I am not in the startup scene but why cant one of the best reason to start a company be to make more MONEY. Why is it always about changing the world and the universe needs me type of stuff. This is too SV cartoonish for me.
My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
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Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
#32I am not in the startup scene but why cant one of the best reason to start a company be to make more MONEY. Why is it always about changing the world and the universe needs me type of stuff. This is too SV cartoonish for me.
Because most employees assume money is a given, and they align with a mission instead. It is also not socially acceptable to be in something just for the money unless it is wall street.
Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
#33I am not in the startup scene but why cant one of the best reason to start a company be to make more MONEY. Why is it always about changing the world and the universe needs me type of stuff. This is too SV cartoonish for me.
Because most employees assume money is a given, and they align with a mission instead. It is also not socially acceptable to be in something just for the money unless it is wall street.
What type of mission would that be? Selling ads, gathering your private data? Can we get real please? Time to stop villianizing WS, SV is just modern day WS with more greed. ( Sometimes more useful though. )
Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
#34I am not in the startup scene but why cant one of the best reason to start a company be to make more MONEY. Why is it always about changing the world and the universe needs me type of stuff. This is too SV cartoonish for me.
Because most employees assume money is a given, and they align with a mission instead. It is also not socially acceptable to be in something just for the money unless it is wall street.
"It is also not socially acceptable to be in something just for the money unless it is wall street."
I'm not sure if I can agree with that. In general that may be true, but I would have to say most people do something they don't like 'just for the money' at some point in their life. Something like working as a kid for minimum wage in a store. It's most likely that you are just working there for money.
Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
#35I haven’t finished reading this, but what strikes me about the advice in the notes is that much of it is either contradictory or there exist counterexamples to the claims. For example, the reader is encouraged to start building, but is told you also need a good idea and that you can pivot but most good companies don’t start with a pivot. Counterexample: Slack was a pivot. We’re also instructed that you should build s…
I felt this way going through YC - sometimes different partners gave conflicting advice, and that felt confusing. It took a while for me to look back on the experience and realize it was a feature not a bug. [edit - disclosure: I was one of the presenters in this series.]
I feel like this needs a lot more elaboration :)
What’s the point of having access to a ton of great advisors if they’re constantly all telling you conflicting things? Is the answer just to go with your gut? If so, why do you need the advisors? Is it more to prime your decision making with possibilities? Or is it more for tactical execution advice once you decide on a direction? Or something else?
Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
#36I haven’t finished reading this, but what strikes me about the advice in the notes is that much of it is either contradictory or there exist counterexamples to the claims. For example, the reader is encouraged to start building, but is told you also need a good idea and that you can pivot but most good companies don’t start with a pivot. Counterexample: Slack was a pivot. We’re also instructed that you should build s…
> The problem is that there are so many blatant counterexamples and contradictory narratives that the advice ceases to be helpful. Because there's no set of instructions that will work for sure. What one needs to success with a startup is several of these: work hard, work smart, connections, piles of money, idea, marketing, good timing and luck. You can have most of them and not triumf, you can have only a pair and s…
This is a great comment.
I’m not sure marketing belongs in the list though. It’s critical but it’s a part of execution and overlaps with several other items on the list. Just stood out to me.
I’d also challenge the last paragraph. I don’t think anything on this list matters as much as working hard. Literally every single successful business owner I’ve ever known has worked their ass off, usually for many years. For me the correlation is 100%. That’s not to say it’s sufficient but it seems necessary and the most equalizing force on your list [1]
1. Although I sometimes think in our fetishization of hard work, we ignore the fact that not everyone can grind away for years on a speculative venture even if they wanted to. I know many wonderful people who just don’t have that personality. Telling them to “outwork their competition” makes as much sense as telling someone to change their favorite color or decide to love a food they hate. It’s just not how they’re wired and that’s OK.
Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
#37There's a huge amount of survivorship bias in all such lists. Startups that succeed get analyzed a lot, those that did pretty much the same things but failed don't. To be rigorous about it, you'd have to define things like what's a startup, what constitutes success, what constitutes failure, far more carefully.
That's the good thing about lists that come from VCs. They analyze both the successes and failures, as well as things like risk level. YC also does a great job of not falling into the trap of copying the last superstar.
True but huge caveat: their idea of success and the founder’s idea of success may differ wildly. If a modest exit makes the founder a few million and the VC just gets a single digit multiple, that’s not the kind of success they’re going to gravitate towards in their analysis. They may not label it a failure but they won’t be trying to identify how to replicate more of those, even if it will have changed the founder’s life and family for generations.
Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
#38I am not in the startup scene but why cant one of the best reason to start a company be to make more MONEY. Why is it always about changing the world and the universe needs me type of stuff. This is too SV cartoonish for me.
The argument against this is that founding a startup, when factoring in the incredibly low success rate, may not be the best strategy to gain money. Joining an early stage startup (with equity) that's clearly on a growth path, or even working for a Google, Facebook, etc. is a much better bet for making money.
Also, startups, where startup means creating a new unproven solution intended to achieve exponential growth, are unfathomably hard. It's hard (in my experience) to stay motivated in the face of startup hardships when one's primary objective is money.
Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
I felt this way going through YC - sometimes different partners gave conflicting advice, and that felt confusing. It took a while for me to look back on the experience and realize it was a feature not a bug. [edit - disclosure: I was one of the presenters in this series.]
I feel like this needs a lot more elaboration :) What’s the point of having access to a ton of great advisors if they’re constantly all telling you conflicting things? Is the answer just to go with your gut? If so, why do you need the advisors? Is it more to prime your decision making with possibilities? Or is it more for tactical execution advice once you decide on a direction? Or something else?
It’s important to talk to people who actually had success summoning the airplanes and getting them to bring food. Otherwise you’ll just guessing. Amalgamating and synthesizing that advice will maximize your odds of a successful airplane summon.
Re: My Notes on How to Start a Startup by YC
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's the good thing about lists that come from VCs. They analyze both the successes and failures, as well as things like risk level. YC also does a great job of not falling into the trap of copying the last superstar.
True but huge caveat: their idea of success and the founder’s idea of success may differ wildly. If a modest exit makes the founder a few million and the VC just gets a single digit multiple, that’s not the kind of success they’re going to gravitate towards in their analysis. They may not label it a failure but they won’t be trying to identify how to replicate more of those, even if it will have changed the founder’s…
Yes, that is true.
But so far this one has done a good job at that. The first thing they do is even try to convince you that entrepreneurship isn't the most profitable path. The statistically best path is to work at an early stage company. But if you have a certain kind of insane resolve, then they'll guide you down it.
I think 'partial' success does get celebrated though, sort of like Reddit. Again, this is something seed investors do far better than Series C investor types.
The patterns are still pretty similar, as a good deal of this covers the path from idea to "ramen profitable".