How to start a career

I've been thinking about this alot lately.... what is the best way to start a career for a exceptionally talented and motivated IT student based in New Zealand at the moment?

I've come to the conclusion that there has never been a better time to put "do a startup" at the top of your list. I'm in a good position to comment on this cause I'm 27 and spent the last 5 years of my life doing just that. I jumped into founding a startup straight out of Uni at the ripe age of 22 and have never looked back.

The gap between 20 and 30 for a lot of us is our time of freedom, before we get married and have kids (well thats what my uni teacher told me!). For those of us that get excited by the thought of being an internet pioneer it has never been easier to give it a shot.

The recent house price spiral in NZ means that someone graduating today is going to be light years away from being able to afford a deposit on a house so why not forget about the joys of having a mortgage (if there are any?) and get cracking on that first start-up business.

OK, the odds are stacked against you becoming a millionaire but at least you'll get some runs on the board and learn way more than your peers that take a help desk job.

If you are looking for some motivation then check out the great articles that Paul Graham writes. Paul and a few others started a seed fund for hackers in the US last year called Y Combinator

I'll say it again, I reckon we need a Y Combinator in NZ. The thing I really like about Y Combinator which has been running for a year or so now is that they totally expect some of the ideas to "tank". One of the companies that got squashed, has just had its founders start another business which is now flying and is really cool!

I'd say the big difference between old tech startups and web 2.0 startups is the "time to fly". There seems to be a growing perception that 3 months is enough time to hack something together and go live. I'd agree with this, my first startup took 3 months of hacking in a bedroom with a friend to bring something great to fruition and that was 5 years ago. So that basically means you only need enough money to survive 3 months to get something going. The benefits of being a part of Y combinator is that you get introduced to all sorts of "angels" during that time and should have a decent amount of momentum at the end of that 3 months which can make a difference if you are broke!

So go do it, start a start-up!