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“Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

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Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#111

Post by JamesBarney »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #20

This is stupid. Any of us who have had at least two “successful” businesses will tell you that this quote is ridiculous. What’s your ideal of being successful? If it’s exiting at a billion, then sorry. But you can use a lot of this entrepreneur advice to find some level of success. The problem is that non-entrepreneur or first timers always try to skip the small stuff. 1. have a good team and hire right. you need jus…

Another lesson is

9. If when you pitch your original idea to potential customers, if they're not over the moon about it your destined for failure.

Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#112

Post by nullsense »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #20

This is stupid. Any of us who have had at least two “successful” businesses will tell you that this quote is ridiculous. What’s your ideal of being successful? If it’s exiting at a billion, then sorry. But you can use a lot of this entrepreneur advice to find some level of success. The problem is that non-entrepreneur or first timers always try to skip the small stuff. 1. have a good team and hire right. you need jus…

>7. be lucky

You have to make absolute certain that you remember to do this step and to do it correctly, as well as at the right time, or it won't work.

Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#113

Post by giantrobot »

dvt wrote: post #48
thfuran wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that some people spend their weekend working to make rent rather than launching apps that they hope might work?

Of course, but we're not talking about people in poverty, or that are homeless, etc. You're just bringing up a weird red herring that's orthogonal to my point--namely, that the bar is extremely accessible (esp. compared to ventures prior to the advent of computers).

More people than just those below the poverty line work on weekends. Launching an app over a weekend is easy...if you've got all of the required skills a priori and the leisure time available to do so. Launching an app over the weekend isn't a viable option for people lacking either of those two components no matter their distance from the poverty line.

Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#114

Post by UncleEntity »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #54
thfuran wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know that some people spend their weekend working to make rent rather than launching apps that they hope might work?

If your day job doesn’t pay enough to make rent, you should move to another city.

Seriously?

The thing about not being able to make rent is that other things suffer — like being able to move to another city or, you know, eating.

Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#115

Post by mattbuilds »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #68
oxfordmale wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your first sentence is selection bias. Of course, successful people look like they "just have it". Once you have succeeded, convincing investors to fund another opportunity is far easier. The real question is how to succeed in the first place. Having the right connections helps in getting funding. If you went to Stanford, your network would have many connections that are able to invest 5M. If you are raised in the sl…

I've bootstrapped successfully three times, and have seen it from the other side. Some people just don't get it. They have ideas that are so bad someone who "gets it" wouldn't even conceive of it as a possibility - the way that someone with Asperger's does unimaginably dumb things in social situations. Unlike Asperger's, though, people that think this way aren't a tiny minority with a diagnosed disorder but ~70% of t…

Any chance you could go a little more in-depth with what you mean? Why are the ideas so bad and what can someone who gets it recognize in them? Just curious.

Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#116

Post by gnulinux »

vanviegen wrote: post #78
boca_honey wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You won the lottery in the sense that you went to college, live in a well-off english speaking country and as such, can burn through 5-7 failures. I'm sure you're smart and hard working, and I don't believe in shaming gringos as if being born rich (e.g. having access to a toilet and clean water) was their own fault. You deserve to be happy with what you have. But will never get to be preachy about it without some one…

You're making a lot of assumptions.

No they're not. Just the self-admitted fact that they could afford to fail 5-7 times creating a business shows that they had more social and financial safety net than an average American. Most Americans can't just create a business, fail, and repeat it 4-6 more times.

Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#117

Post by d23 »

enkid wrote: post #8
sva_ wrote: post #2

Cynical take, but probably popular in today's social media. I don't think it's right to say building a company is only based on random chance. It clearly also involves at least some skill.

Saying it's only based on luck is clearly wrong. Saying no luck is involved is clearly wrong.

Thank you. How is this so hard to grasp?

Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#118

Post by yieldcrv »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #46
jollofricepeas wrote: post #20

This is stupid. Any of us who have had at least two “successful” businesses will tell you that this quote is ridiculous. What’s your ideal of being successful? If it’s exiting at a billion, then sorry. But you can use a lot of this entrepreneur advice to find some level of success. The problem is that non-entrepreneur or first timers always try to skip the small stuff. 1. have a good team and hire right. you need jus…

Honestly it just looks to me like the lottery you won is not "having a successful business", but "having the luxury and connections to try and fail 5-7 times with one success" Most people cannot afford to recover from failing once.

Play the cards you’re dealt

For every trust funder with a garage but in Atherton, there are 10 other trust funder with substance abuse problems doing nothing with their life

I can respect people that play their cards, I dont resent people that had a better hand

Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#119

Post by loudandskittish »

logisticpeach wrote: post #103
bboygravity wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do talk about that. Elon Musk cleaned out manure tanks for a while in Canada if I'm not mistaking. There are some interviews where he talks about this (and showering at the gym across the street and sleeping under a desk and having no money) in quite some detail.

He also had substantially wealthy parents if I'm not mistaken. Same with Gates and others. This is the ultimate safety net. It's easier to take risks when you have an out when it all goes really wrong. Doubt he'd still be cleaning manure today if he hadn't had a success...

I'm reminded of the song Common People by Pulp:

"But still you'll never get it right/'Cause when you're laying in bed at night/Watching roaches climb the wall/If you called your dad he could stop it all."

Re: “Here's the number I used to win the lottery“ –Entrepreneurs giving advice

#120

Post by gnulinux »

ldjkfkdsjnv wrote: post #23

Pretty clear to me after meeting a number of very successful people in NYC/SF that some people "just have it". Meaning, they can identify opportunities that have a high probability of success and execute on those opportunities. There are absolutely personality types/genetic backgrounds where stumbling into 100M based on thinking of an idea is a real thing. Also, if someone went to a school like Stanford, its common f…

> Pretty clear to me after meeting a number of very successful people in NYC/SF that some people "just have it". Meaning, they can identify opportunities that have a high probability of success and execute on those opportunities. There are absolutely personality types/genetic backgrounds where stumbling into 100M based on thinking of an idea is a real thing.

Yeah, I very much doubt it and I would bet a whole bunch of $$$ that there is no genetic basis, only a background/privilege correlation with some Gaussian noise. Do you have any papers to back up your claim? Or is this all anecdotes of "meeting people in NYC/SF"? We all meet people in NYC/SF but I see no such trend, I only see already rich people investing in things to get even richer.

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