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Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

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Re: Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

#11

Post by staunch »

bigboote wrote: post #9
smoody wrote: post #7

Advice given to me during my first startup by a very successful entrepreneur: To succeed, you have to be able to kill a puppy. Don't just think "yeah, I can kill a puppy," but imagine yourself holding a puppy underwater until it stops breathing. The person dispensing this advice was not talking literally, of course. Starting companies that last until they succeed often means making tough decisions. The kinds of decis…

Wise advice. Some of the things you have to do to succeed -- firing dud employees, saying no to early acquisition offers, telling girlfriends that work is more important than them -- are at least as hard as drowning a puppy. Maybe the next round of YC interviews should have a qualifying event requiring a big tub of water and a trip to the humane society.

A better example might be shooting a terminally wounded horse or something. Killing a puppy for no reason is just messed up and drowning it is really messed up.

Re: Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

#13

Post by DaniFong »

smoody wrote: post #7

Advice given to me during my first startup by a very successful entrepreneur: To succeed, you have to be able to kill a puppy. Don't just think "yeah, I can kill a puppy," but imagine yourself holding a puppy underwater until it stops breathing. The person dispensing this advice was not talking literally, of course. Starting companies that last until they succeed often means making tough decisions. The kinds of decis…

Dude, I do not see Larry and Sergey doing this. Don't be evil, right?

Re: Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

#14

Post by bprater »

edw519 wrote: post #4

Make sure you have at least 6 months expenses set aside. Find a customer with his hair on fire with a problem you'd like to solve. Hack away.

Read and re-read and then print out and frame this poster's words, it's solid gold:

"Find a customer with his hair on fire..."

You can't just follow a whimsical idea you "think" might be relevant. You want to find a market where people are hurting. Imagine someone with their credit card out of their wallet tapping it against their screen, frustrated that they can't find someone to give their money to.

Sell stuff to that person. I've been that person about a half-dozen times this week. Your challenge is to figure out how you can determine what I was searching for. (Or what the masses were searching for.)

Re: Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

#15

Post by amirnathoo »

I left my job at IBM a year ago to start a company. For several years before that I did many things to prepare: brainstormed ideas with friends, built prototypes, did online and market research...

However, the only things that have since proven useful are: 1) Network: through the network I developed before I left IBM, I secured contract work in lean times and introductions that have now resulted in investment. 2) Save money: has helped hugely in lean times. 3) Hand in my notice. A necessary step!

Having said that, to answer your question well, we would need a better understanding on why you have dreamed of starting your own company for 10 years but this has not yet happened.

Re: Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

#16

Post by prpon »

amirnathoo wrote: post #15

I left my job at IBM a year ago to start a company. For several years before that I did many things to prepare: brainstormed ideas with friends, built prototypes, did online and market research... However, the only things that have since proven useful are: 1) Network: through the network I developed before I left IBM, I secured contract work in lean times and introductions that have now resulted in investment. 2) Sav…

Fair question as to why I've been dreaming about a startup for long and not started yet. I was employee #3 at a decently funded startup in bay area from 2000 to 2002. That startup failed and I needed to take care of visa issues before I could do something on my own.

Any tips on networking with entrepeneurs? Los Angeles area is not so hot when it comes to tech meetups.

thanks

Re: Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

#17

Post by LPTS »

staunch wrote: post #11
bigboote wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wise advice. Some of the things you have to do to succeed -- firing dud employees, saying no to early acquisition offers, telling girlfriends that work is more important than them -- are at least as hard as drowning a puppy. Maybe the next round of YC interviews should have a qualifying event requiring a big tub of water and a trip to the humane society.

A better example might be shooting a terminally wounded horse or something. Killing a puppy for no reason is just messed up and drowning it is really messed up.

If you are going to kill a puppy for no good reason, drowning is a relatively humane way to do it. Once you're at the killing a puppy for fun stage in your decisionmaking, most of the fucked up has already happened. Drowning doesn't make it more fucked up.

It's not like someone is gonna say "you killed that puppy for no reason. But you really crossed the line with drowning."

I can think of many cases where drowning would be a preferable alternative to other modalities of needless puppy murder.

Re: Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

#18

Post by LPTS »

DaniFong wrote: post #13
smoody wrote: post #7

Advice given to me during my first startup by a very successful entrepreneur: To succeed, you have to be able to kill a puppy. Don't just think "yeah, I can kill a puppy," but imagine yourself holding a puppy underwater until it stops breathing. The person dispensing this advice was not talking literally, of course. Starting companies that last until they succeed often means making tough decisions. The kinds of decis…

Dude, I do not see Larry and Sergey doing this. Don't be evil, right?

Dude Larry and Sergey can totally hire psychopaths to deal with the business end. They don't have to drown puppies themselves. They have a whole hr department to profiling and recruiting the best puppy murders. That way, the google gods can not be evil, and the puppies still get killed.

Re: Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

#19

Post by Xichekolas »

bprater wrote: post #14
edw519 wrote: post #4

Make sure you have at least 6 months expenses set aside. Find a customer with his hair on fire with a problem you'd like to solve. Hack away.

Read and re-read and then print out and frame this poster's words, it's solid gold: "Find a customer with his hair on fire..." You can't just follow a whimsical idea you "think" might be relevant. You want to find a market where people are hurting. Imagine someone with their credit card out of their wallet tapping it against their screen, frustrated that they can't find someone to give their money to. Sell stuff to t…

> "I've been that person about a half-dozen times this week."

Easier still is to just notice when you are that person and then solve that problem. Whenever I find myself frustrated with something, that tends to be the most interesting (and possibly lucrative) idea.

If your own hair is on fire, then chances are someone else on the internet is suffering from the same affliction, and is willing to pay you for solving it.

Solving your own problem is much easier than trying to guess what someone else's problems are, and you are more likely to stick with it since you can be your own user.

Re: Ask YC! What can I do to prepare myself to start a company.

#20

Post by babul »

prpon wrote: post #16
amirnathoo wrote: post #15

I left my job at IBM a year ago to start a company. For several years before that I did many things to prepare: brainstormed ideas with friends, built prototypes, did online and market research... However, the only things that have since proven useful are: 1) Network: through the network I developed before I left IBM, I secured contract work in lean times and introductions that have now resulted in investment. 2) Sav…

Fair question as to why I've been dreaming about a startup for long and not started yet. I was employee #3 at a decently funded startup in bay area from 2000 to 2002. That startup failed and I needed to take care of visa issues before I could do something on my own. Any tips on networking with entrepeneurs? Los Angeles area is not so hot when it comes to tech meetups. thanks

I am in a similar boat, and simply have started going to the events I can. Where I live there is not much happening.

Ultimately you reap what you sow, so with this in mind I select the key events and make the time and effort to go there and engage with people.

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