How a startup loses its spark
blog.johnqian.com
How a startup loses its spark
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Re: How a startup loses its spark
#2As soon as you start dealing with large customers, these things become inevitable. People can’t start doing whatever they like because it becomes riskier to do it. What might be good for that one customer may not be good for the big customers you actually need to keep to make a profitable business. Big customers always want to know about the roadmap.
Re: How a startup loses its spark
#3Great points. I agree with everything but I'm not sure about the conclusion that work will be fun for everyone. I don't think there will be work for everyone. The author implies that but saying that with AI startups can do more with fewer people, which I agree. The author also recommends to hire less. Yes, there will be more companies but the question is how the average person will be able to compete. If companies don't need many people they will become more selective.
Re: How a startup loses its spark
#4The article mentions Rippling as still having that 'spark', but they've been pretty awful the past few months. Between layoffs and data loss, it's looked pretty dire when I've talked to them.
Re: How a startup loses its spark
#5Great points. I agree with everything but I'm not sure about the conclusion that work will be fun for everyone. I don't think there will be work for everyone. The author implies that but saying that with AI startups can do more with fewer people, which I agree. The author also recommends to hire less. Yes, there will be more companies but the question is how the average person will be able to compete. If companies do…
In such a world progress is made faster and companies are solving more meta-problems. That is why people hand crafting html for their local businesses is no longer a thing and that kind of work is almost non technical now.
Re: How a startup loses its spark
#6The book Loonshots by Safi Bahcall describes this phenomena quite well. There's a "phase transition" of incentives at around 150 people that can be fatal to many organizations.
The secret sauce is how a startup goes past this headcount. Ideally many software companies quite honestly don't need more than 150 people!
Re: How a startup loses its spark
#7"And as tools (especially AI) get better, the number of users a small team can support increases. Founders of the future may not need to worry so much about these scaling pains, and work may become fun for everyone"
Except fewer of your users will have jobs because the AI multiplier means smaller teams. So your addressable matter will shrink. So another race to the bottom?
I'm sure we'll work it out right..
Re: How a startup loses its spark
#8Brilliant short essay that captures the maturity changes and challenges.
Re: How a startup loses its spark
#9It almost feels like the "efficiencies of scale" you get from large organisations (e.g. specialised people for recruitment, people matters, quality assurance, user research etc.) are not really efficiencies. Perhaps it's better to grow the organisation by repeatedly cloning the smallest effective team you ever had, rather than creating a more "efficient" organisational structure. How those "mini-companies" communicate with each other efficiently -- another matter.
Re: How a startup loses its spark
#10The article mentions Rippling as still having that 'spark', but they've been pretty awful the past few months. Between layoffs and data loss, it's looked pretty dire when I've talked to them.
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