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Startup | Entrepreneurship | Investing
Do you want to quit your 9-to-5 job to become an entrepreneur?
Don’t do it — here is why
Become an entrepreneur. Be as successful as Elon Musk.
It is a dream many people in the startup community share.
So hooray, once you have an idea, go found a startup.
Advice that I often hear in the Startup community.
Hooray, we have an idea. Let’s change the world. Let’s quit our jobs. In the end, only entrepreneurs become happy.
All others are damned to boring office life from 9–5.
Just Don’t. Don’t Do It.
There should be an entrepreneurship graveyard with a tombstone for every failed entrepreneur who quit his 9 to 5 job before product-market fit.
Every new wannabe entrepreneur should take a walk over the graveyard of good hopes and intentions before quitting their 9 to 5.
I believe it saves one or the other from emotional pain, suffering, and misery.
9 out of 10 startups fail, not for no reason. I believe the failure rate is higher when people quit college and start a venture in their twenties.
Yes, there are people like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, or Mark Zuckerberg. But these are rare outliers—the majority experience failure.
Failure, after failure, after failure.
So what is the best way to create success in business?
Do it like Mohnish Pabrai
My favorite case study is the Indian investor Mohnish Pabrai. After selling his first company, he turned investor and created fame by simply copying Warren Buffett’s approach.
He says about himself that he has no original ideas. He looks for what works and copies it.
Since this article is not about investing like Mohnish, let’s look at the beginning of his career.
He graduated from a university and landed his first job. Three years in the rat race, he had an idea for a company.
