Currently in 11th grade. Can highly relate. I've been working on a few startups for a couple years, exited a few things (not for a lot), working in PHP and now Rails, and it's far more exciting than hs.
I'm not thinking about dropping out, though. The risk is too great to just drop out and work on startups. I'm trying to make the most out of my little time left as a teenager socially and educationally (albeit the subject matter is relatively less useful than I'd like), go to college with a business focus (if I can get in with my low-ball GPA), and see where it goes from there.
I'm mostly in the startup game now to make connections, understand a foundation of startup business and entrepreneurship, and then move on in the future with that knowledge as an advantage.
For any other high school people on HN: there are three laws to follow when you're attending a strict-time institution like HS:
- Bust your ass.
- Manage your time correctly.
- Being under 18 doesn't make you special if you don't do special things. i.e.,
have credentials and work to back yourself up, and forget about age for a bit.
Learning how to manage my time and bust my ass (both of which are like hand in glove) have helped me highly in managing schoolwork plus a few startups (Avecora/Avecora OnDemand/AdSocial, Ramamia, TickrTalk, DebateWare, Classleaf.)
In fact, school gives you an interesting time constraint and advantage. 37signals, who used to be a consultancy, had just 10 hours a week to work on Basecamp. And you know what they did? They busted their ass. And what came out of it was how to use time efficiently, embracing constraints. (Source http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/constraints_breed_bre...)
And with the last one, don't get arrogant because "ZOMG, I CODED AN APP, @web2personality WRITE ABOUT ME BECAUSE IM UNDER 18." You're not special if you're under 18. You've developed an application, and you've developed coding skills a few years before people generally do. What separates you from the general young entrepreneur press and YOU is a few years. Don't kid yourself into thinking you're all special because you can code @app, because in the long run, without actual skills and knowledge you're hurting yourself. There are some people who put on the façade of "Wow, you're a high school entrepreneur, that's so awesome. So what do you do?" but see through that and it's not really genuine most of the time. It took me a bit of time to figure out that nobody really gives much of a shit, so learn that. That's what I've noticed and stand by–your mileage may vary.
(I'm always glad to meet new high school entrepreneurs and people in general. My contact details are in my profile.)
No Mark. Take advantage of college to do things you'll never have the chance to if you lock yourself into a software-only world. Show up for lectures on music theory, astrophysics, history. Try to learn a foreign language that works completely differently from English, like Chinese. You can audit most of these courses without signing up for them: just show up and never ask for permission unless it is a small course where you're personally noticed by the professor. And if nothing catches your curiosity, repeat the process again with different subjects the next semester. Get a healthy extracurricular life, since you'll learn a lot that way, especially about the importance of respecting your own value judgments and dealing with other people.
Never sell yourself short (i.e. "most likely") and don't form preconceptions of things because those are often self-fulfilling. Even if you do end up creating software, some of the most interesting coding work is solving specific challenges no-one else runs into because it is specific to a problem you and no-one else has. Find problems that interest you and you'll be driven to learn ways to handle them.
I know what you're getting at. Although I agree that it's very important to find extracurricular and extracareerular interests as well (and I am seeking other interest areas), I'm (although this must sound naïve) certain that entrepreneurship and business is my passion and thus I set it as my focus. I find drive, excitement and motivation in nothing else than startups.
I think college will be a great and eye-opening experience, which is why I'm not dropping out before college.
By the way, 你好。 I'm a native of China, born in Harbin, China.
> I'm (although this must sound naïve) certain that entrepreneurship and business is my passion and thus I set it as my focus
Be careful about deciding this too early, and clinging to that decision too long.
When I was in 11th grade, my passion was electric guitar, and I was sure I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. I have completely the wrong temperament to be a rock star, no stage presence to speak of, and a shitty sense of rhythm. But I really liked playing guitar, and of course it was the cool thing to do. I ended up learning a bunch of licks and building my own electric guitar as a senior project, but I'm no rock star.
When I was in 12th grade, I was sure I wanted to be a theoretical physicist. I'd taken a couple college honors courses in high school and doubled the class average, so I thought it was only natural. But once I got up to thermodynamics and quantum mechanics and had to spend 20 hours a week in the lab, I found I didn't really have the passion for physics. Staying in the physics major once I'd realized that my passion was for computers was probably the worst mistake of my life.
