Early Entrepreneurship vs Traditional Tech Career
What's up with these 20-something "online business" owners
In Warsaw I've been meeting many young entrepreneurs, and it got me thinking.
Quite a few 20-somethings who went straight to building online businesses, sometimes even skipping uni:
E-commerce, micro-SaaS, agency owners pulling €5-20k/month or even more
Living wherever costs are low and life quality is high; travelling when they like
Learning sales, ops, and product on the fly because "no cash-flow = no runway"
Quite nice!
Of course, it doesn't always work out.
I'm sure there's survivor bias: I mostly meet founders who made it; the rest stay hidden.
I also know many engineers who took the traditional route and are happy
Studied hard, joined Big Tech or a solid scale-up
Enjoy stable six-figure salaries, health insurance, visas, up-skilling budgets
Low personal risk, clear ladder to climb
My Take on These 2 Paths 👇
Early Entrepreneurship
Pros:
Forces you to learn only what matters (market → product → revenue)
Location freedom from day one
Cons:
High volatility; 2–3 years without substantial income is common
Classic Degree → Tech Career
Pros:
Predictable income & benefits
Company pays you to master hard skills
Cons:
Easy to hide in studies and traineeships for 4–5 years and emerge with debt and no moat
Some people have been suggesting that, after the "AI and internet revolution", the early entrepreneurship route has become more effective and promising.
I think there’s some truth to this, but I wouldn’t be sure.
One clear good feature of starting a business young? Accountability.
Entrepreneurs can’t hide: clients or users pay or they don’t.
That pressure accelerates real-world learning.
Students/employees (my past self included) can spend years “collecting certificates” with little market feedback - often financed by parents or loans.
For some, that’s safe career-building; for others, it’s expensive procrastination.
So, which path is better? There isn’t a single winner.
But whichever you choose:
Track ROI early. Time, tuition, loans, missed salary — are you getting leverage back?
Keep optionality. A coder-founder who’s shipped revenue can still return to a senior dev role. A staff engineer can bootstrap a micro-SaaS.
Stay honest. Are you learning skills buyers care about, or hiding behind busywork?
What's your experience?
If you did the full degree → corporate path, do you recommend it?
If you jumped straight into business, would you do it again?
Let me know! Curious what you’d tell a 20-year-old deciding right now :)
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