71–80 of 169 posts
pg wrote, "Batch after batch, the YC partners warn founders about mistakes they're about to make..." My question would be "what are the mistakes"? It would be amazingly interesting if PG, Sam or someone else from YC can start to list some of these warnings / common mistakes in one of the classes. Obviously, some advice is company specific, however starting to compile this list of advice would be a valuable additional…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe this is true. I think the startup ecosystem actually learned how to game "making something people want". After all, startups are companies, companies need to profit, and "making what people want" vs. "making what people will pay for" are similar, yet not perfectly aligned goals. When startups do what they're supposed to do (making things people want), that's not gaming the system. That's being industr…
The important distinction is between what people want and what people are prepared to pay for. So when your startup is making something people want, but few are prepared to pay for, you can get a massive user base that make it look like you have a very solid startup which you manage to sell for huge amounts of money, while the company only has a tiny chance to ever make a profit. Then you have gamed the system.
So this is the third counterintuitive thing to remember about startups: starting a startup is where gaming the system stops working. Gaming the system may continue to work if you go to work for a big company. Depending on how broken the company is, you can succeed by sucking up to the right people, giving the impression of productivity, and so on. [2] But that doesn't work with startups. There is no boss to trick, on…
I disagree with you on academia, as the checks & balances plus the peer review system for worldwide recognised published research kill and destroy bullshitters. I am not saying there aren't any but having been in both academia & corporate, the latter is infested with them. In startup world, they get also eliminated quite rapidly as they will just fail. Success of any startups is not to raise funds but to get customer…
if only this was true!!
> So this is the third counterintuitive thing to remember about startups: starting a startup is where gaming the system stops working. Gaming the system may continue to work if you go to work for a big company(...) But that doesn't work with startups. There is no boss to trick, only users, and all users care about is whether your product does what they want. Startups are as impersonal as physics. You have to make som…
The 'gaming the system' section gave me insight into both why 'growth hacking' is such a popular idea and why I hate the term. Founders know they need growth, so they ask themselves "How do we...", and "Hire a Growth Hacker!" is an easy response. It sounds like a way to game the system. After all, growth is right there in the job title, and we all know hackers game systems. The appeal of a 'hacker' for growth is that…
But you're right. Growth is hard, and if you're a hacker at heart, focused on developing your idea/product, someone specialized in "all that murky businessy client-getting stuff" is godsend. You don't want to distract yourself with it, you have better things to do.
I also think that it can sometimes be a way to out-source conscience. You pay the growth hacker to do "the magic", and you don't care what it is that he is actually doing. You can hire one that will do black-hat SEO and abuse social networks without feeling any guilt, by simple virtue of not thinking about it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't believe this is true. I think the startup ecosystem actually learned how to game "making something people want". After all, startups are companies, companies need to profit, and "making what people want" vs. "making what people will pay for" are similar, yet not perfectly aligned goals. When startups do what they're supposed to do (making things people want), that's not gaming the system. That's being industr…
The important distinction is between what people want and what people are prepared to pay for. So when your startup is making something people want, but few are prepared to pay for, you can get a massive user base that make it look like you have a very solid startup which you manage to sell for huge amounts of money, while the company only has a tiny chance to ever make a profit. Then you have gamed the system.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The important distinction is between what people want and what people are prepared to pay for. So when your startup is making something people want, but few are prepared to pay for, you can get a massive user base that make it look like you have a very solid startup which you manage to sell for huge amounts of money, while the company only has a tiny chance to ever make a profit. Then you have gamed the system.
Are there any good examples of startups creating a "massive user base" but not making any money? The likes of WhatsApp were valued significantly higher than the readings of their cash flows would convey. So such examples of massive valuations in spite of zero or negligible cash flow are not good examples.
So this is the third counterintuitive thing to remember about startups: starting a startup is where gaming the system stops working. Gaming the system may continue to work if you go to work for a big company. Depending on how broken the company is, you can succeed by sucking up to the right people, giving the impression of productivity, and so on. [2] But that doesn't work with startups. There is no boss to trick, on…
I disagree with you on academia, as the checks & balances plus the peer review system for worldwide recognised published research kill and destroy bullshitters. I am not saying there aren't any but having been in both academia & corporate, the latter is infested with them. In startup world, they get also eliminated quite rapidly as they will just fail. Success of any startups is not to raise funds but to get customer…
"So strangely enough the optimal thing do to in college if you want to be a successful startup founder is not some sort of new, vocational version of college focused on "entrepreneurship." It's the classic version of college as education for its own sake. If you want to start a startup after college, what you should do in college is learn powerful things. And if you have genuine intellectual curiosity, that's what yo…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are there any good examples of startups creating a "massive user base" but not making any money? The likes of WhatsApp were valued significantly higher than the readings of their cash flows would convey. So such examples of massive valuations in spite of zero or negligible cash flow are not good examples.
Could Quora be such example?
Found this while Googling for Quora's valuation: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/09/quora-forever/
So this is the third counterintuitive thing to remember about startups: starting a startup is where gaming the system stops working. Gaming the system may continue to work if you go to work for a big company. Depending on how broken the company is, you can succeed by sucking up to the right people, giving the impression of productivity, and so on. [2] But that doesn't work with startups. There is no boss to trick, on…
I disagree with you on academia, as the checks & balances plus the peer review system for worldwide recognised published research kill and destroy bullshitters. I am not saying there aren't any but having been in both academia & corporate, the latter is infested with them. In startup world, they get also eliminated quite rapidly as they will just fail. Success of any startups is not to raise funds but to get customer…
Peer review doesn't work in science because nobody cares to review unknown or lesser known authors.