If you'd told me any time in the past 10 years that I'd end up working for a company with 20,000 employees, I'd've laughed incredulously in your face. I've wanted to do startups since I was about 19, and the idea of working in corporateland has been anathema since I was about 13. Yet here I am, excited about starting at Google, and I figure I'll at least give it a chance and see how it is.
If you're really passionate about entrepreneurship now, do it - now. But try some other stuff in college, and don't be afraid to switch your focus to them if it looks like that's really where your passion lies. Even if it means abandoning significant skills in entrepreneurship. There's essentially no risk to trying things out in college.
Yeah, don't drop out. I'm you (in terms if your passion) three years ahead. I'm 21 and nearly finished with University, and I was similar to you in High School in the fact that I was writing software, having fun with small-scale start-ups and projects, and had businesses begging me to drop out so I could work for them full-time.
What's different? Not too much. I now have corporations begging me to drop out and work full time, and some really cool jobs lined up for when I'm done. The biggest tip I can give you is this: don't fuck up. You will at some point think that you are awesome and you can drop out of college - don't. Also, if you focus too much on work, business and software without an equal amount of partying and social activity with it, you will feel empty and eventually burn out - a lot of self-management is required here, because if this happens you either persevere in a depressed state, or take a break for a few weeks as you should.
While I'm certainly not "old" yet I've been told myself thousands of times by trusted people both in my family and in the world of work that I'm way too young to take things too seriously. When I'd take this at face value I would think they just didn't understand my passion, my craving to do this fun, exhilarating work. It wasn't until the Christmas party of one of the companies I worked that I understood, as me as my boss spoke for ages in a completely plastered state. There are things out there that are fun, exciting and new that you simply haven't experienced yet, and you couldn't understand how enjoyable they are without at least giving them a shot. This is akin to deciding which programming language is best after only trying one.
Luckily for me, I have been maintaining a balance - or rather, been threatened by my girlfriend of 3 years to maintain a balance "or else", however I can see how easy it would be to grow up too young and miss out on so much. There is no other time in our lives where we have the opportunity to learn, travel or try new things with such little holding us back in terms of responsibility or finances, so we must do these things too!
Don't quit HS/College early, and keep your passion; but the number one rule is maintain balance. Anyone who will hire you now based on your knowledge, work ethic and passion will absolutely hire you 3 years down the track, full-time. Any smart employer would. You will get tempting offers over the period in which you study, but you need to put yourself first, and have not only the degree you get from college, but the experience.
Also, protip: People will complement you over the next few years, over and over again. You will feel on top of the world, and then you will begin to feel superior. Don't. Most of the time this is a test, and you need to stay modest.
I'm looking over your stuff at http://markbao.com/ ... it looks like you're more concerned with appearing to be an entrepeneur than with the work itself and product quality. These sites are simply fluff.
Also, I'm not sure how you can really create quality small business collaboration tools without having been in the working world. Just an observation.
Making $10B is not a very admirable life goal: http://markbao.com/lifegoals . Not to mention that $10B will be today's $200M in fifteen years.
Good luck with what you're doing, and be sure to focus.
The sites on there are pretty old, which is why I linked a newer list (incl http://ramamia.com) The third isn't an open site, fourth and fifth just experiments.
>Also, I'm not sure how you can really create quality small business collaboration tools without having been in the working world. Just an observation.
You're right, though I'm not really saying AOD is the best in the world while there are many more. It was something I wanted to manage my work, and it worked for me. Hopefully it helps others. If it doesn't, then so be it.
>Making $10B is not a very admirable life goal: http://markbao.com/lifegoals . Not to mention that $10B will be today's $200M in fifteen years.
It's a goal and an aspiration, that I'd like to meet. Care to elaborate on why it's not an admirable goal?
"Care to elaborate on why it's not an admirable goal?"
It's useless. It's like the cartoon with two academics standing in front a black board filled with equations, and in big letters right in the middle it says "then a miracle occurs."
Having $10B net worth in no way gives you any guidance whatsoever what to work on today, tomorrow, or next week. It is not informative enough. A goal like "make something people want" might guide you in actually making those actionable decisions and give you a better shot at making $10B than having "make $10B" itself as the goal.
Ah, okay. That's what I thought you were getting at. It's not a hard-set goal. I'd like to make money, but it's not the only thing I'm concerned about. The same page has other things not as materialistic.
Forget about life goals, instead break them down into 1, 5, 10 and 15 year goals, and then maybe tag "life goals" right at the end.
