What Startups Are Really Like • Hacker News Board

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#11

Post by pclark » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:18 PM UTC

ardit33 wrote: post #7

18. You Get No Respect There was one surprise founders mentioned that I'd forgotten about: that outside the startup world, startup founders get no respect. In social settings, I found that I got a lot more respect when I said, "I worked on Microsoft Office" instead of "I work at a small startup you've never heard of called x." Partly this is because the rest of the world just doesn't get startups, and partly it's yet…

those horizontal scroll bars are infuriating.

when i tell people i work for my own company they're really impressed fwiw (in the uk) - I think tons of people can correlate with how terrible boring jobs are.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#12

Post by mattmaroon » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:19 PM UTC

#18 REALLY depends on where you live. If you're in the Valley, definitely. Everyone who is not in a startup there works at somewhere like Adobe and has 10 coworkers who previously founded a Web 2.0 social search engine for pet clothing which promptly flopped. People used to ask me "what do you have to do to become a professional poker player?" and my reply was always "quit your job." It's a lot like that with startups, and everyone within 100 miles of San Jose knows it.

If you live in Ohio, however, "I own a software company" goes a lot further. If only I were single...

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#13

Post by pclark » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:20 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #9

allenbrunson wrote: post #3

There are a bunch of passages surrounded by asterisks. Shouldn't that be italics?

Fixed, thanks.

off topic, but I'd really like to see block quotes in hacker news comments.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#14

Post by ksvs » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:21 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #2

"If your first version is so impressive that trolls don't make fun of it, you waited too long to launch."

They should print this at the top of the comments on each TechCrunch article.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#15

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:22 PM UTC

saikat wrote: post #5

One of the big problems I have with PG's essays is that, though I like the content, I have a very hard time believing everything he says without evidence. When you are in an emotional low, it's very difficult to think, "I should just persist because PG says it usually works." So it was great to see his points actually backed up by other founders' experiences. As a side note, does anyone have a transcript of Jason Fri…

[deleted]

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#16

Post by snprbob86 » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:28 PM UTC

[deleted] wrote: post #15

saikat wrote: post #5

One of the big problems I have with PG's essays is that, though I like the content, I have a very hard time believing everything he says without evidence. When you are in an emotional low, it's very difficult to think, "I should just persist because PG says it usually works." So it was great to see his points actually backed up by other founders' experiences. As a side note, does anyone have a transcript of Jason Fri…

[deleted]

I believe saikat was trying to say that this essay is refreshingly substantiated.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#17

Post by bootload » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:35 PM UTC

If wrote a new essay with the same outline as this that wasn't summarizing the founders' responses, everyone would say I'd run out of ideas and was just repeating myself.

The Super-Pattern, 2nd para needs "If 'I' wrote a new essay".

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#18

Post by dunstad » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:38 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #9

allenbrunson wrote: post #3

There are a bunch of passages surrounded by asterisks. Shouldn't that be italics?

Fixed, thanks.

At the beginning of section 6. Think Long Term, you say "shear stress", but I think the word you intended to use is "sheer".

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#19

Post by codexon » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:46 PM UTC

anateus wrote: post #10

One of the reasons startups aren't for everyone is that most people strongly prefer a steady moderate income over a risky and sporadic one no matter how great (though they still buy lottery tickets). This helps explain #18 as well as #4 :)

So are you saying that running a startup is like playing the lottery?

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#20

Post by _cbsz » Sun, Oct 25, 2009, 10:49 PM UTC

dunstad wrote: post #18

pg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fixed, thanks.

At the beginning of section 6. Think Long Term, you say "shear stress", but I think the word you intended to use is "sheer".

It's correct as written. See sense 9 at http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/shear -- shearing stress is the stress between two blocks pressed together along a plane and moving in opposite directions parallel to that plane.

It's a very nice analogy: the startup is moving fast in one direction and the VC or whatever is moving slowly in another one.