I’ve wanted to start a company for as long as I can remember, going back to middle school, high school, and college. In 2020, someone very successful told me that one of my biggest mistakes was joining larger corporations instead of building something myself.

In 2023, I worked at a fast-growing startup where I felt I delivered strong results. But after the company raised a large amount of capital, it became clear that the leadership team was trying to reduce my role and replace me behind the scenes. I eventually decided to leave. Since then, the company has struggled badly, burned through a huge amount of money, and even some of its own investors reached out to me directly. They later laid off the entire sales team and many engineers as well.

In 2025 and 2026, I spent an enormous amount of time trying to understand how companies really work. I went deep into business, strategy, finance, accounting, market structure, and more. For months, I was studying from early morning until late at night, often spending entire days in Starbucks just trying to build a real foundation for myself.

Now I’m finally starting to meet investors who seem genuinely interested in backing me. At the same time, I still get nervous. I’m 30 now, and I keep wondering: does this sound like the right moment to go all in and start my own company?

@SamuelAnders I was in my early 30s when my old boss died and, fed up working at dysfunctional companies, started my own on a shoestring. (Auto repair. ) What I had going for me was strong niche knowledge and talent, and a clientele that liked and trusted my "product. " Honestly, being the boss/owner can become all consuming of your life and time. The independence and autonomy, come at unstinting demands upon you. If you have the talent, drive, and importantly, shipping product, it can all be more rewarding than a life as a cog in someone else's machine. Being the boss, isn't all sitting back watching others do all the work while you count and bank all this fuck-you level of money rolling in. I can't offer much about the model of investors and lead time for development. Investors don't fork over money and hide, they bring demands of input on the products and development. Investors can come at a cost to your autonomy. All these caveats aside, if you have the vision and drive to make it work, it's inevitable you will forge your way in to actualizing these into a working enterprise. NGL, long days at Starfucks, is a fantasy holding pattern, nothing at all the life you have once you jump into the entrepreneur game for real.