With the downswing in the economy, everybody is preaching the idea of doing start-ups. There is a general uneasiness that traditional companies can no longer provide stable employment. Entrepreneurship looks better than ever to many people.

On the fence? Below is a list of the top ten reasons on why you should not do a tech startup.

1. You wanna be rich. Not often does an entrepreneur get into start-ups for altruistic reasons. That’s called nonprofits.  However, very rarely does focusing purely on the exit and big money work out. Instead, you’ll want to focus on building a killer product. With customers or a big community comes money. Remember start-ups are a lifestyle and sometimes that means being very poor for awhile. Also, watch how quickly you get diluted down if you start down the VC funding route.
2. You wanna be famous. We’d all like our picture on the cover of Inc. magazine and articles espousing how our brilliant marketing strategies led to champagne in hot tubs. Again, probably not gonna happen. What will happen is you will be attending conferences, working sales leads, making PR pitches, and networking for awhile with nobody knowing or caring who you are.  That’s okay. Take advantage of the anonymity to outflank your competition.
3. Nobody has thought of this yet. Sorry but every business model has been done. You might have a unique twist but if you want it to get adopted your solution has to have a trail back to something that’s known. I’ve seen many founders truly believe they have the secret sauce. This results in paranoia and a failure to appreciate that the world is full of quite a few smart people who know how to compete. Insights into trends is great but it’s execution on that unique idea that wins.
4. Your boss is an idiot. This may be true but leaving a poor work environment to do your own thing is not a good idea. You will undoubtedly long for the days to write another TPS report when things get rough. The passion to do tech start-ups has to be for working on a great idea and building a remarkable experience for a customer.  This is what helps sustain you on the days it’s not much fun. Besides, a poor boss always teaches you more than a great boss by showing you how not to manage.
5. You’ve worked for Microsoft, IDEO, Google. Great but that does little to prepare you for a tech start-up environment where you don’t have the army of engineering talent and marketing resources of a large, rich company. Also, nobody knows or cares who you are now (see #2). You’ve left the king’s court and now have to go off and settle new lands. Read like crazy and find mentors who’ve done start-ups to help ease the transition and realize that you have to learn a totally new set of skills.  (and oh by the way, your day doesn’t end at 5 with weekends off anymore)
6. You love writing code/designing/building. This can be invaluable in early, early stage ventures. Realize over time to grow the business you’ll most likely have to give that up or hire someone to run the business part. Are you comfortable exchanging control to keep doing what you love?
7. You’ve managed teams before. See #5. If your new company is big enough to have “teams” than you’ll be stressing about funding and talking people out of quitting to take better paying jobs with less demands. To lead successful teams, you’ll have to be exceptional at selling visions of grandeur. Study Steve Jobs and his famous Reality Distortion Field.
8. You wanna be your own boss. The freedom that comes with doing your own thing is priceless. The trick is managing yourself without the motivation of performance reviews. Set a schedule with tasks and milestones and stick to it. Remember it’s execution not ideas that wins.
9. You don’t think sales is hard. Early on, everyone has to sell to some degree. You’re selling to investors, potential partners/employees, and most importantly customers. Sales really is tough and you have to be comfortable with rejection over and over. Don’t underestimate the skills required to do this well and appreciate those individuals that have them.
10. You don’t like change. Your first idea, no matter how brilliant, probably isn’t right. As you collect data and reach milestones, you’ll have to adjust your strategy accordingly or face extinction. As William Faulkner said, “You have to be willing to kill your darlings”, which means you be ready to let your ideal vision go based on the data. Randy Komisar has a great book dealing with this very issue called Getting to Plan B – watch a short video here.

Now this list is not meant to discourage but rather add a dash of healthy skepticism to your enthusiasm or a potential business partner. (This list is based in part on my experiences of being involved in start-ups and researching early stage ventures.)