My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again • Hacker News Board

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#41

Post by fedd » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 7:21 PM UTC

dave_sullivan wrote: post #29

timjahn wrote: post #13

I think today, startups and businesses are two different things. A business makes money. You see them all around you. Restaurants, companies that sell products (online and offline), web design firms, etc. These businesses impact the rest of society. Real, everyday people buy from these businesses and often rely on them. Your family interacts with them, understands them, knows them. A startup is a game. You play by th…

I enjoyed the article, never liked the term startup vs business, and nothing (not even hn) can really prepare you for what to expect when you actually go for it and start one. But it's not a game. When people's businesses (even startups) fail, there's real harm done, maybe harm that will take years to repair. I guess when it's OPM who cares... but that attitude can be a precursor to irresponsible spending/investment…

if vcs don't risk (avoid failure[by all means]), they wouldn't be rewarded. anyway they sometimes say 90% of startups fail... moderate income may be better than complete failure

http://www.brighthub.com/office/entrepreneurs/articles/78553...

i heard people say that the Valley beats other places of the world in creating Suns, Googles and Facebooks because [one of the reasons] it risks more and considers failure as experience

(harm too, but not that deadly)

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#42

Post by kylemaxwell » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 7:41 PM UTC

I like this mentality. "Startup" should be treated as a transitive verb that needs an object ("business", usually, although other special cases can exist), rather than as a noun.

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#43

Post by untog » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 8:57 PM UTC

mseebach wrote: post #4

It's not the terminology's fault that you didn't understand what "startup" meant (even to yourself) when you used it to describe your project. And if "startup" is indeed the correct abstraction for your project, why not use it? Finally, consider your audience when picking your words. Your family is likely to be more interested in what you're doing than the fact that you're doing it in a startup. You wouldn't tell the…

I don't understand how terminology could ever lead you to such differening conclusions.

Maybe I own a cat. It's a great cat. But this morning, I decided that it is actually a fish, and as such, is a failed fish, because it can't breathe underwater. Or maybe it can breathe underwater, because it was a fish all along.

In any case, expecting a change in behaviour just because I changed the name... bewildering.

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#44

Post by AznHisoka » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 8:59 PM UTC

badclient wrote: post #35

AznHisoka wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I don't get... someone please enlighten me.. If a VC puts money and a startup doesn't get acquired, or goes to an IPO, but becomes profitable, the VC doesn't get anything, right (assuming no dividends)? So making profit in that sense is still not considered success. So there's some validity to the idea that startups are a game. You're betting on a bigger fool acquiring it, whether it's another company, or t…

In that case, everything is a game. When I throw money towards a milkshake at McDonalds, I am betting that I will derive some pleasure from consuming it. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. So, everything's a game - with varying odds of winning?

that wasn't the bigger point I was trying to raise. I don't care a penny about semantics and the engrish language.

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#45

Post by herval » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 1:25 AM UTC

timjahn wrote: post #13

I think today, startups and businesses are two different things. A business makes money. You see them all around you. Restaurants, companies that sell products (online and offline), web design firms, etc. These businesses impact the rest of society. Real, everyday people buy from these businesses and often rely on them. Your family interacts with them, understands them, knows them. A startup is a game. You play by th…

I thought "startup" was a PHASE of business in which it STILL doesn't generate revenue and/or is trying a business model...

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#46

Post by CubicleNinjas » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 3:51 AM UTC

BjoernKW wrote: post #17

CubicleNinjas wrote: post #6

Advice to call your business a business? Hrm. I think the picture painted here is the larger problem. Someone who gets out of school and immediately sees client work as "just another client" is an issue. When someone sees self-employment as an easier option to the daily grind we have an issue. When someone thinks that their untested idea is worth devoting two years to, when everyone in their life has solid questions,…

A few years ago - even after having already started a company - I used to call myself a programmer or software developers. Nowadays, I usually call myself an entrepreneur because being an entrepreneur in most cases indeed is fundamentally different from being employed, even if you're employed in the very same industry. I find it easier to liken my 'job' to that of other business owners (including even something entir…

But there's the catch! For an entrepreneur a 9-5 is a short day. And keep in mind that for billions, a 9-5 would be a miracle.

To think that you are above this time investment, or that you can achieve great success without equally great risk, is to believe that you are entitled to more needlessly. This entitlement (not you, just generally) is a mental disease which guarantees failure. Entrepreneur has this same tone. All pomp, without the blood, sweat, and tears to make it mean something.

