Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 232 posts

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

#201

Post by oxfordmale »

cyclotron3k wrote: post #142
bluefirebrand wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's also a lot of survivorship bias. We don't hear about the entrepreneurs who had X failures and no successful exits. There must be some (a lot?)

Yes, there are surprisingly few people here owning up they failed trying and are now working in a Mcdonalds' or Wendy's

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

#202

Post by oxfordmale »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #193
moralestapia wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The secret is that sometimes you just have to ... sigh ... work.

Of course. We work jobs and do our thing on the side like most traditional American entrepreneurs do until their business gets off the ground. Who the hell is bootstrapping businesses without a job besides rich kids? 1. Get a cheap apartment in a slightly sketchy neighborhood 2. Work 7-8 hours at work and every other waking hour on your business. Take meetings during lunch. 3. Focus to the point of cutting out sports…

There is a parable I can't remember. The gist is as follows.

A man/woman has a nice life, a cheap apartment in an okay neighbourhood. Their 9-5 job isn't particularly exciting or well-paid; however, at the weekend, it allows them to enjoy sports, video games and other frivolous activities, such as dating and hanging out with their partner or children.

A stranger approaches them and says they make a much better life for themselves. He tells them they just need to get a cheap apartment in a sketchy neighbourhood, work all waking hours of the day, and give up any fun until they make it. They may fail five times until they succeed and may be declared bankrupt.

After listening, they ask what their life looks like after they make it. He answers it allows them to have an okay apartment in a more expensive neighbourhood, and they can enjoy sports, video games and other frivolous activities, such as dating and hanging out with their partner or children.

They smile at the stranger, and say "But I already have most of this right now". The stranger walks off wearily.

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

#204

Post by berniedurfee »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #193
moralestapia wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The secret is that sometimes you just have to ... sigh ... work.

Of course. We work jobs and do our thing on the side like most traditional American entrepreneurs do until their business gets off the ground. Who the hell is bootstrapping businesses without a job besides rich kids? 1. Get a cheap apartment in a slightly sketchy neighborhood 2. Work 7-8 hours at work and every other waking hour on your business. Take meetings during lunch. 3. Focus to the point of cutting out sports…

Sounds like fun?

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

#205

Post by berniedurfee »

designium wrote: post #61
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…

What’s TAM?

It’s a WAG

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

#206

Post by berniedurfee »

technothrasher wrote: post #4

I only ever found one foolproof system to win the lottery, and it allowed me to win on every single ticket. I owned a retail store that sold lottery tickets. The retailer gets a small commission on every sale, and one on any ticket cashed in at the store.

Sell the picks and the shovels

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

#207

Post by berniedurfee »

scarface74 wrote: post #180
hash872 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. If Jeff Bezos started over in a non-tech industry, with no money or previous connections, is the author arguing that his chances at being successful in say a garden supply or waste management company the same as any other person? That seems absurd. If entrepreneurs have no useful advice then there's no right or wrong way to structure or run a company, it's all random and any method will do. Just generalizing…

Or if Elon Musk tried to buy a social media company it would be successful?

It doesn’t appear that success is his necessarily his primary goal with Twitter.

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

#208

Post by chasely »

SamReidHughes wrote: post #81
loudandskittish wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this is one of the things that drives me nuts about these "inspirational" stories where some millionaire/billionaire talks proudly about how their first business failed, their car was repo'd, bank foreclosed on them, etc... but I've never heard one talk about what they did between that and the successful business. Where did they sleep? How did they afford food?

> Where did they sleep? Maybe at least one of their parents had a sofa . The trick is to have parents who aren't homeless.

This works a lot better if you have parents that live in Palo Alto or SF compared to Tulsa, OK.

To the original post, I generally agree. There are some fundamental lessons about business you can learn, and if you follow them, have a better chance of success. But the magnitude of that success largely comes down to luck. There's plenty of thought leaders out there that just happened to join the right company at the right time. Much of their success is "beta" rather than "alpha", but they are treated like they have unique insight to drive amazing outcomes.

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

#209

Post by chasely »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #122

Making a half witted quip like this is far easier than actually trying to build a business. You just convince yourself that success is out of your personal control. Easy…no hit to the ego.

The author of the tweet is also a very successful entrepreneur; he owns 70% of a ~$700M CAD business [0]. Though I do think he is somewhat anti-VC culture.

I only give the context in case people think the author is some bitter, failed startup founder.

[0] https://seekingalpha.com/news/3926662-wecommerce-agrees-to-c...

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

#210

Post by monocasa »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #200
monocasa wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more that he came from such wealth that his family could acquire a nontrivial share in an emerald mine on what amounted to a whim. > Standing with the cash in his hand, Errol was made another offer he couldn't refuse: Would he like to buy half an emerald mine for half of his new riches? > "I said, 'Oh, all right'. So I became a half owner of the mine, and we got emeralds for the next six years." https://www.news…

Anybody who considers 80,000 pounds to be riches is not very wealthy.

It's 80,000 pounds dropped on a whim, not that they simply had 80k total. That is wealthy.
Post reply on HN