Well at least he took learnings from it
Hahah it was probably just about worth it. Wouldn't if I had kids or it wasn't mostly in COVID time
The side hustle from hell
61–70 of 146 posts
Re: The side hustle from hell
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right? I literally can't even call it a proper warning because of how much I took out of it. My whole career was jumpstarted by my second startup (we only got to preseed but it was a great two years) and there's no way I'd have been as good a fit without this experience
I think you nailed it here. >> I hope that by reading this story, I can protect some of you from 11 months of pain. That's not how experience works. What you really did was get an 11 month business education. And again, you can tell your story, but you can't pass on that education. I'm glad you moved on to better things. And I think you're saying that this experience prepared you for that, and you were a better overa…
But maybe he can compress someone else's terrible experience down to 6 or 3 months, or stop them from sinking their own money (or that of family/friends) into an obvious faliure. There's another failures to go around; we don't all need to life every one of them.
Re: The side hustle from hell
#63I love this story. Why? Because it is the story of so many startups. I was so perplexed in the mid-90's when the dot com "boom" had started by people who wanted to do a "startup" but had no idea what that meant. Like the author, people with a feeling of Destiny that they would be some leader of something that everyone talked about. I had the same beliefs when I left Sun where clearly I would never be "famous" but by…
A million monkeys with a million typewrites will statistically have one lucky monkey who creates an extremely successful product which also looks very dumb and very unconvincing ("Srsly? You want to make money from random people hosting strangers in their own rooms?" Bang, AirBnB) The problem is selection bias. A startup is 3 monkeys tops, so the chances of that are appropriately low and if the product looks dumb and…
There should probably be an entire chapter written on "Okay, but what if the product was desirable but not 'technically' legal, hmmm?" :-)
Re: The side hustle from hell
#64This is the classic dead-end startup story from beginning to end. It checks all the boxes: - 3 non-technical cofounders - Flurry of activity for everything other than acquiring customers - Attempt to outsource development followed by disappointment - Relentless scope creep - Zero go to market plan, just an incessant belief that more features in the app will solve all problems There is also one less obvious point that…
> unpaid startup jobs Unpaid job is an oxymoron. If they can't or won't pay you, it's either volunteer work, or a hobby. Why do charity work for a business that thinks it's going to be big; there's plenty of funding out there, let them find it and then they can pay you, and you can do work for them. If you want to do an hour or a day or maybe even a week of work for free, ok. Maybe that's fun and interesting and you…
Because you need experience. At least in my country, unpaid internships are the norm; and you won't be taught anything, or held to a lower standard. You just do the job that you'd be normally paid for, just for free.
And even then, I had a few friends that had to go for another few months of unpaid job (not internship) later on. Because nobody would hire them without experience, and some companies don't consider internship to be one.
Re: The side hustle from hell
#65An additional red flag - if your company lists "being SEIS registered" as a point of traction, run a mile. Literally every newly registered UK company can get this by spending 60 minutes filling out a form that says "my company is risky, I intend to raise money from VCs".
Re: The side hustle from hell
#66I love this story. Why? Because it is the story of so many startups. I was so perplexed in the mid-90's when the dot com "boom" had started by people who wanted to do a "startup" but had no idea what that meant. Like the author, people with a feeling of Destiny that they would be some leader of something that everyone talked about. I had the same beliefs when I left Sun where clearly I would never be "famous" but by…
Pitch: It's a replacement for Blockbuster. But instead of going and getting instant gratification and getting to watch the movie you want to watch tonight, you create a wishlist and we send you 3 titles off that list (normally the 3 least popular), which may or may not be what you want to watch right now, and add the convenience of injecting the United States Post Office into the process.
https://xkcd.com/2618 right?
Re: The side hustle from hell
#67An additional red flag - if your company lists "being SEIS registered" as a point of traction, run a mile. Literally every newly registered UK company can get this by spending 60 minutes filling out a form that says "my company is risky, I intend to raise money from VCs".
“This will be a great differentiator when looking for funding!”
Re: The side hustle from hell
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
A million monkeys with a million typewrites will statistically have one lucky monkey who creates an extremely successful product which also looks very dumb and very unconvincing ("Srsly? You want to make money from random people hosting strangers in their own rooms?" Bang, AirBnB) The problem is selection bias. A startup is 3 monkeys tops, so the chances of that are appropriately low and if the product looks dumb and…
There should probably be an entire chapter written on "Okay, but what if the product was desirable but not 'technically' legal, hmmm?" :-)
It would say "we all know how it went" :)
Re: The side hustle from hell
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right? I literally can't even call it a proper warning because of how much I took out of it. My whole career was jumpstarted by my second startup (we only got to preseed but it was a great two years) and there's no way I'd have been as good a fit without this experience
I think you nailed it here. >> I hope that by reading this story, I can protect some of you from 11 months of pain. That's not how experience works. What you really did was get an 11 month business education. And again, you can tell your story, but you can't pass on that education. I'm glad you moved on to better things. And I think you're saying that this experience prepared you for that, and you were a better overa…
Absolutely - I mention this at the end. This experience was a springboard into my first “real” startup, and I’ve been working my way up fast since then!
Re: The side hustle from hell
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you nailed it here. >> I hope that by reading this story, I can protect some of you from 11 months of pain. That's not how experience works. What you really did was get an 11 month business education. And again, you can tell your story, but you can't pass on that education. I'm glad you moved on to better things. And I think you're saying that this experience prepared you for that, and you were a better overa…
But maybe he can compress someone else's terrible experience down to 6 or 3 months, or stop them from sinking their own money (or that of family/friends) into an obvious faliure. There's another failures to go around; we don't all need to life every one of them.
Yeah honestly I’m not sure what someone is meant to take out of this. The experience is really useful. But if me and Gus worked this out after 3 months, we could have cofounded our own thing!