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How a startup loses its spark

blog.johnqian.com

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Re: How a startup loses its spark

#81

Post by xtremedata »

Aurornis wrote: post #79
geophile wrote: post #63

I went through this cycle a few times. My favorite, and last successful startup was acquired by a gigantic international corporation four years in (2007), and I stuck around for another two years. After the product shipped, the need to support customers and sales definitely slowed things down. Our fantastic VP of Engineering became CTO, and hired a middle management moron as VP, and that was the end of the good times…

> Our fantastic VP of Engineering became CTO, and hired a middle management moron as VP Hardest lesson I learned when I got promoted to upper leadership positions: Hiring middle management is incredibly hard. The number of absolute sharks in the candidate pool is wild. People will show up, sense that you’re new, and tell you everything you want to hear about how they’ll solve all of your problems. They’ll claim they’…

>> The same thing plays out with less experienced middle managers who get thrust into high-budget positions at smaller companies.

Thanks for the spot-on description. You are right, the more money involved, the sleazier it gets. It reminds me of the book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18905630-hedgehogging

A highly successful hedge fund with a highly successful group got one of these senior managers and they managed to spends hundreds of millions on crazy ideas (not my money syndrome) while the people who actually built the machine originally were sidelined.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#82

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

VHRanger wrote: post #56
hliyan wrote: post #9

It 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" communicat…

That's what the mobile game studio supercell did initially (hence the name): divide the company into a bunch of 15-25 person indie studios. It also eventually became a monolithic org. Same with Valve and flat org structures. Once something scales enough it becomes the blob, like everything else.

And Supercell are probably one of the most successful mobile gaming companies ever.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#83

Post by samhuk »

Aurornis wrote: post #73
samhuk wrote: post #54

I'll raise your spark for complete destruction. Here's an incomplete list that I keep around of the mechanisms that I've observed so far that have played a big part in the decline/destruction of an engineering team (and product thereof): 1. Too-technical leaders: As startup scales, there can sometimes be a mad dash to fill new leadership roles (e.g. VP of Eng, Arch, CTO, etc.). Super-star engineers present at startup…

As a corollary of these people problems, I would add: 1. Not correcting problem hires fast enough. First time founders are often too hesitant to give negative feedback, demote a too-technical manager who should have stayed an IC, or remove a problem employee who isn’t working out. The anecdote that comes to mind is a local startup that hired a C-level executive’s UI designer friend into their VP of Product role. He w…

Thanks for your comment. Totally empathize with your experiences there.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#84

Post by flappyeagle »

Terretta wrote: post #45
flappyeagle wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What pile of practices are you trying to avoid? When I see time boxed work with an outcome, that’s the very definition of a project to me. There’s nothing else. I had a weekend project building a desk. It’s timeboxed to the weekend. There’s an outcome. What am I missing?

On the contrary, "time box" means the time is fixed, the work achieved is variable. Projects: the project comes in "on time and under budget" or is "late", but the work is fixed. Time boxes: The difference is if you are targeting an RoE curve, you can decide when to continue investing in that or pivot to something else. You pick a date to re-evaluate. This is how VC work with startups. You also make sure have minimum…

I understand what you're saying. I just don't understand what makes it a project vs. not. Fixed-scope projects, fixed-time projects, projects that are fixed in time and you have to fight the stakeholders on in scope... these are all projects with different features.

It sounds like you prefer to work in an env where there are only fixed-time, variable scope projects. I like that better too.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#85

Post by VHRanger »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #82
VHRanger wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what the mobile game studio supercell did initially (hence the name): divide the company into a bunch of 15-25 person indie studios. It also eventually became a monolithic org. Same with Valve and flat org structures. Once something scales enough it becomes the blob, like everything else.

And Supercell are probably one of the most successful mobile gaming companies ever.

Yeah they held off becoming a blob for a solid decade

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#87

Post by yafbum »

samhuk wrote: post #54

I'll raise your spark for complete destruction. Here's an incomplete list that I keep around of the mechanisms that I've observed so far that have played a big part in the decline/destruction of an engineering team (and product thereof): 1. Too-technical leaders: As startup scales, there can sometimes be a mad dash to fill new leadership roles (e.g. VP of Eng, Arch, CTO, etc.). Super-star engineers present at startup…

Big +1 on too technical leaders. Seen this a couple times with brilliant engineers who, once they became in charge of 50 different teams, appeared to try to just do the same work they did in one team but "scaled". Put every team in a spreadsheet and try to automate management through uniform metrics instead of focusing on managing and growing his direct reports.

And another time, seen a less technical leader step in, see engineers around me roll their eyes a couple of times at the lady (with maybe a smidge of male chauvinism blended in), but then see her actually fire bad hires, hire star players, and get everyone to align their priorities so they could be productive. Leadership is a very different job from the kind of technical excellence that too often gets rewarded by promotions (vs raises or bonuses).

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#88

Post by K0balt »

bombcar wrote: post #23
K0balt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an intriguing idea. I wonder if the paradigm has a name or a following?

Isn’t that basically what franchising is?

Hmm, that is an interesting parallel. I think it misses the mark somehow though.

Idk why people don’t like the question, I’m actually looking for a developed model/ paradigm around this concept. No sense reinventing the wheel.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#89

Post by kevin_nisbet »

yafbum wrote: post #87
samhuk wrote: post #54

I'll raise your spark for complete destruction. Here's an incomplete list that I keep around of the mechanisms that I've observed so far that have played a big part in the decline/destruction of an engineering team (and product thereof): 1. Too-technical leaders: As startup scales, there can sometimes be a mad dash to fill new leadership roles (e.g. VP of Eng, Arch, CTO, etc.). Super-star engineers present at startup…

Big +1 on too technical leaders. Seen this a couple times with brilliant engineers who, once they became in charge of 50 different teams, appeared to try to just do the same work they did in one team but "scaled". Put every team in a spreadsheet and try to automate management through uniform metrics instead of focusing on managing and growing his direct reports. And another time, seen a less technical leader step in,…

Another +1, I left a startup over exactly this, all the managers, directors, and VP of engineering were IC engineers maybe 2 years prior. It was a shame, because I really enjoyed my role at that company in general, but ended up opting to leave after getting a really terrible leader.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#90

Post by fnordpiglet »

Aurornis wrote: post #74
fnordpiglet wrote: post #33

I disagree - as someone who has started up small companies and worked in megacorps, including FAANG and major banks, it’s entirely possible to build that intoxicating environment anywhere. It’s more about having a dynamic leader who assembles teams into collections of individuals who know precisely why they are there - and are given the work they excel at and the work they don’t the manager ensures someone who does h…

> The arguments articulated are entirely false: ex. N^2 communications. This is reductionist and absurd I think you’re being unnecessarily harsh and reductionist of the article’s arguments. I’ve experienced exactly this failure mode in startups. The counter-example you described is an example of properly managing the N^2 complexity, not an example of it not existing.

But it doesn’t exist. For any task the number of contact points is almost always fairly small. Just because the possible N might be large most are occluded by lack of relevance to any specific task.

I would note that the author categorically says it’s not possible for a startup like environment to exist in a large company. That’s what I disagree with.

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