Build a Startup or Work at Big Company?

I came up with the tittle above when I ask a question while trying an online polling service, but I think the question is relevant to ask and I wrote it as a separate article. There are several reasons that I want to discuss in this article, the first is the development that occurs in universities, brand approach for developers as well as my brief chat with Dr. Serkan Toto, who recently came to Bandung.

That kind of question could be a classic question, in a sense of frequently asked questions, as a subject of startup, developers or students who are preparing to complete their study. Which is an option, establish or work on startup (new company) or work in an already established large technology/Internet companies?

Some time ago, Rama wrote about the role that should be improved from the university to support the birth of entrepreneur or businessman (in the field of web technology, internet and mobile), one of them is changing the mindset from looking for a job to create jobs.

Universities provide an important role because that’s where the most productive age are, indeed many startup founders who did not come from university in the sense that non or drop out from their education, but universities remain the best choice in study and preparing for the advantage of productive age in Indonesian society. Technology companies that engaged in internet mobile have been and continue to manage their relationships with the students to get the best graduates or people for their companies.

As an example, BlackBerry began holding developer events on campus (ITB) and will continue to run this program, Nokia has also been and continue to hold events on campus, Blaast – cloud-powered mobile platforms – also making approaches to the community and students to introduce their products, not to mention Microsoft and other companies. Various events with the ‘genre’ web – internet – mobile is also targeting students as their prospect market, because this is where most of the developers are.

Back to the original question, whether these students are attempting to build – work for a startup company or working in large and established company? As far as I know, some universities have their own guidelines and strategies in encouraging entrepreneurship within their campuses, various programs including incubation, sharing sessions, public lectures with practitioners lecturer continue to be presented. However, it could be just some of the universities that run this program and its implementation was not too massive or still in development stage so it still unable to motivate students to start their own businesses.

The issue of funding, experience and stigma can also be an obstacle, that make businesses or work in a startup company have less secure future more than working in an established/large companies.

If we talk about quality, Indonesian developers are not bad at all, even included those who sought by the investor, startup or established company. I myself often asked, by a startup which is domiciled outside Indonesia, they are looking for local developers to develop a startup they founded, which means we have good quality developers.

Conditions of choosing to work or establish a startup and work in big companies or well established seems to be also an interesting topic in Japan, Dr. Serkan Toto in the chat, casually explained that in Japan students or developer more interested in working for large companies, so a lot of Japanese startup that seek employees from outside Japan because their lack of developers. This could also be similar to the conditions in Indonesia several years ago, but I think it has been shifted because the choice to create your own business is increasingly becoming an option here.

The lure of the facility also became one of the strategies for large/established companies  in recruiting the best people to work with them, in a discussion at the event Echelon 2011, Michael Smith of Yahoo! also honestly said that the various facilities, in addition to salary, such as creative work environment, games, and so on became the main attraction in getting potential employees.

However, in another point of view, large or established companies also provide benefits in the form of experience, those who want to set up a startup can gain experience by working in large firms before setting up or working on a startup company.

Establishing a startup, as a new venture is not as easy as imagined, my advice is do not be lulled by an easy entry barrier, the startup is a business that needs a strategy to survive, eventhough the goal of the strategy is to exit.

This could be about choices, meaning that depending on each individual to choose whether to set up or work at startup or choose to develop careers in an established or large firms, but I’m more in terms of independence and self-employment and of course the opportunity to create jobs for others, not to mention the opportunities that can be obtained from the business. Many opportunities can be generated from solving problems that can not be seen by large corporations.

Based on the reasons, I prefer to work and build a startup, how about you?

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