Stop Building Your Startup —The Economy Doesn’t Actually Need It
Back when I was a middle schooler in the early 2000s, my home economics teacher gave me an assignment: research the career I wanted to pursue as an adult. This was before Wikipedia, wifi, and iPhones so access to knowledge was way more limited than it is today. If there wasn’t a book about a particular topic at the library, there really wasn’t a good way to learn about it.
I told my teacher I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I loved hosting rummage sales for my parents and during the 8th grade I came up with a brilliant scheme to sell my Halloween candy for a quarter in between class periods. I even carried a “business kit” around with me. I furnished it from a cardboard box with a handle and filled it with books about how to start a business.
My teacher didn’t know what an entrepreneur was. She was old and it wasn’t in vogue like it is today. I’d wager most people who grew up in manufacturing and farm towns like I did didn’t know what an entrepreneur was either.
So she offered me a book to read about the next best thing she could find — hot dog vending in New York City. While my classmates were off researching how to become doctors, lawyers, and engineers, I spent my time planning a career around how to become a street vendor.
