Startup Motivations Debate

I fell over that sentence as well. I have an issue with the money obsession-over-everything which seems to drip from the US on the world. Money is nice, but if it's a focus, it's a poison often. It changes you and people forget they have this one chance at life when making their life all about money. You won't enjoy it so much (or at all) if your mind's primary focus is making it; it's (from experience with millionaires) very hard to 'de-learn' it. There is a good chance you'll be focused on mon

Not your normal HN fare, but the part about the main drives of people I found interesting from a startup/app perspective. Are these things you're paying attention to in your startup? Are you doing them for your own financial gain, or to create true value for the world?

The outcome of building a successful startup is wealth, which can be nice, but that is rarely the only goal. Speaking for myself, the uncertainty, stress, craftsmanship, perceived control, problem solving and creativity all make it very interesting. It is a proxy for adventure as much as it is a way to get rich. I would probably not do startups if I cared about wealth, or wealth exclusively. Wealth seems like a good byproduct if you do something useful. Few people do startups exclusively

When friends say they are "going to start a business", I ask them "Why? Do you know why, do you know what your goal is?".In most cases people can't really explain exactly why, and that's fine and normal. Only after years of being in business did certain things come clear to me. Are you there to make money, to follow your passion, to succeed with something, anything, to own your own time and life? The naive might say "all of the above", but they are not

I'm not really in a position to tout startups, but for me it's more about building and creating things that people use, find useful, and enjoy. It's about being artists and creatives at heart - and engineers and programmers by trade. Software is just one way of expressing creativity. I believe that for many people, the allure of money comes secondary. It's a motivating factor, but certainly not in and of itself.

This post strikes me as advocating for doing business for the sake of getting money - not actually changing something for the better in this world - or at least solving a problem for some people. Instead, it's talking about how you should be making money, etc. - not doing what you love. Even reveling in how someone was able to tune out their love of what they did for the sake of "building a nest egg".No one can argue that business is often the appropriate vehicle to bring an idea to the masse

I really like Eric, saw him down at stanford a couple of weeks ago.Honestly, I am poor. Dirt poor. But I LOVE what I do. I consult to pay the bills. Right now, I'm hyper focused on starting a new business so I haven't been spending a lot of time getting new clients.I had a client that fell on my lap the other day and I was so frustrated with them. The only reason they wanted to start their company was to make a lot of money and get rich. No passion, no iconoclastic idea's. Just, lets do th

The best ideas come from people who build applications out of passion or they saw a need. A lot of these sites did not begin with the intention of making money or with a business goal in mind. I think people who build with the intention of making money in mind - lose because it's no longer building out of passion which is needed to get people through sleepless nights.

All these ideas are wrong, because they are cash grabs. Money will never satisfy you. Find a startup you love by looking back to your best memories(10 years ago or more) of creating something and seek to give people that experience. Then, even if you fail financially, you'll still have more great memories, 10 years from now.

That is not exactly true. It's a virus idea that was spread by 37signals. Sure, it's great to work on the thing you love and get money for selling it. But that's not how it should always be. There are a lot of businesses, where people just make money. Like for example that recent post about the guy who made 38 millions on selling postcards. What's so bad about this? He now has enough money to finally do something he really likes and not think about the profit at all. So the bottom line is: it's