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Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

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Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#111

Post by amoorthy »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #106
vikramkr wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, because they didn't deliver anything early on, manually or otherwise. "Dont do crimes and fraud" is another great bit of advice IMO. Even healthcare isn't immune from market considerations. Might have been a good idea for regeneron to have done more market research before developing praulent for example.

no, they failed because they failed. If she'd won some of her gambles she'd be a hero. My go-to ex-post example is FedEx, whose founder took their last month's payroll to Vegas, and won big enough to keep the business going. I was taught about that in business school (as an example of entrepreneurial spirit). Founders who do bad things and lose are convicted of fraud (and gambling with your employees' payroll is defi…

Having read the riveting book Bad Blood it seems Theranos failed for two reasons:

1. Elizabeth Holmes concocted a product that defied the laws of chemistry and physics and couldn't actually be built. She refused to relax constraints like size/packaging that may have made it plausible.

2. She engaged in fraud in the hopes that eventually #1 would be solved and created a culture without transparency that further hampered the product from ever working.

This wasn't a case of a gamble that didn't pay off. This was a case of an infeasible idea, poorly executed, and compounding the issue with outright fraud. No startup advice necessary to avoid this.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#112

Post by vortico »

I agree that most anecdotal startup advice is BS, which is why I barely pay attention to it. What I'd like more of is textbook-like material offering terminology and detailed case studies. Simply knowing the common name for something (e.g. marketing terms like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good) or the usual process of how things work (like a typical schedule of the process for accepting angel funding) is far more useful than advice that seems like darts thrown at a dartboard.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#113

Post by hinkley »

kd5bjo wrote: post #70
bovermyer wrote: post #33

When I was in my twenties, I was part of the early "life coach blogger" culture. Now that I'm almost in my forties, I realize everything I wrote back then was bullshit. Earnest, but bullshit nonetheless. I'm much more cynical, but I'm also much more likely to just do what seems right and figure out the rest as I go. I don't read "best practices" or advice articles anymore. This is not to say that there is nothing to…

I’ve read a lot of time management/productivity books, and there seem to be only two things all of the authors agree on: write stuff down, and continuously tweak your system. The latter is usually mentioned offhand in the preface, as the author wants to deliver a fait accompli instead of just some tips and tricks.

To what extent do you suppose "continuously tweak your system" really means "show up"?

That is, could you substitute any other activity that requires you to actually pay attention and be present and get equal progress?

I think there may be a category theory of self improvement. The more I look at the things I've done to improve my situation from health to work to finances, the more they start to look similar (in a nutshell, it's not math, it's not psychology, but it might be both).

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#114

Post by thisisbrians »

gtirloni wrote: post #42
amoorthy wrote: post #34

I'm surprised this blog post made the first page of HN given its lack of sources or analysis. Maybe a good discussion can come on one example startup advice from YC: do things that don't scale. I think this is really sound in that they're saying "get product-market-fit with some segment of users." i.e. know that there's demand for your product/service even if it's pretty manual to deliver early on. Then see how to au…

> I'm surprised this blog post made the first page of HN given its lack of sources or analysis. Sometimes people will upvote articles not for the quality but for the discussion they will trigger.

This 100%. I sometimes upvote posts without even reading them because the comments are very interesting.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#115

Post by zaind »

varjag wrote: post #96
ehnto wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started to see the same trend in technology hopping. New language's or frameworks are barely around long enough to develop long term maintainability best practices borne from experience, so everyone's blog posts are just well intentioned speculation. You end up seeing enough contradicting information said absolutely that you realise no one is ever 100% right.

This extends to methodologies. At this point am convinced that a competent team will complete the same project under formally waterfall, XP or Agile governance with only minor schedule differences.

I'm a huge fan of Alistair Cockburn's thinking on this point. He argues that people - and their characteristics - are a far greater driver of project success than methodology.

The argument is not a formal one, but I think still holds a lot of weight:

https://ameyakarve.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/characterizing-p...

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#116

Post by zby »

The primary social function of giving advice is a domination game (http://www.overcomingbias.com/2015/03/advice-shows-status.ht..., http://www.overcomingbias.com/2014/01/advice-isnt-about-info...) - that's why there is a lot of shitty advice. That does not mean there are no good business theories that cover startups. Some of them are scientific theories with all the required rigour - but not all theories need to be properly scientific to be useful, in our daily life we live with lots of ex-post theories, they are not perfect but are still useful. By the way I am the author of one non-scientific startup theory myself https://medium.com/hackernoon/aggregators-bffd36063a72 and I hope it can be useful:) There are also useful advice. It is good to read them, evaluate, adjust them you your circumstances, etc. In the end you need to decide for yourself, but they show you the possibilities.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#117

Post by drblast »

It's fun to read older business books like Built to Last and Good to Great that use the "let's study successful businesses to see what they do" methodology. It's fun because many of the companies featured in those books either are bankrupt today or facing some sort of existential difficulty.

It's survivor bias bullshit wrapped up in feel-good propaganda and people eat it up every time. Study successful people and emulate them. Of course! How could we go wrong?

Nevermind that the successful people are more likely to just be lucky or even just plain wrong about the reasons for their success.

I attribute my success to hard work, getting up early, making steady progress every day, picking great people to work with, and staying ahead of the curve. Sounds great, right? But to really know if any of that matters, we have to study a large number of people who also profess to do exactly those things and see if they're way more successful than average. If they're not...well then I'm just wrong about the reasons for my own success and other factors are more important.

It doesn't sell books though when your message is "in order to be successful you have to be naturally smart, tall, and attractive, work about as hard as everyone else, and be well-connected and lucky."

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#118

Post by diminoten »

bovermyer wrote: post #33

When I was in my twenties, I was part of the early "life coach blogger" culture. Now that I'm almost in my forties, I realize everything I wrote back then was bullshit. Earnest, but bullshit nonetheless. I'm much more cynical, but I'm also much more likely to just do what seems right and figure out the rest as I go. I don't read "best practices" or advice articles anymore. This is not to say that there is nothing to…

I always try to keep in mind that having any strategy at all, even if it's not the actual best strategy, is usually good enough. So while yes, a lot of the advice you get is bullshit specifically, generally following some system is almost always better than not following any system at all.

This is also something I try to remember when making a tough decision; how substantial is the difference going to be, actually? Usually it's not anywhere near as substantial/irreversible as I thought.

I've stopped fighting a great many work battles for this same reason, as well.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#119

Post by ThomPete »

amoorthy wrote: post #34

I'm surprised this blog post made the first page of HN given its lack of sources or analysis. Maybe a good discussion can come on one example startup advice from YC: do things that don't scale. I think this is really sound in that they're saying "get product-market-fit with some segment of users." i.e. know that there's demand for your product/service even if it's pretty manual to deliver early on. Then see how to au…

The point is that plenty of companies did all the things the advice tells them to do and still failed.

Re: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs

#120

Post by dhimes »

bovermyer wrote: post #33

When I was in my twenties, I was part of the early "life coach blogger" culture. Now that I'm almost in my forties, I realize everything I wrote back then was bullshit. Earnest, but bullshit nonetheless. I'm much more cynical, but I'm also much more likely to just do what seems right and figure out the rest as I go. I don't read "best practices" or advice articles anymore. This is not to say that there is nothing to…

I too am quite skeptical, but I do try to find the "best practices" contents in areas where I am new. I find these articles often provide some insight from the perspective of someone who actually has experience (extra credit if he/she is part of a team), and even if I eventually change my practices as I learn more, I start down a good, if not perfect, path. In short, it speeds up my learning process.
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