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If only someone told me this before my first startup

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Re: If only someone told me this before my first startup

#32
post #21

> There is nothing less productive in this world than a team of developers. First, yikes. Also, I'm quite curious about how productivity was measured here. For a (successful) software business, the work output of developers is highly productive because the marginal cost of selling another copy of the software is so low. SaaS delivery models may result in somewhat higher marginal costs compared to non-SaaS distributio…

It may be true, but real skill lies in realizing the moment it stops being true which is inevitable with growth and act accordingly.

Re: If only someone told me this before my first startup

#33

>6. Hire only fullstack devs. There is nothing less productive in this world than a team of developers. While I can agree that hiring full stacks may be better at the beginning, then I dont understand 2nd part "There is nothing less productive in this world than a team of developers." WTF?

[deleted]

Re: If only someone told me this before my first startup

#34

I find it insane that in many interviews of "founders" it was common for founders to say their job was to raise money.

CEO’s job is to not let the company run out of money. One way to achieve that is through fundraising, but fundraising shouldn’t be a goal in itself.

That is part of the CEO's job. But the primary goal should be to create a company that is profitable (assuming incentives are correctly aligned). For the past decade incentives were not correctly aligned and the primary job was to do the Silicon Valley equivalent of flipping a house.

Re: If only someone told me this before my first startup

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CEO’s job is to not let the company run out of money. One way to achieve that is through fundraising, but fundraising shouldn’t be a goal in itself.

That is part of the CEO's job. But the primary goal should be to create a company that is profitable (assuming incentives are correctly aligned). For the past decade incentives were not correctly aligned and the primary job was to do the Silicon Valley equivalent of flipping a house.

Nah for venture-backed it’s to deliver results for investors.

Re: If only someone told me this before my first startup

#40

> 3. Don't chase investors, chase users, and then investors will be chasing you. > 9. Sell features, before building them. Ask existing users if they want this feature. > 15. Don't build consumer apps. Only b2b. Consumer apps are so hard, like a lottery. It's just 0.00001% who make it big. The rest don't. Even if I got many users, then there is a monetization challenge. ^ these in particular stand out and all connect…

I'd say this is #1 error that I see around
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