That way people can see something infinitely more important: you have a detailed map of what you want to do and where you want to go within certain timeframes. Though, it's important to know that they aren't stone-set, and should be revised at least twice a year.
I thought the same, but then I realized I did the exact same thing when I was his age. At that age, you're just starting to get your name out there and want to be noticed, so it's not a bad thing. Besides, that website just looks like a resume.
$10bn is an admirable aspiration, but it's not quite a goal (or even a stretch goal). Usually I see the aspiration as the end of the race, and the goals as the individual, clearly-defined steps taken to reach the finish line. In the case of gaining a $10bn net worth, chances are there's going to be a ton of goals along the way =) The whole SMART acronym for goals really is useful here:
>At that age, you're just starting to get your name out there and want to be noticed, so it's not a bad thing.
Yeah, that's a part of what I'd like to accomplish. The more I get my name out, the more people I meet. I'm also saying (in the spiel/rant) that it's not the ONLY thing that one should be doing.
>$10bn is an admirable aspiration, but it's not quite a goal (or even a stretch goal). Usually I see the aspiration as the end of the race, and the goals as the individual, clearly-defined steps taken to reach the finish line.
Thanks. You're right—my fault for confusing the two :)
Thanks. Nah, I use Rails on apps, but for my personal site it's just overkill. Just using simple PHP. (not the updated one either, which is why the contents are kind of lame, new - http://files.markbao.com/newstuff.jpg)
A website is not a startup. A startup company can have its main business revolve around a website, but you seem to have confused the issue. You have played coder with some websites, but where is the revenue? the marketing? all the non-fun things?
p.s. Poolify -- you have to change the name. Poo-la-fi is how I read it.
You know, I was a little harsh since I ignored what you have accomplished. You're already in the top 10% for sure (I'd guess top 1% but you can't tell over the Internet), so I left out the compliments (I've got to remember to not treat social interaction like manipulating those little microcontrollers).
Anyway, good job.
Try to follow KISS more. Back when gas first started to go over 99 cents, gas stations couldn't charge that much because the computers in the pump only had cents. They would have to buy a new $200 computer to do it. However, my grandfather's friend came up with a simple circuit for $5 to let the owner's charge $1+ and he made millions selling the little things. As a kid, little local companies will share lots of operational details with you because they don't find you a threat. You could use that knowledge to serve the market using your skills. I usually started on something simple like setting up computers to gain trust before moving up to more valuable work.
http://markbao.com (old, somewhat crappy stuff there, new stuff http://files.markbao.com/newstuff.jpg)
I'm not thinking about dropping out, though. The risk is too great to just drop out and work on startups. I'm trying to make the most out of my little time left as a teenager socially and educationally (albeit the subject matter is relatively less useful than I'd like), go to college with a business focus (if I can get in with my low-ball GPA), and see where it goes from there.
I'm mostly in the startup game now to make connections, understand a foundation of startup business and entrepreneurship, and then move on in the future with that knowledge as an advantage.
For any other high school people on HN: there are three laws to follow when you're attending a strict-time institution like HS:
Learning how to manage my time and bust my ass (both of which are like hand in glove) have helped me highly in managing schoolwork plus a few startups (Avecora/Avecora OnDemand/AdSocial, Ramamia, TickrTalk, DebateWare, Classleaf.)In fact, school gives you an interesting time constraint and advantage. 37signals, who used to be a consultancy, had just 10 hours a week to work on Basecamp. And you know what they did? They busted their ass. And what came out of it was how to use time efficiently, embracing constraints. (Source http://www.37signals.com/svn/archives2/constraints_breed_bre...)
And with the last one, don't get arrogant because "ZOMG, I CODED AN APP, @web2personality WRITE ABOUT ME BECAUSE IM UNDER 18." You're not special if you're under 18. You've developed an application, and you've developed coding skills a few years before people generally do. What separates you from the general young entrepreneur press and YOU is a few years. Don't kid yourself into thinking you're all special because you can code @app, because in the long run, without actual skills and knowledge you're hurting yourself. There are some people who put on the façade of "Wow, you're a high school entrepreneur, that's so awesome. So what do you do?" but see through that and it's not really genuine most of the time. It took me a bit of time to figure out that nobody really gives much of a shit, so learn that. That's what I've noticed and stand by–your mileage may vary.
(I'm always glad to meet new high school entrepreneurs and people in general. My contact details are in my profile.)