Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 56 posts

Re: Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

#21

Post by missedthecue »

smt88 wrote: post #6

This is like asking, "What was the point of buying a lottery ticket?" For most people, the point is having a chance at being wealthy. Most founders believe they have a 90-100% chance of success, even though it's more like 0.01%. Some others may start companies in order to get out of a painful career track or because they want to understand the process or some other ancillary reason, and they'll get more value out of…

I think you are misreading the title. He's asking what the turning point was that lead to failure, not what the idea behind failing was.

Re: Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

#22

Post by jlbnjmn »

lisper wrote: post #10

> the need to compare crashed planes to the survivors As someone who is both a pilot and a "survivor" of three failed startups (and a coattail-rider at one successful one), this is the wrong analogy. The reason it's the wrong analogy is that most airplanes don't crash, but most startups do. This makes a big difference. The reason that it is possible to make reliable aircraft but not reliable startups is that the succ…

The analogy comes from aircraft surviving combat, as opposed to general aviation, although I'm not sure that's enough to overcome the flaw you've pointed out.

One thing I disagree on is the failure rate. Surely the failure rate of all businesses is skewed by restaurants and the self employed.

It seems like building a $1B+ startup is as you say, but what about building a $1M-$10M startup?

Re: Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

#23

Post by jlbnjmn »

Dumblydorr wrote: post #8

The value of mentioning survivor bias and selection bias is to highlight that we listen to those who made it because they have wealth and influence and we want or are interested by that. There is no way to prove founders are more talented or wise than failed founders because it's impossible to disentangle luck and chance from their talent, though they would tell you luck favors the well prepared. One great source of…

> serial entrepreneurs

That is who I'm looking for.

If the odds of success are less than 10%, then it would seem to follow that the thoughts on success by single or several failure individuals would suffer from a similar bias as the survivors.

Basically, who actually kept trying long enough to disprove the hypothesis that's it's all about experimenting until you find something that works really well, and then growing it as fast as you can?

Re: Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

#24

Post by jlbnjmn »

smt88 wrote: post #6

This is like asking, "What was the point of buying a lottery ticket?" For most people, the point is having a chance at being wealthy. Most founders believe they have a 90-100% chance of success, even though it's more like 0.01%. Some others may start companies in order to get out of a painful career track or because they want to understand the process or some other ancillary reason, and they'll get more value out of…

Sorry, the title was vague.

More specifically the question is "what were the specific, direct causes of failure?"

"My car broke down" vs. "the alternator went out so my battery died and my car wouldn't start".

Re: Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

#25

Post by radihuq »

jlbnjmn wrote: post #18
radihuq wrote: post #13

I started my first company last year, and it crashed & died in 5 months. The point of failure was when I burnt out and ran out of money in month 5. Looking back, the venture was doomed from the beginning. I think it was due to a lack of structure: * No daily routines to take care of my physical & mental health (working 0-16 hrs a day on 3 coffees is not good haha) * No systems in place to socialize (sometimes I'd go…

Thank you for sharing this. It sounded a bit too familiar. I've spent the past 3 months developing daily fitness habits but I've got nothing and no ideas on social habits. As for work boundaries, I just started experimenting with a hard 2pm cutoff for "future work". I'm curious to see the impact.

That's awesome to hear, I hope its going well!

For social habits, the mindset that I'm adopting is that its a necessary factor to perform at a high level. I've observed, especially recently, that my confidence and mood shoots out the roof when I regularly socialize.

I think the approach for me is to treat it like exercising: it won't help me type faster or solve that bug, but it will enhance my mood and confidence which is a huge competitive advantage over the long run.

I'm going to try finding a mastermind group[0] (or just creating one) and literally set time aside in my calendar for socializing. Lets see how that goes.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOGLQEN38ZQ

Re: Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

#26

Post by jlbnjmn »

petewailes wrote: post #5

Marketer and 7 time company founder/C-suite member. Every time a company fails, it's a function of one of two things: 1. A lack of a product people will pay for, reliably delivered in a way they're willing to accept. If people won't buy your thing, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. 2. Poor financial acumen leading to costs being higher than turnover. Unless a business actually turns a net profit, it's not…

Would I be simplifying too much to say the cause of failure was, in all cases, "a failure to economically supply demand"?

Re: Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

#27

Post by jlbnjmn »

mindvirus wrote: post #15
mmcconnell1618 wrote: post #7

Built a e-commerce platform company in 2002. Packaged software sales model with designers and web hosting companies as the sales channel. Reasonably successful for more than 10 years but I call it a "vampire start up." I had enough income to eat and hire a few people but never hit the right growth numbers. Also, small business is just as demanding as Enterprise customers for features and support but doesn't have the…

My econ prof always said that moderate success is the worst outcome for entrepreneurs - failure means you can do something else and learn, and massive success means you are rich, but moderate success can trap you for years.

I think the same applies to careers, at least for me.

The worst outcome is a moderately good job. A bad job you can quit, a great job you can retire from, but a moderately good job is slow speed entropy with a gradually narrowing window of opportunity.

Re: Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

#29

Post by jlbnjmn »

radihuq wrote: post #25
jlbnjmn wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for sharing this. It sounded a bit too familiar. I've spent the past 3 months developing daily fitness habits but I've got nothing and no ideas on social habits. As for work boundaries, I just started experimenting with a hard 2pm cutoff for "future work". I'm curious to see the impact.

That's awesome to hear, I hope its going well! For social habits, the mindset that I'm adopting is that its a necessary factor to perform at a high level. I've observed, especially recently, that my confidence and mood shoots out the roof when I regularly socialize. I think the approach for me is to treat it like exercising: it won't help me type faster or solve that bug, but it will enhance my mood and confidence wh…

I like the intro bit "we build real businesses for real customers who pay us real money" from the video you linked.

The term master mind has been a bit off-putting to me, but it seems like scheduled social time is a solid step in the right direction.

Thanks.

Re: Ask HN: Crashed founders, what was the point of failure?

#30

Post by petewailes »

jlbnjmn wrote: post #26
petewailes wrote: post #5

Marketer and 7 time company founder/C-suite member. Every time a company fails, it's a function of one of two things: 1. A lack of a product people will pay for, reliably delivered in a way they're willing to accept. If people won't buy your thing, you don't have a business, you have a hobby. 2. Poor financial acumen leading to costs being higher than turnover. Unless a business actually turns a net profit, it's not…

Would I be simplifying too much to say the cause of failure was, in all cases, "a failure to economically supply demand"?

To simplify too much, yes.

Firstly, demand is not always a given. Sometimes it's built in to a market, other times it needs to be created. Other times, there's demand but no known solution if your work is novel, so you need to educate the market as to the benefits of your solution and to win trust in it.

Also, it's entirely possible to supply a product which meets a demand at good unit economics but fail because of other issues - recession, international political issues, governmental pressure, societal or social issues...

Finally, you need a market to be willing to accept a solution. It's entirely possible to have a better product, but lose the Comms/trust game in a winner takes all market situation.

Failure can come through issues in any of about nine different areas, but it always boils down to an issue in profitability or marketing. How that's expressed can take lots of forms. Hence you can simplify that far, and no further.

Post reply on HN