Startup Opportunities Are Like Busses

It can be easy to forget that.

If you spend time on X, or at hackathons, or have just immersed yourself in startup culture it can sometimes feel like there’s a constant hum of anxiety surrounding it all.

It’s true that you have to move fast and market opportunities close quickly, but going on a founding journey is (if things go well) a multi-year commitment of your life.

This week I’m writing about why startup opportunities are like busses, and the three questions you need to answer “yes” to before you know an opportunity is right for you.

Startup Opportunities are like Busses

Let’s go back a few years to the last crypto bull cycle.

We were still in the ZIRP-world, yes, but even considering that it seemed like an outsized amount of capital was being poured into crypto startups.

Relatively new VC firms became household names in the industry seemingly overnight, and before actually returning any capital to their LPs.

The FOMO from anyone building something non-crypto was palpable.

Now, for the last year or two, the same has been true of AI.

I’m not here to predict the future success of these AI investments, and yes both sub-cultures are actually fairly different, but the frenetic energy around this current AI boom is the same.

It turns out this has been the case basically since the beginning of time in the startup world.

Earlier hype cycles around the Dotcom era, the advent of mobile apps, and more shared the same principles.

High faith in new technology increases the risk appetite of investors (and also legitimately creates new markets for startups to capture).

Talk to founders and VCs who’ve been at this longer than I have and they’ll tell you the same thing.

The point?

Don’t worry if you “missed” crypto, or AI, or whatever comes next.

And don’t worry if you find a good idea but decide not to dive in.

Startup opportunities are like busses, if you miss one, you just need to start looking out for when the next one comes.

The world is constantly changing and new opportunities emerge.

There is no end state.

Instead of rushing into something, consider:

• What are your life circumstances right now? Can you devote yourself fully to a startup?

• Do you either have some level of subject-matter expertise, know someone who does (as a potential co-founder), or have a clear path to learning it extremely quickly?

• Is this a problem area you’re going to be excited about working every day on for years?

The answer to all three of those needs to be yes for it to be the right time for you to jump into something.

I’ve come across, or in some cases even been pitched by VCs to work on, various venture-scale opportunities since leaving my last startup, but the answer to at least one of those three has, so far, been no for me.

Don’t worry about feeling FOMO for a particular hype cycle, there’s always another one coming soon.