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Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

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Re: Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

#51

Post by Ma8ee »

taneq wrote: post #47
bsder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Start a small company. "Hustle" diligently for a while. Profit. Repeat. Now you have a large, successful company. And, also, survivor bias. Lots of companies hustled and hustled and died. Elon Musk is a really good example. At one point he couldn't meet cashflow--and then the government contract for SpaceX finally came in. 3 months of delay on that contract and Musk is a goat instead of a hero.

This one drives me crazy. Sure, you have to be good and smart and you have to hustle, but you also have to be lucky, and luck is a bigger factor than anyone likes to admit. People who make it big forget the luck aspect and start believing that because it worked, they did everything right. They then go around dispensing questionable advice on the basis of 'it worked for them' while knowing full well that they're a mas…

Of course luck is important. Elon Musk wouldn't be where he is today without at least some luck. On the other hand, a lot of people have had much more luck and opportunities than Musk and still didn't go nowhere. And the people with the drive and capacity of Musk who didn't get lucky are almost all still quite successful.

Re: Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

#52

Post by 1_listerine_pls »

anthonygore wrote: post #31

The problem with articles and discussions like this is that the "markers of success" pointed out may all be true, but incidental. Take Slack as an example. Yes, it was a simple idea with low product surface area and easily protypeable etc etc. But other people had built Slack-like products before that met the all those same criteria and were not successful. The critical factors for Slack were the connections the foun…

> other people had built Slack-like products before that met the all those same criteria and were not successful.

Which ones?

Just because something is similar doesn't mean it nails the features people need, however simple they may be.

Re: Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

#53

Post by otto_ortega »

It seems the best kind of startups to create this days are about teaching other people how to start a startup! Take the OP "nugget", "The Foundation" (Dane Maxwell), "The Secret Society Mastermind" (Timothy Marc), etc, etc... It's a pattern better explained on this comic:

http://thegentlemansarmchair.com/comic/escape-the-9-to-5/

As someone who is currently on the process of trying to find his "Own Little Snowball" and has sent over 500 emails on the last couple of weeks trying to interview people to find that "one-thing" to do well.

I have to say that the whole process of funding an startup has come to be oversimplified by most trying to talk about it, they present it on a nice little set of steps from A to B and from B to C.

But once you get started trying to follow the path, you notice the "magic" happens on what's in between the steps, and that's something nobody talks about.

Re: Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

#54

Post by dasil003 »

taneq wrote: post #47
bsder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Start a small company. "Hustle" diligently for a while. Profit. Repeat. Now you have a large, successful company. And, also, survivor bias. Lots of companies hustled and hustled and died. Elon Musk is a really good example. At one point he couldn't meet cashflow--and then the government contract for SpaceX finally came in. 3 months of delay on that contract and Musk is a goat instead of a hero.

This one drives me crazy. Sure, you have to be good and smart and you have to hustle, but you also have to be lucky, and luck is a bigger factor than anyone likes to admit. People who make it big forget the luck aspect and start believing that because it worked, they did everything right. They then go around dispensing questionable advice on the basis of 'it worked for them' while knowing full well that they're a mas…

I agree with you, but there's a valid psychological reason that people don't admit to being lucky more often. It's because to maximize your chance of success you have to focus on what you can control. Sitting around and looking at others to try to dissect what was luck vs skill is a sort of armchair criticism where the practitioner is immune to failure by virtue of not even trying. Ultimately the question of luck is so subjective that it starts to become philosophical at some point. After all, so many small things happen via day-to-day serendipity that anything that actually happens can be considered incredibly lucky. On the other hand, one has a lot of agency when it comes to building a company, and the art of building a startup is about matching incredibly limited resources to the highest return activities, and ratcheting that over and over again through years of changing circumstances. All the luck in the world won't drop an Instagram-like success in your lap without just the right preparation leading up to that amazing moment.

In short, it's not that luck isn't super important, but if you are thinking about luck then you probably won't be ready to capitalize on it.

Re: Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

#56

Post by ktRolster »

bsder wrote: post #11
pjlegato wrote: post #4

This is somewhat interesting, but relies on the all too common tautological device of "hustle," a quasi-magical activity whose details are usually elided over. Start a small company. "Hustle" diligently for a while. Profit. Repeat. Now you have a large, successful company. What makes a successful company? "Hustle." What is "hustle"? Why, it just means "working hard at doing all the things that make a company successf…

> Start a small company. "Hustle" diligently for a while. Profit. Repeat. Now you have a large, successful company. And, also, survivor bias. Lots of companies hustled and hustled and died. Elon Musk is a really good example. At one point he couldn't meet cashflow--and then the government contract for SpaceX finally came in. 3 months of delay on that contract and Musk is a goat instead of a hero.

Elon had a backup plan....if the government couldn't step in, then Google was ready to fund him.

Re: Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

#57

Post by ktRolster »

andy_ppp wrote: post #32

I have this magical formula for building a startup that is 100% guaranteed to work, but no-one discusses. - Do something illegal, then lobby for your rights! - DDOS your competition - Be evil - Ignore regulations designed to protect your workforce (often referred to as 'partners', hah!) - Tell everyone you have a special insight in making successful startups - something to do with 'hustle' and 'product market fit' -…

Another business plan that can be very profitable:

- Build something rather generic, mediocre, but serviceable

- Donate a lot to politician campaigns

- Enthusiastically explain how great it would be if people (or a certain segment of people) were required to use a product with certain requirements

- Your product somehow is the only on that matches those requirements

Re: Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

#58

Post by continuational »

Clobbersmith wrote: post #43
anthonygore wrote: post #31

The problem with articles and discussions like this is that the "markers of success" pointed out may all be true, but incidental. Take Slack as an example. Yes, it was a simple idea with low product surface area and easily protypeable etc etc. But other people had built Slack-like products before that met the all those same criteria and were not successful. The critical factors for Slack were the connections the foun…

Slack also has an amazing UX, I haven't used a competing product that was as enjoyable to use. Yes I know this is subjective, but of the people I know that like Slack actually love it. Whereas I've never met somebody that loves HipChat.

I'm not fond of the Slack UI.

First of all I don't want to talk to "@jjm", I want to talk to John Jameson. Why can't it show me the full, human name?

Second, chat is basically the hello world of push based apps, but any other update, like renaming channels, editing documents etc. aren't real time. I have to close the app and reopen it to see the update. Come on!

Third, the document feature is not multiplayer. You have to lock the document in order to edit it. And for todo lists, you can't even tick off a box without locking the whole document.

Re: Don't Start Big, Start a Little Snowball

#59

Post by bsandert »

taneq wrote: post #47
bsder wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Start a small company. "Hustle" diligently for a while. Profit. Repeat. Now you have a large, successful company. And, also, survivor bias. Lots of companies hustled and hustled and died. Elon Musk is a really good example. At one point he couldn't meet cashflow--and then the government contract for SpaceX finally came in. 3 months of delay on that contract and Musk is a goat instead of a hero.

This one drives me crazy. Sure, you have to be good and smart and you have to hustle, but you also have to be lucky, and luck is a bigger factor than anyone likes to admit. People who make it big forget the luck aspect and start believing that because it worked, they did everything right. They then go around dispensing questionable advice on the basis of 'it worked for them' while knowing full well that they're a mas…

While luck isn't something you can completely control, it doesn't have to be entirely random either. I read this article a while back talking about a "luck surface area"[0], which you can expand, increasing your odds of being "lucky" in the future.

[0]: http://www.codusoperandi.com/posts/increasing-your-luck-surf...

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