Second, risk­adjusted economics suck. If you are smart and driven rather than risk­adjusted, you'll make more money by joining a top web company, staying, and getting promoted. While the comp delta between a startup and BigCo doesn't seem huge at non­leadership levels, it really grows when you get promoted and into management. Third, even if you want to do a startup, you're far better off joining an existing rock­star/, super­strong team. Great startups need great teams, which are rare. Better to join one than try to start one from scratch, which is close to impossible. Fourth, it's far, far harder than you can imagine. The highs are higher, for sure, but the lows are so low. Most people really aren't up for that and can't handle them properly, if at all. For example, are you OK signing a full recourse $750,000 promissory note to fund payroll when all the funding falls through (like I did at my first startup)? While you’ll have more "freedom" doing a startup, it's such all­consuming hard work, you probably won't appreciate it – at least not while you are going through it. It's hard to enjoy the view when you're glued to a screen. Having said that, if it's a calling, go for it. I did. But that's really the only great reason to start a SaaS startup. The only logical reason. Since it is illogical… You have to see something the rest of the world doesn't see, be so confident in it that you don't see all the risk, and have nothing in the end that’s “better”/higher ROI (all things considered) than doing a raw startup. COMFORT IS THE ENEMY OF GROWTH During your journey, at some point you plateau. Probably more than once – either in sales, energy or innovation. Everyone does. You feel stuck and nothing seems to kick­start growth again. It’s usually because: ● You’ve tapped out your networks and relationships. ● You or your business doesn’t stand out, sounding like everyone else. ● You’re overly dependent on a single person for a key function such as bringing in leads, closing deals or engineering. ● The market or customer needs have changed, and changing the business feels impossible or impractical. You’ve hit a business model or market wall but aren’t sure what to do about it. Sometimes a business breaks this plateau and ends up growing by hundreds of millions of dollars. And others struggle, unable to break their slump. What was the difference?