Many of us go through incredible hard times and have to make difficult lifestyle decisions, if you can get media attention while at it - more power to you!
The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
11–20 of 34 posts
Re: The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
#12Direct link to DailyToaster - http://dailytoaster.com More info on my blog - http://kurtvarner.com
Sooo... what IS it (daily toaster)? Google Now for iPhone?
Re: The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
#13Oh god. I admire his pluck. But the headline is killing me. Lean != cheap.
Toyota is a major source of the Lean philosophy, and as the world's largest car manufacturer, they spend plenty of money. They just continually seek to deliver more customer value per dollar spent.
Re: The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
#14I met Kurt for the first time about 4 months ago and have been sharing beers with him since. Definitely a guy with vision, the right kind of work ethic and attitude. Also a very talented Product Designer.
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Re: The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
#15> "People who aren't successful yet," says Varner, "can do anything they want." This is the most important bit of the entire article. While not profound at first glance, this actually is very insightful. When you don't have anything yet, what really holds you back? Are you going to lose your job? If you don't have one, no biggie. When you live in a car, are you going to get much more in the (pardon the term) gutter?…
Unless you get in a car accident :-/
Re: The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
#16Re: The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
#17Met Kurt at a few meetups and based on his pitch I have to disagree with the "too niche" criticisms mentioned in the article. The number of people, including myself, who have trouble getting up in the morning is a huge market. I'm not sure if his current idea is the right solution, but if he can make me productive during the 30-45 minutes that I spend hitting the snooze button every morning that'd be worth paying for.
My only criticism is that I feel he's ignoring the root of the problem, which is not getting enough sleep. Most people don't have trouble getting up after a nice, long 10 hours of sleep. It's getting up after 4 hours of sleep that's tough. And if Daily Toaster served its function of waking me up quickly after 4 hours of sleep I'd inevitably pay for it later that day/week anyways.
Re: The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
#18I like his drive, but where are his 10,000 hours? I'd at least think you'd be an expert at something before starting a business with zero cash.
Re: The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
#19Sounds like this guy took War of Art a little seriously.
http://www.amazon.com/The-War-Art-Winning-Creative/dp/159071...
As a younger person in college I always felt that being confident enough to move to Silicon Valley and try to get attention you'd have to be able to code a compiler in an interview for a language you've never seen on a machine you were unfamiliar with. Or if you were the artist type you'd produce work universally lauded for both it's execution and creativity. I guess you have to start somewhere, why not here? Oh yeah, 10,000 hours rule that's right. :)
Re: The Leanest Startup in Silicon Valley
#20Man, I love this guy. I'm not convinced that the idea is big enough to get him where he wants to go, but the moxie, the hustle, the spirit... you can't help but root for somebody like this. I'm shocked he didn't get into YCombinator, to be honest. Pg always talks about how it's about "the team, not the idea," and if anybody has the moxie to get in as a solo founder, I'd have thought it would be Kurt. Anyway, Kurt, ke…
> you can't help but root for somebody like this.
I can. Dude left his wife three hundred miles away so he can live out of a car to work on his idiotic startup. "Moxie"? I'm sure that's something his second wife will be able to appreciate. In the meantime, I agree with "Herbert": he's a tool, and this moronic stunt is transparent and far from endearing.