9,429 followers
Three reasons why your 2024 resolution should be to start a company Founders are having a hard time navigating the current startup landscape. Customers are more challenging to close, and many are closing their doors altogether. The pendulum of power between entrepreneurs and VCs is shifting away from founders. This state of affairs has led many potential entrepreneurs to wish they had started a company in the "good old days" of 2020, that is, amid a global pandemic! While helping our existing founders navigate choppy waters, I also want to encourage would-be entrepreneurs to take the plunge and consider starting their own ventures in 2024. I won't lie; it's a difficult time to be running a company, but people starting today have tremendous advantages. Here are three that I see: Technology: ChatGPT is just a year old. The explosion of foundation models in text, visual, and audio AI gives founders a new canvas to paint their industry's future. Startups founded in the go-go days are now several years into building their technology stacks. Redesigning their products and teams around AI will be a massive lift for most startups. You have the enviable advantage of building with AI from day one and leap-frogging tech debt and over-hiring. Financing: The massive valuations that flattered founders over the last few years are now millstones around the necks of many as valuation multiples have contracted across the industry. Startups that have built impressive products that generate millions of dollars a year in revenue will struggle to fundraise because of prior round’s valuations. These same startups would be massively in demand if they had raised at a lower valuation. You get to start with a clean cap table and stronger alignment, Talent: We may be living through the best hiring moment for startups in the last ten years. Layoffs and hiring freezes have given startup founders a fighting chance to recruit people who would have been out of their league before this downturn. You still have to fight for the best people who are always in demand, but at least today, there is a chance! Talent is also more likely to be sober and less likely to job-hop. I don't mean to sugarcoat the state of affairs in the startup world. Talented founders are struggling; macro headwinds will be too much for some. Founders building today know the battle that is ahead and are scrappy from day zero. I am seeing less upfront hiring, more founders leading sales and product, and a bigger focus on nailing those first few customers. It's always challenging to build something new. There will never be a perfect moment, and those who started in what seemed like the ideal time now find that they simply traded one set of challenges for another. If you are as optimistic about the future of tech as I am, please get in touch!