A link to the product page (Basis) would be helpful to give context. Sounds like a lot of advice veers toward enterprise sales.
http://www.binomial.info - Basis appears to be a GPU agnostic texture compression product
Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
11–20 of 69 posts
Re: Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
#12Great read. They do direct sales with each contract individually negotiated and high prices. More common approach for small companies is to avoid such negotiations and sell packaged software at fixed and lower prices but aim for higher volume.
Re: Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
#13You missed the most important part: Keep your sanity. Trying to get funding is described as "soul sucking" even by Paul Graham and in our experience this is a startup killing move. Very few people talk about mental health for entrepreneurs and for us the most challenging times was talking to investors. If a constant stream of people told you, your business was not worth spending time or money, after how many rejectio…
This is a post about self funded startups. One bullet point explicitly calls out not getting involved with investors.
Re: Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
#14Quite a few of the advices can be summarized to:
Say "no" when something feels wrong.
This implies that you can say "no"
- emotionally (you don't feel bad about it and you don't fear missing out)
- economically (you don't need that money)
Source: I've committed all three types of errors
Re: Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
#15A link to the product page (Basis) would be helpful to give context. Sounds like a lot of advice veers toward enterprise sales.
He does say "middleware" a couple hundred times in the article. Most of his sales advice doesn't apply to off the shelf consumer software.
Doesn't mean the article doesn't look insightful though.
Re: Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
#16You missed the most important part: Keep your sanity. Trying to get funding is described as "soul sucking" even by Paul Graham and in our experience this is a startup killing move. Very few people talk about mental health for entrepreneurs and for us the most challenging times was talking to investors. If a constant stream of people told you, your business was not worth spending time or money, after how many rejectio…
Exactly; you are referring to survivorship bias - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
They need another catchy phrase to reply to this, along the lines of "if you never try, there's nothing to survive". Survivorship Bias is at the top of the list of "reasons not to try", and it's a shame to see it dragged out every time you see a success story.
The thing I live on today was Job Quittin' Sideproject #5. The first four died without ever letting me quit any jobs. Is #5 "survivorship"? Or is it "persistance"?
Let's say the chance of getting a business working, even for a smart guy, is only 10%. Does that mean you shouldn't try? Or does that mean it will take on average half a dozen attempts to make it work?
I like to think it's the latter.
Here's a bit that I wrote about all this a week or so ago:
http://www.expatsoftware.com/Articles/what-if-your-bootstrap...
Re: Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
#17You missed the most important part: Keep your sanity. Trying to get funding is described as "soul sucking" even by Paul Graham and in our experience this is a startup killing move. Very few people talk about mental health for entrepreneurs and for us the most challenging times was talking to investors. If a constant stream of people told you, your business was not worth spending time or money, after how many rejectio…
> but how often do we stop to talk about those that failed?
The failures of VC-funded startups (e.g. recently Juicero, Rethinkdb, etc on HN) are discussed more often than the failures of self-funded startups.
Also, as far as I can tell, a significant number (most?) of the startups listed at autopsy.io[1] are VC-funded. In contrast, the self-funded startups that fail usually die a quiet death without discussion because they were never big enough to be mentioned in Techcrunch/Wired/Engadget/etc.
Re: Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
#18You missed the most important part: Keep your sanity. Trying to get funding is described as "soul sucking" even by Paul Graham and in our experience this is a startup killing move. Very few people talk about mental health for entrepreneurs and for us the most challenging times was talking to investors. If a constant stream of people told you, your business was not worth spending time or money, after how many rejectio…
This is a post about self funded startups. One bullet point explicitly calls out not getting involved with investors.
Even still, the point about sanity after being rejected "all over the show" is very much relevant.
I couldn't agree more that keeping your head in the game when nay sayers and sometimes downright jealous or mischievous characters get you doubting yourself. It is soul crushing.
The psychology of living in startup purgatory is where it's at.
Re: Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
#19I'm unclear about what he means by "Don't blindly sign NDAs". What are the risks, and what items to watch out for would be on the checklist my lawyer would ideally provide?
As an example, about a decade ago I was running an eLearning startup.
A more established eLearning company approached us to discuss potential partnering opportunities, and sent over their NDA. Note - I actually read NDA's and other legal docs before signing, to make sure nothing untoward or unexpected is included.
In the above case, they included non-compete clauses (without any limits) specifically so we couldn't compete with them.
Upon asking their (from memory) CEO "WTF?" he was rude/abrasive and that was the last we heard from them.
At a guess, they were just trying a cheap tactic to get leverage over us in some way.
Re: Things learned while running your own self-funded startup
#20I'm unclear about what he means by "Don't blindly sign NDAs". What are the risks, and what items to watch out for would be on the checklist my lawyer would ideally provide?
Most NDAs have two parts: non-disclosure and non-use. That means that parties won't disclose the confidential info that is shared, and they won't use that information except for the express purpose of the agreement (usually assessing a partnership or customer relationship).
One Silicon Valley company that is well-known for not having a non-use clause is Intel. This means that they can use any confidential information in their own business, in any way they desire.
It's not problematic to sign an agreement like this with another startup because they are unlikely to have the time/money to start competing with you on your home turf. But big companies can squash you like a bug if they so desire.
Other reasons to carefully review an NDA:
Make sure it's bilateral, not unilateral
Check to see how long it's in effect for — usually the parties are permitted to disclose / use the info after 2-5 years
Make sure the above clause has an exception for trade secrets that are still secret (which they should not be allowed to disclose even after the expiration)