Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money • Hacker News Board

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#11

Post by joshbert » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:14 PM UTC

wheaties wrote: post #7

This 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 solvi…

I think that's pretty much the gist of it. Only solving real problems can bring in real revenue.

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#12

Post by realrocker » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:17 PM UTC

Maybe if the focus shifted to low cost-low yield start-ups we would see more successes. We don't have to all create Taj-Mahal's you know,a few ant-hills will do it too.

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#13

Post by drupeek » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:18 PM UTC

I wish I could upvote this post a dozen times.

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#14

Post by mburshteyn » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:19 PM UTC

So can we expect lower rents in SF and less congestion on the 101/280? The last stat I saw indicated that Northern California's unemployment rate is shrinking fast; it doesn't seem like this is the same situation we saw back in the dot.com bubble from that perspective. Or is it? Can somebody explain the discrepancy?

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#15

Post by tptacek » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:20 PM UTC

bdcravens wrote: post #8

I 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.

The world is full of weekend-hard Rails apps that can both contribute and make loads of money. The problem has nothing at all to do with engineering, and everything to do with echo-chamber marketing. The apps don't need to be harder to write; they just need to solve problems for nurses or attorneys or auto mechanics instead of early-adopter tech consumers and advertisers.

David Heinemeier Hansson put this as succinctly as anyone in the world could, and at YC startup school! - "build something useful and charge money for it; it's not rocket surgery." But despite that advice instantly getting pegged to the top of HN, a huge number of would-be entrepreneurs have ignored it for years.

Dan Lyons has correctly spotted the symptoms but wildly missed the mark on the diagnosis.

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#16

Post by swalsh » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:22 PM UTC

Was the article crude, and maybe more harsh then is needed? of course. Still, the general point is correct. The thing that is great about start-ups is the ability to solve real problems using innovative approaches. Large companies have processes in place to stay steady, to minimize risk. Start-ups thrive on risk.

The problem though, is the glamour of the concept has made people more excited about the status of the start-up... and not the problem the start-up is solving.

In fact the "problem" has almost been ignored. Look at PG's essay from a few weeks ago. The concept of using a start-up to solve A REAL PROBLEM was revolutionary to some, and debatable to others. Think about that for a moment. Looking for real problems to build a start-up around was revolutionary, and debatable. To me that says a lot.

So my question... can anyone name one great entrepreneur who did it for their love of doing a start-up, and not for the passion of "The problem"?

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#17

Post by danielweber » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:25 PM UTC

ryanisinallofus wrote: post #5

I 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 can appreciate the fact that "mobile social" is sucking the oxygen out of the room for more standard start-ups, but I, too, found his hate too overwhelming.

There are real people behind all those "crappy" companies.

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#18

Post by trotsky » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:25 PM UTC

How do you report on business for a decade and yet hold such a visceral and character flaw type thesis about behavior that's nothing more than the intended, text-book result of specific monetary policy decisions?

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#19

Post by tptacek » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:26 PM UTC

This piece is unbelievably lazy. It is the easiest thing in the world to have written --- Lyons is, what, the 93rd person to hop on board this trend story? --- and yet the analysis in it crumbles to dust and floats away the moment you try to pick it up to look at it more closely. Go to medical school? Make real tech products? Don't build apps in a weekend? Avoid bus rides with Scoble?

Not one person in the universe is going to make a better business decision for having read this article. All it's does is confirm a trend story, snarkily. Congratulations, Dan Lyons, you made the train before it left the station. Can we get on with our lives now?

Re: Let's All Shed Tears For The Crappy Startups That Can't Raise Any More Money

#20

Post by danso » Mon, Dec 03, 2012, 6:27 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #10

Seems 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…

I think FB and Google are bad examples, because they were borne out of much more fundamental services than the kinds of start ups that the OP mocks. Sure, whatever their mission statements were sounded crazy and vague ("organize the world's information") but they had the technology to back up their lofty goals. The OP seems to be mocking startups that have neither the broad lofty goals nor the technical substance.