Not getting it in writing. It doesn't have to be a long drawn out contract, just a short email explaining what the agreement is. Even amongst friends, you will never regret having an email stating your agreement.
Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
21–30 of 102 posts
Re: Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
#22I think this is in terms of startup mistakes, seeing as how "life mistakes" could start an entirely new forum all together. Here are my top 3: 1. Wasting money on a legal entity. If you're not making money, you cannot be sued. Wait until you make money or have someone willing to give you money before you waste money on protecting yourself. 2. Bad business partners. Judge your partners not by how much you like them bu…
Your #1 item is dangerously wrong. If you're not making money you can still be sued for personal assets (house, car, etc); and if you don't have those, you can be sued for debt.
I'm baffled as to how he could actually believe that. Also, the cost of forming an LLC to insulate yourself against that is trivial.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
#23Compromising the long-term product vision for short-term gains.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
#24Given up to early.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
#25havent dared to make enough mistakes yet
Be brave! I wanna hear some horror stories! :D
Re: Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
#26startup-wise: 1. working as employee #6 at a startup in boston instead of google in 2001. 2. working as employee #6 at a startup in SF instead of youtube in 2005. whoops!
I feel for you, dude...I hope there's no number 3 next time someone asks you this question.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
#271. Not majoring in computer science the first time I quit my physics major. If you like something, don't stay away from it for silly reasons (like thinking that school will make you un-like it). 2. Not knowing the difference between profitability and traction when I was looking at startups to work for. I spent 2 years at a relatively low-growth startup because I thought that its profits meant it was successful, when…
You do realise that nowdothis has a better gui than yours, right? Given the two services, I'd pick theirs.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
#28.Getting a degree. Honestly, I didn't need it. Contentious subject I know, but from the Hacker perspective, I have always relied on self learning in concentrated bursts to get me through - want a thorough understanding of TCP/IP? Spend 3 weekends going through the documentation and then playing around. Not 6 months in rigidly structured classes with no leeway for progression above and beyond what is in the curriculum…
I can understand this sentiment, but from my experience a lot of the value from doing a degree isn't from what you learn in class.
For me, the biggest value came from meeting other like minded people and being exposed to brand new concepts.
There's also value in learning how to finish things. I can understand that people drop out (for many reasons) and that's fine, but I think it's important to learn how to finish things off.
Although, knowing when to bail is probably also just as important. :)
Re: Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
#29I applied for a job at Lycos around 1997. I passed the simple phone interviews and they scheduled an in-person interview. My wife did not want to make the move it would take so I cancelled the interview. We still live in San Diego, I feel if I was up in a more exciting environment I could have done better.
I instead joined this one startup of sorts, worked literally 15+ hour days including Saturdays. Unfortunately it hit a rough patch and they could only afford one programmer and I wasn't it. So the other guy now is making around 15k a month now. They hired me back but I make about a 3rd of that. The system generates about 50k a month in free cash flow and I built all of the fundamentals of the system.
Re: Ask HN: What has been your biggest mistake?
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Football meaning soccer or american gridiron? I played the latter and the injuries I took affect me to this day. Back in the day, nobody mentioned the 100% injury rate - i.e. anyone who plays football will eventually get hurt bad enough they can't play. Thus, as I type this from bed, because one of my slipped discs has acted up, I have the opposite opinion - playing football was one of the biggest mistakes I've ever…
Almost every sport has a 100% injury rate where you eventually get hurt bad enough you can't play anymore. The trick is choosing a sport where the most common injuries prevent you from playing the sport but don't prevent you from walking. A good percentage of swimmers eventually develop shoulder injuries, but (AFAIK) that doesn't prevent you from doing anything except swimming.
That sounds kind of silly. OK, life has a high risk of death, but if sports really are that unhealthy, why pursue them?