Industry expertise and decades understanding how others solve problems in your field, larger network, etc. make a successful outcome much more likely.
How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
51–60 of 62 posts
Re: How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
#52You spend half your career being told that you are too young by prospective clients and investors (I was rather astounded when we were turned down on this ground at first, rather than anything to do with the product or service, but eventually grew to accept it), and then the next half being told you are too old by the same. Ah, to be forever 34 and eight months.
Whatever reason an investor gives for turning your investment down, it's actually code for "I don't think you can pull this off."
I suspect a lot of older entrepreneurs are turned down for their age as well, but due to legal restrictions, this isn't stated outright the way it may be for a younger person.
Re: How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is what I absolutely hate about VCs. The reasons are garbage and they are actually harming by trying to be polite. There is no such thing as too young or old for startups. Why do they even care if they think your startup is going to make it? I got turned down by one VC because "they don't invest in India". My startup is registered in Delaware, I pitched him in US and I am not even Indian citizen
What was/is the startup? Reading between the snark lines it sounds like the VC thought you'd struggle to achieve your goals without resorting to cheap outsourcing
my startup is https://www.aihello.com
My aim is to replace human labour with machine learning in supply chain logistics so it would be ironic if he thought like that
Re: How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are right. The average entrepreneur could be 16 but the average successful will be around 40. I did the same mistake as you, adding as many features as possible so that users can use whatever they like. Now I think of it like adding as many wheels as possible to a car so that users can use whatever wheels they like. Keep things as simple and single functionality as possible. If you can't explain your startup in o…
Unfortunately, even some in their forties haven’t learned it yet. I had a client around 2008-2009 (he was around 40 at the time and successfully launched several companies) who wanted a website/web app which basically was doing crowdfunding and videoconferencing (plus shared board and documents) Yeah, I said basically and here we are getting a lot of functionality. I spare you the rest. Needless to say after 2 years…
So he learnt at 42 rather than at 40! ;)
Re: How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
#55You spend half your career being told that you are too young by prospective clients and investors (I was rather astounded when we were turned down on this ground at first, rather than anything to do with the product or service, but eventually grew to accept it), and then the next half being told you are too old by the same. Ah, to be forever 34 and eight months.
Whatever reason an investor gives for turning your investment down, it's actually code for "I don't think you can pull this off."
In our case it was definitely age - the number of times I’d take an older employee along to a meeting and wryly smile as they’d assume he was me was substantial. Then I grew a beard and lost a load of weight, and things changed.
I hate to say it, but it’s rarely what you do or what you say - it’s how you do it and how you look when you say it.
These days I look like a mature, sensible businessperson, but I’m still the same twelve year old jackass I always was.
Re: How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you really have to be that guy ? What he meant basically is using a relational database. Please refer to the HN guidelines before commenting. It strongly encourages to have comments that add value to the discussion.
I agree with TekMol that it's an important point. Nowadays we have new types of SQL databases emerging. Some examples: TiDB (distributed) CockroachDB (distributed) Crate (uses SQL but isn't even relational) They all use SQL. Picking between these and more established SQL databases is worthy of discussion. Heck, based on what I see on Hacker News, picking between the established ones generates a lot of discussion, usu…
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Re: How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don’t discuss which DB to use. I straight away use SQL. That is a language though, not a DB.
In the .NET / Microsoft world "SQL" has been synonymous with "Microsoft SQL Server" for years. GP could just be from that background.
Yup and if he was using PHP it'd almost certainly be MySQL. Your grizzled old Perl types would probably go with postgreSQL as an easy assumption
Re: How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
#58Previous Discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16794228
What is the threshold these days for flagging something a dupe? I clicked that expecting to see a post from, say, 5 days ago; I found one from 78 days ago.
Re: How Old Are Successful Tech Entrepreneurs?
#59Previous Discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16794228
What is the threshold these days for flagging something a dupe? I clicked that expecting to see a post from, say, 5 days ago; I found one from 78 days ago.
There seems to be a middle ground where someone posts a link to the older thread, and people upvote the current one depending on how interesting it is. Dupes aren't against site policy unless they are spam; however they do seem to offend a small minority.