Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
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Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
#2If we're going to make it look like a train wreck, let's not forget that even the fabled YCombinator is cutting back. See http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4861867 for verification.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, history is full of examples showing that one of the best ways to come up with great ideas is to try a lot of different ideas out. This process sucks for all of the people who had hope and will lose their businesses. But in the long run it is better for all of us that they exist.
Sure, historically Silicon Valley has created 10 great companies per year. And many more successful but not widely known real ones. With the frothiness we might get 10 still. But hopefully they are better great companies. With all of the information being shared on how to be an entrepreneur, maybe we'll get half again as many moderate successes. (And the moderate successes are better off without venture capital. Really.) And established companies will get more entrepreneurial employees.
Believe it or not, this is actually a good outcome. It means more startups. More dashed hopes. And on the whole a better economic outcome.
Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
#3This is the journalism equivalent of the problem he is espousing. An article about nothing, a writer with a self-entitled attitude shamelessly riding something topical. No thanks.
I will add that starting anything is difficult and companies like a food delivery service for dogs can easily pivot into an efficient way to get senior citizens their medication, cheaper faster and more efficiently. Many things start small, uninformed and experimentally.
Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
#4I've been thinking we're on the cusp of what I'm just going to call "Web 3.0" even though that term looks stupid to me now so I apologize to me browsing my history in a couple of months (sorry). The big social media darlings have gone bust and the cycle looks a lot like (but obviously not as bad as) the web 1.0 crash. People look up, realize that they're doing some really silly shit and then work on "serious" enterprise stuff for awhile as the market sorts itself out and as the market is sorting itself something weird and new bubbles up on the consumer side, last cycle it was social connections, cycle before it was the existence of the consumer itself.
I personally think it's going to come with google glass-likes and powerful mobile computers(read: phones) and have to do with blurring the lines between the internet and real life but that's just a guess.
Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
#5I really don't understand the hate with which Dan Lyons is speaking.
Startups are crazy, sometimes hugely profitable companies that sometimes start up with the same money it takes to start a restaurant or less. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, sometimes they are a complete joke. It's intense and awesome and that's why we are all drawn to it: huge potential. VCs are a part of it and without them this market wouldn't exist.
Not every startup needs VC money but some do and all the investment they have poured into the economy has had a positive impact. Again, I don't get the hate.
Dan Lyons's article is completely absurd (maybe that was the point) but I see no reason to help him or anyone else by posting this ridiculous ant-startup link bait. They all the say the same thing in different ways and they all have this weird, bitter, almost-jealous resentment to them.
I don't know if journalists are mad because they don't get into startups themselves, only cover them. Or because journalism has been fairly marginalized (sad but true) and is undergoing some major transitions... I don't know.
Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
#6This is the journalism equivalent of the problem he is espousing. An article about nothing, a writer with a self-entitled attitude shamelessly riding something topical. No thanks. I will add that starting anything is difficult and companies like a food delivery service for dogs can easily pivot into an efficient way to get senior citizens their medication, cheaper faster and more efficiently. Many things start small,…
I find it to be a good riposte to this fluffy NYT article: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/02/fashion/saying-no-to-colle...; "Saying No to College"
Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
#7This is great. When I was once looking to join a start-up I met with people who wanted to build a "social fitness food" website, a "social ebay where people shared the things they bid on," a ton of "new way to share music," a social "t-shirt based on Twitter" business, a ton of "new way to share images," a "music video" business, a "new way of producing music in the music" business, etc...
I met a few companies solving real problems. I joined one. Never looked back. Real problem, real solution, real money being paid for it.
Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
#8I think people are missing the biggest takeaway: everyone wants to get rich writing Rails apps in a weekend that really don't contribute, that our brightest minds are being wasted. Rather than creating things that are truly innovative, we're barely iterating on things that were barely iterations to being with.
Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
#9I really don't understand the hate with which Dan Lyons is speaking. Startups are crazy, sometimes hugely profitable companies that sometimes start up with the same money it takes to start a restaurant or less. Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they fail, sometimes they are a complete joke. It's intense and awesome and that's why we are all drawn to it: huge potential. VCs are a part of it and without them this marke…
I don't know if journalists are mad because they don't get into startups themselves, only cover them. Or because journalism has been fairly marginalized (sad but true) and is undergoing some major transitions... I don't know.
Not to defend the article (which I agree a little too snarky, but will get pageviews) but I imagine that working as a journalist covering startups is a thoroughly depressing existence. If it's anything like my (non-journalistic) interactions with the industry then every interesting, earnest startup founder you meet will be matched by five other over-confident blowhards selling bad ideas with bad polish on top.
I know that I would never have the patience to actually interview people like that, so sometimes I give credit to tech journalists just for not spontaneous combusting at conferences.
Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money
#10Seems like a touch too much schadenfreude.
I've seen some genuinely awful ideas in startupland, but one has to remember that predicting success is really hard, especially the big types of success like Facebook or Google.
Google itself started as a product with no revenue stream, only a highly ephemeral "well we could sell ads?" one that almost didn't pan out. Facebook in its early form seemed like a website for Ivy Leaguers to fawn over each other.
Both were companies created by green entrepreneurs who also similarly had little to no job experience, nor business leadership experience.
The last page has yet to be written on either of those companies, but I don't think it's a stretch to say they've been two of the greater successes to come out of the "startup system".
So sure, we can celebrate the fact that "we're like Groupon, except we sell trips to space!" (seriously, a founder tried to recruit me for this) isn't getting any more funding. But how many Facebooks and Googles are we going to miss out on also?
And this won't be the end of the "startup crowd" - the sycophantic faux-journalists, the startup-groupies that don't ever seem to be building anything but are always present at meetups and parties, the guy at the event whose description of his company is consisted of 100% buzzword... those guys will remain. This isn't a return to sanity, it's just a plain old slowdown.