Startup Cosplay

A startup cosplayer is someone who looks and acts like the kind of "entrepreneur" you would see in a movie or on Instagram. Although they may want to run a successful startup, their primary motivation for doing so is not to solve a problem, but so they can look, act, and "feel" like a startup founder. You should really be wary of people who are like this. For one, they can poison the mind. I experienced this first hand the first couple years I was in college. I went to a lot of "networking" events, where people in flashy suits talked about how much "business" they were doing. I began to associate the two in my head. To be a startup meant to have the aesthetic of a startup, and to be a founder meant taking on the persona of a startup founder. I think this gave me a lot of insecurity for a while, because my small business was easily forgotten compared to all the big cool things these startups were doing (or rather, were gonna do). But, as I met more and more founders and business owners across the startup landscape, I realized that those people were largely putting on a show. The most successful founders I met didn't look or act anything like what I've been describing. On the contrary, they were less formal, more passionate about their work, and, most importantly, kinder. I've found a good way to tell the difference between someone who is genuinely passionate about their startup, and someone who is performing startup cosplay, is by how wholeheartedly kind they are to people. I've noticed that a lot of startup cosplayers engage in "toxic positivity". You've probably seen what I'm talking about online; its the "I wake up at 2AM to start work and you should too #RiseAndGrind" type. For a time, these people really got under my skin, because from the outside, these looked like the kind of people who were really making it. But, again, most really good people who work in startups don't act like this. There are certainly a lot who wake up early and spend way too many hours working during the day, but there is a difference between having a lifestyle and projecting a lifestyle. I've also found that startup cosplayers tend to be kind in a very transactional sort of way. My favorite example of this is the ulterior-motive-lunch trick. Every few months or so, an acquaintance I've met will reach out with something along the lines of "Hey man, haven't heard from you in a while, would you be down to get lunch later this week and catch up?". When the day arrives, the conversation almost always goes along the lines of this formula: Get food → engage in small talk, maybe catch up on what they have been dong for work → "ok, so there is this thing I've been thinking of doing" → pitch about idea that they want to involve me in. Now to be fair, in isolation I think there is nothing inherently nefarious about this sort of behavior. But, you need to keep an eye on it, because if you find that the only discourse you have with someone pertains to work, they are viewing you less as a person and more as a resource.