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What Startups Are Really Like

paulgraham.com

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Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#61

Post by 100k »

maukdaddy wrote: post #47
babyshake wrote: post #32

The line about how "it's like we're married, but we're not fucking" makes me curious about the correlations between a founder's relationship with co-founders and their relationship with romantic partners. You might get some good insight by observing a potential co-founder's behavior toward their romantic partner, or toward potential romantic partners if they're single.

I'm going to get blasted for this, but here goes anyway. I'm willing to bet that the majority of founders are single males who do not understand what marriage is all about. I have not had the experience of being part of a start-up, but I do have 6 years of marriage under my belt. I cannot imagine any circumstance where being someone's co-fonder is in any way like being married to them.

I compared it to marriage (and yes, I am married) because when you start a company with someone, you're beholden to their weaknesses as well as benefiting from their strengths.

For example, if your co-founder only has 3 months of living expenses saved up, well you've got a deadline to get more money.

Plus in the YC-model startup, you're usually living in very close proximity with your co-founders, so you need to get along with them as roommates as well as partners.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#62

Post by _cbsz »

cperciva wrote: post #55
_cbsz wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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. Personally I prefer the phrase "impedance mismatch".

It's much harder to explain impedance concisely. I, for one, never took a circuits class, and I wouldn't expect other CS programs to require one either.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#63

Post by johnrob »

pg wrote: post #54
hop wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add this to your in the head tag and it should work -- I just emailed you a vanity favicon :)

Unfortunately Store doesn't give you access to the head. Is there something I could stick in the body that would work?

Here's how to get access to the head (took some googling and tinkering):

1) Put editor in advanced mode by clicking on red arrow on top right (you have to be in advanced mode to override a variable)

2) Click 'Variables' link (now it is possible to 'override' the missing Head-tags variable).

3) Override the 'Head-tags' variable by clicking the "Define New Variable" button (even though we want to override)

4) Now you can paste in a tag like this: http://enter-url-here-to-your-store/favicon.ico type="image/x-icon" />

I love yahoo store, but it has some serious usability issues right now ;)

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#64

Post by michaelneale »

patio11 wrote: post #39

I sometimes wonder if the Valley culture doesn't socially construct some of the startup pathologies. For example, startups taking over your life: why does this happen? Is this because startups take over your life and nothing can be done about this? I am skeptical of this: I run a small business, the time demands are rather modest, and I live a life outside of work. I'm surely not uniquely in a position to do this. No…

Jobs in many, if not most professions commonly will "take over your life" if you let them. In many cases it is expected.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#65

Post by gbookman »

All the scares induced by seeing a new competitor pop up are forgotten weeks later. It always comes down to your own product and approach to the market.

This quote and the other comments about overestimating your competition really stood out to me. It's true that as a Founder, your own ability to execute and find what customers want is what matters.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#66

Post by breck »

patio11 wrote: post #39

I sometimes wonder if the Valley culture doesn't socially construct some of the startup pathologies. For example, startups taking over your life: why does this happen? Is this because startups take over your life and nothing can be done about this? I am skeptical of this: I run a small business, the time demands are rather modest, and I live a life outside of work. I'm surely not uniquely in a position to do this. No…

I think there are 2 good reasons for a startup to take over your life:

1. If your startup is succeeding wildly. If you were seeing amazing returns from your time(i.e. maybe you work 80 hours in a week but made $10,000 and growing or signed up 20,000 new users), it's hard to think about anything else. You realize that you have stumbled upon a rare opportunity and it's worth it to sacrifice other things for a short time.

OR

2. You don't know any better. The first time you do a startup it's hard to know if it's succeeding or not, and everything takes longer because you don't know what you're doing and you make more mistakes. But likely you've read tons of stories about startups that fit #1, and because you don't know any better you confuse cause and effect and think that working 100 hours is going to make your startup succeed.

These are the two good excuses that I can think of for dedicating a disproportionate amount of your time to your startup. My general advice is to not take it too seriously unless you've stumbled upon a number 1. Life is too short. And it's not too hard to do a startup and enjoy life at the same time if you don't make big mistakes.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#67

Post by gruseom »

patio11 wrote: post #39

I sometimes wonder if the Valley culture doesn't socially construct some of the startup pathologies. For example, startups taking over your life: why does this happen? Is this because startups take over your life and nothing can be done about this? I am skeptical of this: I run a small business, the time demands are rather modest, and I live a life outside of work. I'm surely not uniquely in a position to do this. No…

Now, step back: who here wants to say any variant of "That isn't the same thing!", "That isn't possible!", or "You are insufficiently dedicated and will never be truly successful!"

I will. Your second and third obections are straw men, but the first sounds reasonable to me. I don't see a modestly demanding side-project from a day job (to use your terms) as quite the same thing as what the quotes in the OP are about.

You make a good point about some patterns being socially constructed. That could be a factor here, and an interesting one. But I think you spoil it by excessively extrapolating from your own situation. This is a more subtle question than that.

The startup I'm working on occupies the bulk of my life right now (I'm not sure I'd say "taken over", since it's a far from hostile occupation). I can't imagine doing what I'm doing in an arm's-length or part-time way, or even a full-time way in the 8-hours-a-day sense. It requires more creative energy and focus than anything I've worked on in the past. I can't turn that on and off. To try to fit it into a conventional rhythm would kill it. Certainly this has its downsides. But the conventional definitions of "balance" have their downsides too. The vast majority of people I observe whose lives are "balanced" by those definitions are simply not doing anything very ambitious or creative. Of course I'm not advocating imbalance as an alternative as such, but I do say that any real discussion of this question needs to take this fact into account. Most don't. (Find me one!) Most utter platitudes about "work-life balance" and stop there.

As an aside, listening to Tony Hsieh yesterday made a lightbulb go on about why I find the phrase "work-life balance" so... debasing. It's because it assumes that work is not life.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#68

Post by lloydarmbrust »

mahmud wrote: post #57
maukdaddy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm going to get blasted for this, but here goes anyway. I'm willing to bet that the majority of founders are single males who do not understand what marriage is all about. I have not had the experience of being part of a start-up, but I do have 6 years of marriage under my belt. I cannot imagine any circumstance where being someone's co-fonder is in any way like being married to them.

I will tell you one aspect where they're different: I can show a business partner some very evil and cut-throat side of me that I will do anything absolutely necessary to shield from my girlfriend.

Yeah, you're not married--you can't hide that stuff from a wife forever.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#69

Post by pg »

johnrob wrote: post #63
pg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately Store doesn't give you access to the head. Is there something I could stick in the body that would work?

Here's how to get access to the head (took some googling and tinkering): 1) Put editor in advanced mode by clicking on red arrow on top right (you have to be in advanced mode to override a variable) 2) Click 'Variables' link (now it is possible to 'override' the missing Head-tags variable). 3) Override the 'Head-tags' variable by clicking the "Define New Variable" button (even though we want to override) 4) Now you c…

This is the weirdest thing. You're explaining my own software to me. (The editor is the part of Viaweb I wrote.) I'd forgotten there was a head-tags variable. But thanks to you I've finally been able to get rid of the annoying Yahoo favicon.

Incidentally, you don't have to override head-tags. You can just change the global value on the Variables page.

Sorry about the usability issues. It was pretty good for 1997.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#70

Post by snprbob86 »

gcv wrote: post #60

I'd like to (slightly) challenge #8: it seems to me that Dropbox is a counterexample. The Dropbox guys took quite a long time and their first release was quite polished. Not perfect, certainly, but way, way ahead of just minimally functional.

They were also their own target users. I'm sure they ate their own dog food quite a bit.
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