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Ask HN: How transparent should your startup be?

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Re: Ask HN: How transparent should your startup be?

#11

Post by kevjordan »

mindcrime wrote: post #7

We try to be pretty transparent in most things at Fogbeam. We actually consider our small size a selling point, and it dovetails with our strategy vis-a-vis The Discipline of Market Leaders [1], which is to focus on customer intimacy. When I talk to prospects, I emphasize that, since we're small, we will be very responsive to their needs, and that they get access to the highest levels of the company in a way they nev…

It depends are your target market. We went with a similar service based approach, but a few potential clients were worried that we may not be around in a few years.

Re: Ask HN: How transparent should your startup be?

#12

Post by debacle »

bike_index wrote: post #10
debacle wrote: post #9

If you are that interested in honesty, why don't you open up the bike index database for download so that, when you do seek investment, people can fork your product if they desire?

User privacy, giving out all of our user's emails for instance would be dishonest since it would completely violate all of our promises to them. And why would us seeking investment lead to someone wanting to fork the Index?

Because maybe they're not interested in your monetization strategy. It seems disingenuous to pretend to be about honesty and openness when the only value to any investor down the road would be the size and targeted nature of your user database.

Re: Ask HN: How transparent should your startup be?

#13

Post by mindcrime »

kevjordan wrote: post #11
mindcrime wrote: post #7

We try to be pretty transparent in most things at Fogbeam. We actually consider our small size a selling point, and it dovetails with our strategy vis-a-vis The Discipline of Market Leaders [1], which is to focus on customer intimacy. When I talk to prospects, I emphasize that, since we're small, we will be very responsive to their needs, and that they get access to the highest levels of the company in a way they nev…

It depends are your target market. We went with a similar service based approach, but a few potential clients were worried that we may not be around in a few years.

That's true. Hence the old saw about how "you can't be everything to everybody". In our case, the gamble we're making, is that the market of companies who will work with a smaller company and appreciate the extra attention and intimacy, is big enough to support us (at least in the early days).

It may not work out, but I guess only time will tell.

Re: Ask HN: How transparent should your startup be?

#14

Post by chatmasta »

Risks of transparency:

- sharing roadmap, gaining support for it, then changing your mind or failing to meet deadlines ("never promise what you can't deliver")

- sharing roadmap, gaining support, then having better-funded/faster-moving competitors steal it

I see a lot of advantages as well, but those are the two biggest risks in my eyes.

Re: Ask HN: How transparent should your startup be?

#15

Post by bike_index »

debacle wrote: post #12
bike_index wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

User privacy, giving out all of our user's emails for instance would be dishonest since it would completely violate all of our promises to them. And why would us seeking investment lead to someone wanting to fork the Index?

Because maybe they're not interested in your monetization strategy. It seems disingenuous to pretend to be about honesty and openness when the only value to any investor down the road would be the size and targeted nature of your user database.

We aren't "pretending" to care about honesty and openness, we actually do.

Selling users isn't the only way to make money.

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