Build in public, fail in public: what it’s like to be a founder under 20 right now
Young founders under 20 are facing intense pressure to succeed quickly as they build companies in the public eye. While AI tools have lowered the barrier to entry, the expectation for rapid growth and the scrutiny of social media create a high-stakes environment for these entrepreneurs.
For Arlan Rakhmetzhanov, 19, there is no middle ground. Either he builds a company as valuable as Google, he says, or he fails and ends up on the streets. He started coding at 15 in his native Kazakhstan, completed a couple of summer programs in San Francisco, and cold-DM’ed every Y Combinator founder he could find on LinkedIn until one gave him an angel check for his first company at age 17.
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