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The Next Generation Bends Over

37signals.com

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Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#91

Post by abalashov »

zackattack wrote: post #86
abalashov wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's fair to say that 37 Signals' aspirations are, at best, orthogonally related to profit maximisation. They're there to enjoy building things they like, their way. No, I'm not some sort of Kool-aid drinking acolyte. But ultimately, I'm trying to do the same thing - to have fun and do what I find fulfilling, at the expense of considerably faster and more lucrative routes to making more money - so I can appre…

I get that. Really, I do. But they keep saying it over and over again in a public forum. Who are they trying to convince: the reader, or themselves?

Probably mostly the reader, perhaps a little themselves.

Really, your question could be raised in response to virtually any person or entity with a clearly identifiable ideological stance of which they are frequent exponents. Just about anyone with a philosophical disposition and/or a discursive character - a tendency toward narration - is a candidate for, "Why do you keep saying what you think all the time?"

I guess it's because that's what intelligent people or groups of them who conceptualise themselves to have some sort of intellectually coherent purpose do.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#92

Post by nsoonhui »

steamboiler wrote: post #32

From a comment posted on the blog: "You may not realize how fragile Mint was. All the hard part was being done by Yodlee.com; Mint simply built a thin layer over Yodlee, and collected affiliate fees. Mint was not built for the long haul, it was built to flip. (Check out the free yodlee.com to see that this is true.)" I think this point is important. Mint was adding value to an existing set of services rather than cre…

I have to disagree; if it was that easy to replicate Mint's success, how come Mint can worth that much of money, and why people are using Mint's service instead of Your-Mint-Clone?

Your comment reminds me of the remark ( either here or on reddit, I can't remember) that StackOverflow is easy and can be cloned in a week, because the underlying technology is not hard to replicate. What you forget is market often pays a premium for the database, not the technology. Getting the technology to setup is easy, getting the subscribers, is not.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#93

Post by azanar »

webwright wrote: post #70
jasonfried wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fuck You money" is such a myth. More on this soon in another post.

I think what we don't know here is the dream/ambition of the founders. Maybe their dreams were too expensive to chase or they otherwise didn't feel equipped to chase them. Fuck you money (for a lot of people) isn't "go buy a Caribbean island" money. It's "I can finally build the company I WANTED to build" money. (anticipating response of "Why not just build the company you're passionate about to begin with?") Some co…

"Fuck you money" is a bad name, then.

But I think it's stuck because, for a lot of people, it is buying a Caribbean island money; it is their chance to say "fuck you" to everyone who still has to work for a living. Their ambition is to display their wealth conspicuously, and otherwise sit on their asses while other people envy them.

I can't imagine someone working because they want to saying "fuck you" to someone who works because they have to, and especially not to the degree that the perpetual vacationer would. In fact, I can imagine the Caribbean island owner being condescending to the willing, but rich, worker because they aren't projecting the image of a rich person. Rich people don't work; but this one does, so he's a misfit.

I think for the crowd that gathers here, "fuck you" money should really be called "next level" money. They likely have that ambition you refer to, where getting rich is just a means to even greater ends. It's hard to quell intrinsic ambition, even if one of the hopes of that ambition has been fulfilled. And it's hard to develop ambition, even when one has the means to become so, but didn't rely on ambition to get there (e.g., lottery winners, etc). This is why most people call it "fuck you" money; it's where they can stop faking ambition and show how little they actually had before getting lucky.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#94

Post by ntoshev »

pg wrote: post #3

A bit harsh, for something so speculative. It's a rare founder who has no offer he'd take. In fact, if you have shareholders or employees with options, and someone makes you an offer that's significantly above the expected value of your company, fiduciary responsibility requires you to take it. You can bend this requirement to some extent by overestimating your expected value, but there is always some number you'd ha…

True, but the world would probably be better off if Mint were an independent company headed for an IPO. I guess the question is why the existing system of incentives discourages this?

