I found something really cool stuff - summarising Startup School in simple and elegant form. Loved it. You may check it here: http://startupnotes.org
Thoughts on Startup School
41–50 of 125 posts
Re: Thoughts on Startup School
#42Everybody knows the speakers are for inspiration, but the mingling and conversations with like-minded founders is where you get all the real work/enjoyment.
Yes, I totally agree with you. I think to get into conversation with those like-minded founders is an art. It takes good amount of time to learn and get good takeaways.
Re: Thoughts on Startup School
#43Hmm, it's interesting how diverse and varied the responses to Startup School are. I had never attended Startup School before, and found it to be a worthwhile experience.
I met a great group of people (including you Colin!) and got to hear about some interesting projects people were working on. While the talks weren't terribly interesting or teach me anything I didn't know already, I felt the people aspect more than made up for it.
Maybe Startup School should have a hackathon type project for 1-2 hours, that's completely optional for people to participate in.
Re: Thoughts on Startup School
#44If you want actual practical advice, MicroConf is a great conference, and there's one coming up in Europe in a few days: http://www.microconf.com/europe/
I won't be attending this year, unfortunately, but I went last year and thought it was a great time.
Re: Thoughts on Startup School
#45Startup School was well worth the value of traveling to the Bay Area for myself. I'd read PG's essays and a lot of other startup literature so I didn't learn anything profoundly new, but I was inspired. Interacting with other attendees was also an amazing experience that is not available to me where I live. While I disagree with you, your post is important, and I'm glad you wrote it. Those who are undecided about att…
While I disagree with you, I think your post is important, and I'm glad you wrote it. Thank you for saying that. I hesitated for a long time before writing this -- hence the posting almost a week after the event -- because it felt like I was being rude to criticize an event which, after all, we were all invited into for free. Those who are undecided about attending SuS in the future whose expectations match yours can…
> 100 developers and gaining a technical focus
You're a far more accomplished developer than I am, but even I feel like I can mostly do what I need to, technically, given the time. I'm weaker in the other departments - finance, marketing, UX - all that stuff. So truth be told, I'm actually more interested in exposing myself to ideas from those fields. One thing I thought was interesting from MicroConf Europe last year is that I had very, very few conversations about actual technology, even though some of the people were certainly capable of it.
Re: Thoughts on Startup School
#46The power points and standing are more likely health and safety regulation.
Re: Thoughts on Startup School
#47I attended Startup School 2011; I regret wasting the day there. I thought that "Startup School" would be more like the "How to Start a Startup" lecture series that YC is running at Stanford. Instead, it was just a bunch of celebrities talking about their startup experiences; a concentrated shot of survival bias. There's nothing practical to learn from the Startup School talks. As for inspiration, I guess some people…
The same was true of Startup School London, btw.
Re: Thoughts on Startup School
#48My background is technical also and I figured out what you mean and your sentiment.
I'm one of the attendees that was impressed by Jan Koum has chose Erlang for an intuition or by the Kevin Systrom estimation for rails.
Maybe you wrong your approach to a startupschool as many tecnical people like us.
Basically the startup success formula does not exist
I think that startup school has an implicit and very powerfull message: Startup successful founders are common people and not divinity
Re: Thoughts on Startup School
#49Colin: I'm sorry we didn't deliver what you needed. YC's goal in selecting Startup School participants is to get a mix of deeply technical people and popularizers. The combination of those two skill sets makes a great startup. When I saw you at Startup School I was like, "Hey, it's cperciva! Maybe he'll find a co-founder who can sell and together they can make Tarsnap take over the backup business!" That would be a g…
Trevor: Thank you for replying. I hope you (and Jessica, and everybody else involved with Startup School) don't take what I've written personally -- I nearly didn't post it for exactly that reason, but decided in the end that you're all grown-ups who won't be offended by honest criticism. ;-) And thank you for your comments when we met -- talking to you was the highlight of the weekend for me (I didn't mention it in…
Why not (re 8 years)?
Re: Thoughts on Startup School
#50Some questions:
I watched some of a Startup School video, maybe the most recent one. Ron Conway was interviewed, and there were other speakers.
And I just read Jessica Livingston's talk
What Goes Wrong, 10/25/2012
at
http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong...
and from the post by Randell in this thread at
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8474689
I will start with Livingston's
"Making Something People Want is Hard"
Here's a suggestion of another way:
Step (1) Problem.
Pick a problem where there is no doubt that the first good or a much better solution will result in enough eager users/customers to make a financially successful business. That is, we want a problem where plenty of people want and will like the solution very much. Here we want no doubt. Maybe the ideal such problem would be a safe, effective, cheap, one pill cure for any cancer.
Step (2) Solution.
For the solution, to exploit Moore's law, etc., stay in information technology and there do some original research.
Step (3) Implementation.
Write the software to do the data manipulations specified by the research.
So, the result should be a solution to Livingston's
"Making Something People Want is Hard"
Livingston also warns about co-founder disputes.
She has
"Not making something people want is the biggest cause of failure we see early on. (The second biggest is founder disputes.)"
So, here's a solution to the second biggest "cause of failure" -- be a solo founder.
But Livingston also has
"single founder and it's hard to do a startup as a single founder."
Here she loses me: There are a lot of successful businesses, small to giant, that had solo founders. So, I'm lost on why it is such a bad idea for a solo founder to try to get a company going. Sure, once the company is growing rapidly, then take on, say, an office manager, a guy to run the server farm, a programmer, a marketing guy, etc. as needed.