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Startups in 13 Sentences

paulgraham.com

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Re: Startups in 13 Sentences

#91

Post by djahng »

Rule #1 could read along the lines of: "Is the [potential] cofounder an animal?"

I think this is one of the most difficult rules to abide by because a lot of very talented people say they would like to start a company, but never will. When it comes down to it, they'd rather be unhappy at their job and receive a steady paycheck than take a risk and start their own company. Do you lower your standards and start a company with someone who may be talented, but may jump ship at the first job offer elsewhere?

It takes time to find out what people are really made of. From my experience, people who say they want to start their own business or be their own boss really just want to be a mid-level manager. Other people have the "Entrepreneurial ADD" and will never be able to stick to one idea from beginning to end. Others get scared of the prospects of late-night coding and early mornings, and decide to go to grad school instead (how does that make any sense????).

What's the solution for finding good cofounders? I think at some point everyone comes across someone who would be a perfect business partner, but has different ideas. Start working to form a business with that person regardless. It's likely that the business will evolve into something that neither cofounder originally anticipated. So getting everyone on board with the same idea may not be all that important, you just need to be able to work together.

Re: Startups in 13 Sentences

#93

Post by psugar »

As always great post. On footnote 4 where you say being cheap and iterating are almost the same but the reason why they are not is markets move.

I would point out that sometimes they move away from you (competitors come in, new ideas, etc)

BUT, sometimes they move towards you, and that is the classic where the media says "they were an overnight success" but you see they had been working at it for ten years.

Re: Startups in 13 Sentences

#95

Post by mannicken »

gstar wrote: post #43
user wrote: post #20

I have a great admiration for PG. But PG sometimes creates a false reality for those young kids of becoming millionaires some day with their startup. But the truth is most of them would be heartbroken when they realize that is not always possible. I hope some of you realize this and don't waste precious life and be happy. I hope I made sense.

Why do you need to be a millionaire though? I think working for yourself, on (mostly) your own terms on your own product that you're passionate about is more meaningful than the box you might one day tick next to millionaire. There's no risk in failure either, you can always go and work for someone else, and personal bankruptcy isn't _THAT_ bad. I don't think PG is giving anyone false hope that they'll hit the lotter…

It's not that the chances are bigger. Consumers want you to win but lottery companies don't. You can apply more work to enhance the result in consumers' world than in lotteries' world because you will work together with consumers unlike loterry companies.

Re: Startups in 13 Sentences

#96

Post by pg »

alain94040 wrote: post #15
wheels wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 1.0 being a pretext really rang true for us. It was interesting noting comparing how what we thought was important with what people were actually the critical things in making a purchase decision were, but nobody tells you those things seriously until they can look at your product and see what it's not.

Paul is probably exaggerating a bit on that rule, to make his point across. You can have a version 1.0 that actually solves a real problem! But you know what he means...

I couldn't say this at the time, but now that the Etherpad playback version is public you can see that I originally wrote that this was an exaggeration.

Re: Startups in 13 Sentences

#97

Post by continuestory »

djahng wrote: post #91

Rule #1 could read along the lines of: "Is the [potential] cofounder an animal?" I think this is one of the most difficult rules to abide by because a lot of very talented people say they would like to start a company, but never will. When it comes down to it, they'd rather be unhappy at their job and receive a steady paycheck than take a risk and start their own company. Do you lower your standards and start a compa…

This is what happened with me. Has been working fine since. 'Start working together regardless, just be able to work together'!

Re: Startups in 13 Sentences

#98

Post by continuestory »

psugar wrote: post #93

As always great post. On footnote 4 where you say being cheap and iterating are almost the same but the reason why they are not is markets move. I would point out that sometimes they move away from you (competitors come in, new ideas, etc) BUT, sometimes they move towards you, and that is the classic where the media says "they were an overnight success" but you see they had been working at it for ten years.

You've said it in a nutshell. Exactly how it really is. PG should include this some where. Many people are blinded by the ways media portray stories and the reality behind them!

Re: Startups in 13 Sentences

#99

Post by tiergarten »

My partner and I are launching a new business and have adopted your "13 sentences" as our bible. FWIW, I learned your #1 rule about the choice of partners many years ago at my first startup. Partnering with a dummy for short-term benefits (e.g. connections to investors in the case I saw) will be the death of a startup.

Thanks for posting this.

Re: Startups in 13 Sentences

#100

Post by psugar »

continuestory wrote: post #98
psugar wrote: post #93

As always great post. On footnote 4 where you say being cheap and iterating are almost the same but the reason why they are not is markets move. I would point out that sometimes they move away from you (competitors come in, new ideas, etc) BUT, sometimes they move towards you, and that is the classic where the media says "they were an overnight success" but you see they had been working at it for ten years.

You've said it in a nutshell. Exactly how it really is. PG should include this some where. Many people are blinded by the ways media portray stories and the reality behind them!

It really is true. Look at the medical "startup" Walmart partnered with. They've been around for more than ten years.

I'm sure they're cheap. The problem with "going big or going home" is that in many cases you are going home. The one thing I've learned is that in the vast majority of cases, the market moves much slower than you expect.

If you find yourself in the case of a market moving faster that's usually the problem to have....then you hire and spend like a maniac but it doesn't matter because if the market is truly moving that fast you're making money hand over fist.

The problem comes when you are spending like that and the market isn't growing that fast.....then you flame out.

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