entrepreneur can create a leaner business by learning from others’ mistakes or create a new business solving a problem that frequently arose while working at an established company. Not all startup ideas need to be revolutionary like Facebook or Google. They just need to solve a problem. Working in industry accelerates the rate at which one sees these problems. Yammer, for example, is a startup that arose out of a need for employees to communicate in a social-networking type environment while upholding company security and privacy concerns.
Another valid argument against going straight into entrepreneurship is that an internship can cultivate connections required for networking and starting a business. Previously I was under the impression that there were only two times in one’s life when one could feasibly start a company: in college, or after gaining decades of experience working for a company. Time away from the commotion at the University helped me realize that this conviction was misguided. Hearing the reflections of my elders, a common theme was life’s spontaneity. Meeting a serious co-founder or established investor could happen any time at a full-time gig. I do not think it would be outlandish to assume that proven performance with a larger company would help solicit investors.
Knowing that I have wanted to start up a company since the age of 12, determining the track of my summer plans was a difficult decision. Organizations like Hack Cville help students choose entrepreneurship by providing office space and resources, but part of me also wishes there were an avenue through the University to work with a team to support founding a company while managing a reasonable school workload: or maybe my grandparents would be willing to teach a course or two.
Andrew Kouri is an Opinion columnist. Contact him at a.kouri@cavalierdaily.com.
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