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Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

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Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#131

Post by nostrademons »

qznc wrote: post #126

> if you spend all your time trying to sell what nobody wants, it will never become something people want As an engineer, I agree. However, I follow Scott Adams blogging about Trump and I am starting to think different. Currently Trump is trying to sell something nobody wants (himself as president) and he seems to able to change people so they want him. If he really becomes president, I cannot ignore the fact that Ad…

Let's see the outcome of the election before we use Trump as an example that flouts the common wisdom, and also use data instead of perceptions. The total popular vote counts [1] for each of the major candidates in the primary were:

  Clinton - 15.7M
  Trump - 13.3M
  Sanders - 12M
  Cruz - 7.6M
  Rubio - 3.5M
  Kasich - 4.2M
Note that the top vote-getter of the primaries - Hillary Clinton - has received votes from only 5% of American citizens. By contrast, Barack Obama received 69.4M votes in the general election of 2008. The primaries are relative side-shows in American politics; they bring out the most militant voters, which is why a very polarizing strategy like Trump has followed tends to work well. But a candidate that alienates too many voters in the primaries still has to reckon with the fact that 95% of the electorate did not vote for them.

It's also not true that Trump is selling something nobody wants - it's pretty clear that at least 13M people do want it. For a startup, that would be plenty for a beachhead. For an election, you still have to win over another 100M.

[1] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/repub...

Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#132

Post by qznc »

nostrademons wrote: post #131
qznc wrote: post #126

> if you spend all your time trying to sell what nobody wants, it will never become something people want As an engineer, I agree. However, I follow Scott Adams blogging about Trump and I am starting to think different. Currently Trump is trying to sell something nobody wants (himself as president) and he seems to able to change people so they want him. If he really becomes president, I cannot ignore the fact that Ad…

Let's see the outcome of the election before we use Trump as an example that flouts the common wisdom, and also use data instead of perceptions. The total popular vote counts [1] for each of the major candidates in the primary were: Clinton - 15.7M Trump - 13.3M Sanders - 12M Cruz - 7.6M Rubio - 3.5M Kasich - 4.2M Note that the top vote-getter of the primaries - Hillary Clinton - has received votes from only 5% of Am…

Adams is not talking much about the polarizing strategy of Trump. Polarization is just a hack to get attention. The interesting part is to use the attention to make people dislike your opponent/competition and like you more.

Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#133

Post by outworlder »

jl wrote: post #111
outworlder wrote: post #107

Overall, I found the reading very enjoyable. And down to earth, which is refreshing. Until this part, that is: > And you know where the founders of these big winners are going to come from? From this room! Not sure how to view this part. On one hand, of course she's right. If no "unicorns" ever came from YC, they wouldn't be around still. But it seems to imply that all founders that are going to be wildly successful…

I was giving a talk to 800+ women (most of whom were not affiliated with YC in any way) who attended the Female Founders Conference last April in SF. A majority of them have already started a startup, so of course I'm hoping they will become successful someday.

Thanks for the context and taking the time to answer.

I took the time of watching the talk, not just read the transcript. Came up with a completely different impression. They really needed some words of encouragement after the meat of the talk.

As the sibling comment says, I've indeed over-analyzed it. My apologies.

Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#134

Post by vonnik »

This is a great talk. While most of Jessica's advice is spot on for many startups, there are some special cases, namely enterprise software.

Once an enterprise software startup has built its product, or even 70% of its product, you have to go to conferences. Conferences are where you meet your users, and enterprise software users and buyers are a hard group to target otherwise. Marketing and top-of-the-funnel sales happen there. Conferences are also the places you gather intel about the rest of the industry to get a read on where it's moving and if you're aligned with it. So the question for enterprise software startups is: How do you select the most important conferences and pay as little as possible to attend?

Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#135

Post by eye2sky »

kingnothing wrote: post #62
kayhi wrote: post #46

"The best metric to choose is good old fashioned revenue." The best metric to choose is good old fashioned profit. I appreciate that growth can be hindered by making a profit, but isn't that what matters in the end? Amazon, Twitter, Box and many other public tech companies went public without turning a profit so it seems I'm wrong.

Amazon still doesn't turn a profit. Neither does Salesforce. Their measures are pure revenue / growth.

Not true. AMZN had positive net income for the last 4 fiscal quarters. Also for fiscal 2015, and fiscal 2013 (but not 2014).

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AMZN

Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#136

Post by logingone »

castis wrote: post #119
hordeallergy wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That link is the weakest possible support. The previous poster is correct. Look elsewhere.

Incorrect, the weakest possible support would have been me just backing up the idea with my own words, which is not what happened. If you need further proof then that is your burden, not mine.

I think that would have been an absence of support.

Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#137

Post by lighttower »

ajessup wrote: post #14

It would be wonderful if these sorts of articles (which efficiently generalize advice based on thousands of data points) could back their assertions up with a few telling case studies. It's often too easy to nod sagely at advice like "don't loose focus" but not actually recognize the pathology in ourselves in our day to day lives.

There is something to examples. Makes it much more memorable and yes recognizable in the moment you need the advice

Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#138

Post by shimon »

qznc wrote: post #126

> if you spend all your time trying to sell what nobody wants, it will never become something people want As an engineer, I agree. However, I follow Scott Adams blogging about Trump and I am starting to think different. Currently Trump is trying to sell something nobody wants (himself as president) and he seems to able to change people so they want him. If he really becomes president, I cannot ignore the fact that Ad…

Without getting into the political situation, what makes you think nobody wants Trump as president?

Clearly enough people wanted him over the other Republican candidates for him to win most of the primaries. What definition of "something people want" is he not meeting?

I ask because this smells like denial. How can you say nobody wants Trump if many are voting for him? How can you say nobody wants [insert crummy-sounding product here] if they're buying tons of it?

Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#139

Post by ScottBurson »

cardine wrote: post #83
S4M wrote: post #64

So networking, "grabbing coffee" with investors and talking to potential acquirers are a waste of time, yet YC insists that startups go to one of the most expensive place in the world just because it's more convenient to to those three things.

I love being in the middle of nowhere (relative to Silicon Valley) for that reason. It makes each of these very accurate points so much easier to attain. It's easier to make something people want because the people I spend my time talking to every day are my team and my customers. With all of the time spent talking to my customers I am incredibly in tune to exactly what they want. It's easier to stay focused because…

Where are you?

Re: Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

#140

Post by shimon »

birken wrote: post #109
akg_67 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The networking is the personal insurance policy by your cofounders against startup failure. The people connections built during networking events will land these cofounders leadership/management positions at other companies if and when startup fails instead of being unemployable or starting at the bottom. The founders, typically technical co-founders, that don't network has no such insurance in place and tend to go b…

The problem with this line of thinking is that smart companies: 1) Aren't going to hire somebody for a leadership position because they met them networking --- they are going to hire them based on merit 2) The people in charge of smart companies aren't at networking events because networking events are a waste of time Startups are a way to "level up" your career only because you can skip years of moving up a corporat…

Being good at your job is very important, but ignoring networking is something you do at your own peril.

This doesn't mean "you should go to lots of networking events" -- many of those are a waste of time. But you should build relationships with people, because relationships are a massive influence on hiring, even at smart companies. Also, relationships give you ways to experiment with new projects, learn stuff, and test your own ideas.

Lots of people ignore this and do good work, but don't get recognized. Others do average work, but have powerful networks and advance strongly in their careers. While I favor meritocratic hiring, it isn't wise to advise people that networking is irrelevant.

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