Good Reasons to Create a Startup in Pandemic Times

Create a startup is hard. Definitely much harder than creating an ordinary successful tech company. Still, there are many good reasons to launch a startup and some of them are perfect for the Pandemic

Marc Andreessen is one of the most respected people in Silicon Valley. He created Netscape back in 1994, and he sold it to AOL for $10B. After that, Marc created LoudCloud—later rebranded to Opsware—and it was a significant hit. He and Ben Horowitz sold it to HP for $1.6B. Then in 2009, he turned his attention to the venture capital business and launched Andreessen Horowitz—a.k.a. a16z—a VC in the Valley with a $300M fund to invest in early-stage startups. He's a kind of a legend in the tech business, and if today we all use a browser, it's because Marc built the first one—Mosaic—when he was working for NCSA during the college.

In December 2019, Marc was interviewed by Mike Maples Jr in his Starting Greatness podcast. Mike opened the show with a simple question for Marc:

What’s your advice to people who want to build something great?

Marc replied: "Don't do it! It's so hard. Starting a company is like chewing glass. Eventually, you start to like the taste of your own blood [ref.]". If you ignore advice number one, you might have the personality to start a company.

That is the perfect piece of advice for any entrepreneur, but it's a great one when we talk about startups. We already discussed this is my first article, What's a startup, and for anyone who's following me it's easy to understand why creating a startup is much more complicated than an ordinary company—even a high-tech one. You have at least seven years of your life entirely devoted to following your dream, and believe me when I say that there's no such thing as "life and work balance."

Why should people be building a startup, then? You end up creating your startup for multiple reasons, but very few of them are the good ones. Create a startup for a wrong reason is the graveyard of your business and makes your like sucks for years. In today's article, I want to talk about the few good reasons to become a founder of a high growth tech company.

Good Reasons

Good reasons to build a startup are all tight to one simple fact: even if you try not to do it, you know that you have to. The Pandemic made our lives different, and that also had a direct impact on why we should build a startup.

Reason #1: You are obsessively determined

That is an evergreen. You are obsessed with your idea and the problem you are solving. You can't do anything else than go building it. You keep thinking about how better your life would be if that product would be available, and you end up coding until you can release the first version of it and see how users react. Most of the people, on multiple occasions, can release a version 1 but not version 2. That means that you are not really obsessed with solving that problem. It happens to me all the time with tens of side projects. For example, last year, during the Christmas break, I created and released Chat-his, a simple chat system where no registration is required, and messages get deleted every thirty days. It that case, it was just a hunch, not an obsession—and coding for me is a lot of fun. When you are obsessed about solving a problem, you can't sleep until you find the best solution. You keep gathering feedback, doing tons of experiments, and helping users onboarding the product.

Reason #2: You Solve a problem that you have, and you are good at nail it remotely

You are solving a problem that you have in the first place. That's always a good starting point, and even if it doesn't make you an expert, for sure, you are the customer #1. There's a good chance that if you feel that problem, many other people might have the same need. You talk to them, and you get them involved in your beta version. You start from your network and find ways to enlarge your audience. To make this happen, it's better if you are in a place where the best early adopters for your application live. But an in-person meeting is not the only way you have to nurture the customer base. Because of COVID-19, we can't travel freely, and we are discovering that we can do a lot remotely and meeting people on Zoom. Many companies like Superhuman and Journal applied the remote onboarding process earlier than others, and they are doing a great job.

Reason #3: You understand that a global downturn is a big opportunity

Yes, exactly, a global downturn, like the Pandemic we are all in now. In a time like this one, priorities change, and many hidden demands suddenly become pressing issues. For example, social distancing and remote working have forced all of us to adjust our habits. Everyone has to find new ways to express themselves and organize social and work activities. That is an excellent time to create new products and test them from anywhere in the world. Anyone can become an early adopter for solutions that improve the new COVID-19-induced social and work conditions. Look at the ClubHouse voice app—I bet you didn't hear about it if you are outside Silicon Valley. It was almost impossible to find an invite to join the app in the last months. They have a beta product not even published on the App Store, and they just closed a $10M round from a16z at $100M valuation. That app could have been created anywhere in the world. In general, anything that can improve people's social or work life is useful today. Even though the virus spread is slowing down in some countries, we are far from a solution. And the fear of a new pandemic might be the "new normal."

In the next article, I’ll talk about some of the most common wrong reasons to create a startup. Stay tuned, and if you liked what you read, leave some ❤️ and share this post with other people 💪🏽.