How To Find A Market For Your New Company, Family Edition

I was at a conference last weekend with a lot of non-tech entrepreneurs.  It can be refreshing to get outside the valley and into a pool with different kinds of fish.  It was a lot of fun.

My favorite question to ask new people was: How did you get into your business?

Now, these guys do things like importing soy sauce and related goods from Asia, or designing and manufacturing green buildings all across the US.  It's really quite varied.

Most folks said they got into their industry because of someone in their family.

That's pretty cool if you sit down and think about it.  It's a pretty robust way to allocate human capital in a distributed way.  I doubt many journalists are telling their kids to go into journalism, but I'd bet most energy scientists are thinking that their offspring should consider following in their footsteps.

It seems slow as a mechanism of action, but probably only to those in highly volatile industries like high tech.  On the grand scale of things it's probably about right in terms of balancing too fast with too slow.

And your family members can train you.

How many of your friends in real estate got into it because someone in their family showed them the ropes?  Right.

Same thing with teaching.  We have several public school teachers in my family.  The ones in the business show the new entrants how to get certification, how to find a good job, what to expect, and so on.

My dad buys and sells used truck and heavy construction equipment.  He got into the business thirty years ago because that's what my mom's dad was doing.

This is an amazing system!!

This doesn't seem to happen as much in high tech.  We're certainly in a new field that hasn't had a lot of time to replicate through families.  I know that Trip Adler, the founder of Scribd, was born to a doctor who started a company that later became public.

Topher Conway just started working with his dad, Ron Conway, who is the most prolific angel investor in the world.

So if you're looking for the next step in your career, look around you at your close friends and family.  They're the ones who will give you the honest and informed skinny, and they'll be the most likely to help you out along the way.

How about you?  Do you know anyone who has entered a career because of a family member or close friend?  Let me know in the comments!

Editor's note: I still intend on wrapping up my series on hiring soon.  Also, more ways MIT didn't prepare me for startups are on the way!  Subscribe via RSS to stay in touch!

Comments

[Marissa]

not to belittle your point but it seems really obvious. For centuries people have been following in their parents footsteps to the point of forcing them to do so within the caste system. It's only in the last 150 odd years or so that many people have even had a choice in what their profession would be and could choose to go beyond their familial and familiar realms.

[Adam Smith]

yes, that's true Marissa! I've been thinking lately with a "capital allocation" hat on after reading Warren Buffet's quote about how he's so lucky to be living in a time when allocating capital is a lucrative job.

...if only there were some way to get in the middle of that allocation step and capture some of the wealth. maybe a "this is what you should do with your career" service.....interesting..

THANKS for the comment!!!