Talented people often end up in corporate jobs because they can't find the right co-founders outside major startup hubs. Eric Siu explains how Entrepreneur First was built to solve this problem by connecting potential founders.
there were tons of people who would be great entrepreneurs who were getting sucked into corporate careers that they didn't love, like climbing ladders in jobs that were not actually satisfying them, trying to make their boss look good year after year to get a bigger bonus. And it struck us that there was a huge waste of talent. And so we really tried to dive into what is driving that? Why don't these people start companies? And the thing we came up with as the number one blocker was that if you're not in a major startup ecosystem and therefore starting a company is a really weird thing where you are, the chances of you having the right co-founder in your network, someone who's as talented as you are, as ambitious, as committed and ready to go now, are just really low. And so does that mean those people just shouldn't start companies? Sorry, you don't have that person. That sort of was conventional wisdom at the time. And our thesis was, What if you could build the best place in the world to find a co-founder? And that's what Entrepreneur First is, I hope.
