"My personal opinion is that if you're starting off from a position of weakness (i.e. you're poor and not famous), and especially if you're not in a startup hub like Silicon Valley, it makes a lot more sense to go down the entrepreneurial route than to go via the startup route."
I think this is particularly good advice if you're not a developer or aren't able to make the time available to really dig into learning how to code. Odds are you aren't Steve Jobs and won't be able to recruit the technical partner you want to work with to build your uber brilliant idea for reasons articulated here many times before.
There's nothing defeatist about building a viable, cash-generating business in lieu of standing around waiting for the magical technical co-founder of your dreams to fall into your lap. Plus, if you create something of value (be it content or otherwise) in the field you're looking to get involved in, you're much more likely to put yourself in a position to be able to recruit the kind of person you want to work with anyway.
Totally with you on ::just get something going instead of waiting for a technical co-founder::, but honestly if you're passionate w/o all the skills to make your business, it's not hard to find someone who can be passionate about it too.
I remember some quote about a guy who asked a VC, "How do I find engineers to help build my product?", and they said, "I don't know, but the best entrepreneurs always do".
There are technical people everywhere - plenty of them are bad at raising money, making money, etc., but would jump at the chance to work on an idea they love. Help liberate a great technical person.
At my company, I focus on the mech. eng./ business side, while my co-founder does all the software. It's been great so far, and we both get to work on something we love.
If you have an idea you love, don't sacrifice it because you don't have all the skills - you rarely will. Try to do some small version of it as fast as possible. This will show your co-founders-in-waiting that you've got the chops to run this business so they feel confident in having your back technically while you have theirs on the business end.
I actually hate that quote. What's to stop a poor developer who's not in SV from making an awesome, scalable tech startup?
Startup founders are, quite simply, people who found startups. They register a business (maybe) and create something that might turn into a business at some point, or even do turn it into a business successfully.
What's stopping me from trying to change the world from Alabama? What's stopping me from making some really cool stuff that I want to see across the whole world, or at least this country, from the deep south? I can spin up a Heroku instance in 5 minutes, and get an app going in under a day. Another day to make a MVP iOS app (then a week to the App Store), and effectively I have infinite reach. There's a very serious, debilitating mindset a lot of people have on this board about necessary VC funding, and a necessary Silicon Valley geographic base. None of those things are true anymore. And likely, weren't necessarily true in the past. It's grotesque that people think funding is what you should strive for. It's horrifying that people are motivated by a TechCrunch article and an exit. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but that's not WHY I'm an entrepreneur. An exit isn't even a motivation of mine. I want a lot of people to use my creations, and to love them. If I can get paid well to achieve that goal - that would be great. If I can get other people paid well for helping me achieve that goal (ie hiring a team), then that's even better.
Sorry for the rant, but I think that quote is entirely off-base and absolutely repulsive.
I think you may want to re-read the article and the quote, and the comment you're responding to, and get a bit of context. You sound like a knee-jerk reaction that's actually agreeing with half the article, but in a really needlessly aggressive way.
Nothing's stopping you. But you'll find certain paths easier than others, depending on what you want. That's what the article is about.
Reading my article, you might notice that I'm arguing, precisely, that you don't need VC funding or SV or any of those things to start a successful business.
That said, if you approach it with the "build it up and worry about the money later" that is often present in typical startups, you will probably (not certainly) fail hard.
As for the comment you're replying to, he's also stating the point that in some parts of the world (most parts), you're better off getting on with starting a business that works anywhere, rather than waiting for the "magical tech cofounder" who's going to start a tech startup with you and take it to infinity and beyond. You might notice he's addressing that specifically to people who can't "spin up a Heroku instance in 5 minutes".
I think this is particularly good advice if you're not a developer or aren't able to make the time available to really dig into learning how to code. Odds are you aren't Steve Jobs and won't be able to recruit the technical partner you want to work with to build your uber brilliant idea for reasons articulated here many times before.
There's nothing defeatist about building a viable, cash-generating business in lieu of standing around waiting for the magical technical co-founder of your dreams to fall into your lap. Plus, if you create something of value (be it content or otherwise) in the field you're looking to get involved in, you're much more likely to put yourself in a position to be able to recruit the kind of person you want to work with anyway.