Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Before the Startup

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–169 of 169 posts

Re: Before the Startup

#161

Post by poteleu »

happyscrappy wrote: post #128
IsaacL wrote: post #47

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…

>You have to make something people want, and you prosper only to the extent you do. This is necessary but unfortunately not sufficient. You still have to do all the sales and marketing grunt work. It is amazingly hard to get people to pay money even if they love your product. Brutal and depressing.

Diana Kander has an interesting view about that in her book "All in startup". She mentions that it is not enough to find a "headache" the people have (problems they can live with), you have to find a "migraine problem" (problem they'll do anything to get rid of). Obviously, you still need to get the people to know about your product.

Re: Before the Startup

#162

Post by budu3 »

What's an especially productive 22 year old to do?[...] If you're really productive, why not make employers pay market rate for you? Why go work as an ordinary employee for a big company, when you could start a startup and make them buy it to get you?[0]

And though starting a startup can be part of a good life for a lot of ambitious people, age 20 is not the optimal time to do it.[1]

PG seems to be giving contradictory advice or his stance seems to have changed on whether 20 year olds should start a startup

[0] http://paulgraham.com/hiring.html

[1] http://paulgraham.com/before.html

Re: Before the Startup

#163

Post by mentat »

philwelch wrote: post #144
mahyarm wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. Would you properly fund EverPix or TextSecure, or would you worry about them sticking to their principles too much and avoiding potential profit opportunities?

As an investor, yes, necessarily. As someone trying to do good and make money at the same time, of course your priorities will be muddled.

Because doing good cannot be made coherent with making money? Or that you have to optimize for one or the other? This seems quite limiting and contrary to human history as well.

Re: Before the Startup

#164

Post by j45 »

ryanbrunner wrote: post #153
j45 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bootstrapping is not excluded from being a startup. 98% of all startups in Canada, for example (tech included) are self-funded. There ultimately is little freedom from bosses. Either your VC's are, or paying customers are.

This depends on your definition of "startup". Paul Graham's definition - "a company built to grow fast", while not 100% incompatible with a bootstrapped company, certainly is in tension with the idea of not taking on outside investment. If the goal of your company is to grow as fast as possible, then the VC rocket ship approach seems like a no-brainer.

I like Steve Blanks description that a startup is (paraphrasing) .. a temporary organization to find a repeatable and scalable business model.

Many startup factories forget that the goal of a startup is to quit existing and become a business.

Depending on the type of product and market you're in funding can help.

For the first, or second time entrepreneur, there is a far more valuable lesson to learn than getting external validation in the form of investment: Learning to add value, and learning to build something of value at a small scale, as well as the associated business skills, before doing it at presumably a larger scale.

The VC rocketship can create as many distractions from finding something people want. I'm not against it, but glad I hesitated taking investment in my 20's, I'm a much more well rounded entrepreneur for it, and now as the opportunities are coming up, investment is around that much more, and secondary to finding the right fit with team, market, and product.

As you can tell, I think growth capital interests me more than getting funding to get a market. I think both are fine, I just find I respond better to grinding, hustling and being resourceful.

Re: Before the Startup

#165

Post by thanedar »

arjie wrote: post #149
ak39 wrote: post #72

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.

Ecomom could be one. They sold below cost and essentially just bled money, if I remember correctly.

It seems like the question is talking about large, zero-revenue startups. Ecomom definitely doesn't fit here, since they were collecting over $1M/month in gross revenues. Of course, they were discounting so much that each order had a negative margin, but that is a different story.

I think the most dramatic example of this (other than WhatsApp) is Snapchat.

Re: Before the Startup

#166

Post by aashaykumar92 »

joshdance wrote: post #108
aashaykumar92 wrote: post #34

I'm a college kid, started a startup with my roommate and sold it to our university. We did everything wrong, but learned so much that I could write a thesis on it. If I had to do it again and change ONE thing, though, it would be one of PG's central points in this post: get to know your users. We knew who they were at a big picture (UofM students) but did not do a good job honing on on specific 'personality types' t…

What did your product do?

It was a social calendaring app exclusive to UofM students. We uploaded the course database so students could pick the classes they were enrolled in and sync it to a calendar (students could also sync their other calendars) and share it with their friends. It was an easier way for UofM students to see what their friends/classmates were upto throughout the day.

Re: Before the Startup

#167

Post by omarhegazy »

TheUnPedant wrote: post #9

> Yet when it comes to startups, a lot of people seem to think they're supposed to start them while they're still in college. Is PG seriously implying he doesn't know where college students got the idea that they should be founding startups instead, after spending the last ten years telling them to?

Yea, I was kind of surprised when he said college students shouldn't start startups.

This could be partially because 10 years ago, PG thought startups were undervalued in society and wanted to preach them as a valid alternative route to success. Now startups are the new Pogs, with everybody in Intro to CS wanting to be a part of their college's official startup program. So maybe now he thinks they're overvalued and wants college kids to know that even if they could reach that "The Social Network"-ian dream (which, by definition, a majority of them can't), it wouldn't be worth it and they should enjoy their carefree life a little more before they bite off more than they can chew.

Or, like brudgers said, maybe it's a sign of personal progression. The overactive young PG wanted people to live the obsessively fast lifestyle like he did, but now the older and wiser PG thinks it wouldn't have done him too much harm if he spent a couple of more years crashing in random hotels around Beijing. Certainly the more amusing of explanations, I guess.

Re: Before the Startup

#168

Post by [deleted] »

TheUnPedant wrote: post #9

> Yet when it comes to startups, a lot of people seem to think they're supposed to start them while they're still in college. Is PG seriously implying he doesn't know where college students got the idea that they should be founding startups instead, after spending the last ten years telling them to?

[deleted]
Post reply on HN