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#95

Post by markessien »

fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

I don't get it - why would you want to "not work"? What do you do then? If I want to sit on a beach and drink, I can do that right now - if I want to play games all day, I can also do that right now. Work is the game, if I stopped working, I'd be bored out of my mind.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#96

Post by steamboiler »

nsoonhui wrote: post #92
steamboiler wrote: post #32

From a comment posted on the blog: "You may not realize how fragile Mint was. All the hard part was being done by Yodlee.com; Mint simply built a thin layer over Yodlee, and collected affiliate fees. Mint was not built for the long haul, it was built to flip. (Check out the free yodlee.com to see that this is true.)" I think this point is important. Mint was adding value to an existing set of services rather than cre…

I have to disagree; if it was that easy to replicate Mint's success, how come Mint can worth that much of money, and why people are using Mint's service instead of Your-Mint-Clone ? Your comment reminds me of the remark ( either here or on reddit, I can't remember) that StackOverflow is easy and can be cloned in a week, because the underlying technology is not hard to replicate. What you forget is market often pays a…

Unfair comparison. I never said it was easy to clone Mint or tried to trivialize Mint's achievements. On the contrary I emphasized the word "relatively". My argument was that Yodlee is the senior partner in the Mint-Yodlee collaboration. I am also guessing here that Intuit has far more access to financial data (banks as well existing quicken databases) than Mint-Yodlee.

EDIT: rephrased for clarity.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#98

Post by delld »

jasonfried wrote: post #14
fallentimes wrote: post #6

Please. $170 million is "fuck you" money. Aaron and I'm guessing many of the top founders/executives made enough money to never ever have to work again. Fake revolutions are cute and all, but think of how awesome it would be to never ever have to work for the man again. They can do anything they want...for profit, not for profit, TBD (Y Combinator). This wasn't some BS talent acquisition; this was an absolute shitloa…

"Fuck You money" is such a myth. More on this soon in another post.

Coudnt agree more. I'd say FU to FU money.

FU money is the worst reason to do startups. Most startups which are driven by FU money as the goal, dont really get anywhere. They destroy lives and drain the best years of some of the brightest young people. The ones we hear about going big are really a very very small fraction - you are better of buying lottery tickets if you really want FU money.

Do a startup by all means, but do it for the right reasons. There is no better life waiting for you after you get FU money. Do a startup only if running one is the best use you can think of your life.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#99

Post by axod »

jasonfried wrote: post #11
iamelgringo wrote: post #7

Is it me, or is 37 signals being disingenuous. They rail against people who take VC money. At the same time they take money from an investment firm. They they say that their taking money was okay because they wanted the advice of the investor: http://37signals.com/svn/archives2/bezos_expeditions_invests... Other people taking money to get access to investor advice is bad and a disease. They rant against startups that…

We say don't take money up front. Money up front is the sin: You're entering into a financial arrangement when you have no leverage. It's the worst possible time to do business. Re: Eyeballs... Our problem with action for eyeballs is when you have nothing to sell the brains behind the eyeballs. Just building an audience with nothing to sell (beyond ads) is what we rail against. But building an audience that could als…

Your belief that selling ads is not valid or useful to the user never ceases to amaze me.

You sell a few online webapps, and get a full cut. People showing ads, sell them tech, finance, cars, whatever. Anything that's relevant, and get a smaller cut.

A smaller cut of a massive pie is often better than a full cut of a very small pie.

The website selling directly has a finite (small) number of things they can sell the user. 37signals can sell me a basecamp subscription, a campfire subscription...

The website advertising to the user has a massive inventory they can get the user to buy. Each time the user comes back, there's another chance to sell something new to them.

I'm guessing either you tried advertising at some point and couldn't get it to work for you, or you just hold some sort of weird grudge against advertising and see it as evil.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#100

Post by jacquesm »

fallentimes wrote: post #60
zackattack wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Facebook sells highly targeted ad inventory. They may become the most effective advertising platform on the planet.

Not sure why you're being downvoted. I've read estimates that Facebook now shows 10% (!) of all U.S. display ad inventory on the internet.

How does that percentage translate in terms of clicks ? Is that also 10% ?
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