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#47

Post by BjoernKW » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 1:43 PM UTC

CubicleNinjas wrote: post #46

BjoernKW wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago - even after having already started a company - I used to call myself a programmer or software developers. Nowadays, I usually call myself an entrepreneur because being an entrepreneur in most cases indeed is fundamentally different from being employed, even if you're employed in the very same industry. I find it easier to liken my 'job' to that of other business owners (including even something entir…

But there's the catch! For an entrepreneur a 9-5 is a short day. And keep in mind that for billions, a 9-5 would be a miracle. To think that you are above this time investment, or that you can achieve great success without equally great risk, is to believe that you are entitled to more needlessly. This entitlement (not you, just generally) is a mental disease which guarantees failure. Entrepreneur has this same tone.…

I'm not saying that working 8 hours a day necessarily is a problem. If you manage to keep that up having 8 hours of quality working time per day is great.

The problem lies in having a rigorous schedule telling you when and where to work. Another problem is fake work ( http://lifehacker.com/5710930/cut-out-the-fake-work-and-focu... ). In corporate environments there's a widespread tendency of wasting time on useless action just to pretend that there's work going on. Work also tends to fill up the time available for it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinsons_law ).

Activity more often than not is valued higher than efficiency or actually accomplishing something. This is why we see things like prolonged meetings and convoluted specification documents nobody actually reads. You didn't actually accomplish something but hey there's this 200 pages long bullshit specification that proves you've been working, right?

I think is due to our society's perception of what constitutes work. Work is seen as something that has to be hard, long and cumbersome or in other words: "If it doesn't suck it can't be work." People like the notorious Tim Ferriss who seemingly manage to get through work and live much more easily generally are regarded with suspicion.

So, while I think that the 4 hour work week maybe is a little extreme and certainly isn't applicable for everyone it shows the right direction. Work and work organization has to adapt in order to produce meaningful results, not just unhappy, stressed out workers.

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#48

Post by mapster » Sat, Jan 14, 2012, 10:43 PM UTC

A startup with users is like tapping a vein in a mountain. You can keep digging or sell your claim to a larger mining firm. That's market share and it can be a valuable commodity on its own.

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#49

Post by HalibetLector » Sun, Jan 15, 2012, 4:06 AM UTC

dave_sullivan wrote: post #29

timjahn wrote: post #13

I think today, startups and businesses are two different things. A business makes money. You see them all around you. Restaurants, companies that sell products (online and offline), web design firms, etc. These businesses impact the rest of society. Real, everyday people buy from these businesses and often rely on them. Your family interacts with them, understands them, knows them. A startup is a game. You play by th…

I enjoyed the article, never liked the term startup vs business, and nothing (not even hn) can really prepare you for what to expect when you actually go for it and start one. But it's not a game. When people's businesses (even startups) fail, there's real harm done, maybe harm that will take years to repair. I guess when it's OPM who cares... but that attitude can be a precursor to irresponsible spending/investment…

"there's real harm done"

Not really. Having been a low-level employee on several of these sinking ships in the past few years, the pattern is despicably predictable. Everyone who works for a startup knows the game they are playing. Many of the experienced ones will even see the writing on the wall and bail early. The laid off employees have no trouble finding their next job. Just like in Vegas, there's always another game starting up in Silicon Valley.

The VPs plan for failure going in. They may lose some money, but they'll cover the loses with some of their other investments. They play the odds.

I think the only real harm is to the state of California when hundreds of people are suddenly on unemployment for a month or two between jobs.

Re: My thoughts on why I will not call my business a startup again

#50

Post by kayoone » Mon, Jan 16, 2012, 10:11 AM UTC

elemeno wrote: post #26

kayoone wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

mh, dont startups most of the time have customers/users of some sort too ? I bet most startups have more people interacting/relying on them (users/customers) than your local restaurant or web design firm.

I think you're missing out on an important point - Users are not the same as Customers. Customers pay you money, they are what you need to build a business. Having millions of users who don't provide any revenue is only useful if your goal is just to be bought by someone else. I personally think that it's a sad state of affairs that most startups don't seem to be interested in building businesses, but instead just wa…

For many startups users are also customers because they pay in one form or another for the startups services. Of course there are a few startups that have enough funding to not care about monetization at all but thats an exception imo. I see much more web app service startups, mobile Apps, Games etc that actually charge something even if its not upfront. I run a games startup and our users are customers as well.