Entrepreneurs & Social Status

Quoting from Paul Graham's paulgraham.com-

18. You Get No Respect

There was one surprise founders mentioned that I'd forgotten about: that outside the startup world, startup founders get no respect.

In social settings, I found that I got a lot more respect when I said, "I worked on Microsoft Office" instead of "I work at a small startup you've never heard of called x." ​

Partly this is because the rest of the world just doesn't get startups, and partly it's yet another consequence of the fact that most good startup ideas seem bad:

If you pitch your idea to a random person, 95% of the time you'll find the person instinctively thinks the idea will be a flop and you're wasting your time (although they probably won't say this directly). ​

Unfortunately this extends even to dating:

It surprised me that being a startup founder does not get you more admiration from women. ​

I did know about that, but I'd forgotten.

Unfortunately, that is true in all parts of the world. As a startup owner, I've experienced the same and my friendly suggestion to all the wannabe entrepreneurs is that they should think of this if they are thinking of quitting their jobs and starting a venture.

People will recognize you as 'talented' , 'smart' , 'important' person if you tell them you work for INFOSYS, WIPRO, SATYAM, ABB, HP etc. and have had an onsite trip. But even when you tell that you're a CEO/CTO/Design Chief of a startup; they'll not be impressed, no matter how intelligent, smart and important you actually are. People recognize brands you work for, not you - the individual.

I found it difficult to digest this fact in the initial days. I'd proudly tell people about my venture and they'd say, "There are plenty of job openings in Cognizant. You can easily get hired.....". It's a huge kick on your ego; but it's a part of being an entrepreneur.

Any entrepreneurs here who'd like to share their experience?