A few years back Zynga reached massive levels of users on the Facebook platform.  Today, “Draw Something” (a mobile only game) daily active users (DAU) is nearly the combined size of Zynga’s two most popular games (CityVille and Texas Hold’em) on Facebook (PC).

The one thing I hope I can share with my son and daughter.

The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will, you know if you push in, something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That’s maybe the most important thing. It’s to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you’re just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it.  - Steve Jobs

It is easy to start a startup.  It is getting significantly harder to build a company.  The reward is not hoodies and parties.  The reward is building something sustainable, and people who want to work at startups sometimes confuse the reward they are chasing.

I’m worried that in all the hype, in all the “we launched our company” events, and “we changed our name again” parties, and “we redid our website – come celebrate!” shindigs, and the SXSW parties, and the hoodies, and everyone who is “killing it!”, that we’re losing sight a bit of the really hard work that is creating and building a business. by Seth Levine “I’m Getting Tired of this Bullshit”

The tech investment landscape has changed dramatically creating confusion for folks contemplating a career move into startups. Startups and more precisely the Silicon Valley startup ecosystem is what gives me tremendous hope and excitement for the future of America. Unfortunately, a set of four startup myths have been born leading the wrong people into a career in startups.

• Every tech company that has not IPO’ed is a startup via @hunterwalk. We made an offer to somebody and they were contrasting it to other “startup” offers from Dropbox and ZenDesk. Companies like Dropbox. AirBnB, Dropbox, ZenDesk, and Box.net are not “startups.” In many cases they are 5+ yrs old and very profitable. These companies fancy themselves startups to attract talent, but they have well established business models with revenues to protect and existing processes to work within. Don’t confuse a startup with a later stage growth company.
• Everybody loves startups. If you are working on something disruptive people will call you silly, look at you strange, or say things like “interesting concept” (i.e. you are smoking something). Most people don’t want to want to go home feeling that way and don’t have the mental fortitude to push through.
• It’s a big party: If you read TechCrunch, follow Ashton Kutcher on Twitter, or watch movies like the Social Network you’ll understandably form this idea that people at startups party a lot. Hate to break it to you, that’s not true. Most people at startups work really hard.
• It’s very safe, they raised $14M so they have lots of money - Companies that raise tons of cash also tend to burn through it, quickly.

In my next post, I’ll address why you should join a startup.