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What Startups Are Really Like

paulgraham.com

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Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#71

Post by [deleted] »

pg wrote: post #53
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…

Viaweb took over my life when we were working on it. I worked all the time I wasn't sleeping. Not because I was inefficient or thought it was the conventional thing to do (I knew practically nothing about startup conventions then) but because there was just so much work to do. I suppose I could have worked slower and things might have turned out the same anyway. But probably not that much slower. And I certainly had…

[deleted]

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#73

Post by tptacek »

brandnewlow wrote: post #37
mattmaroon wrote: post #12

#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 startup…

I guess it depends on how you describe it, eh? "I own a software company" does sound like it'd be more successful than "I run an internet startup."

I say "I own a company", exactly because "I have an internet startup" seems like an eye-roller. I agree with the previous comment: the fact that we're out-of-the-ordinary in Chicago is one of the things I like best about Chicago.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#74

Post by apsurd »

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…

Patrick, I definitely both respect and admire the business you built. You can also say I'm pro the 37 signals mantra.

But I think your advice is specific to the model you've built and the output you are yielding. I don't remember the numbers but I think you are somewhere around 100k (or less) in yearly revenue? Startups, whether logical/warranted or not, seem to be aiming orders of magnitude more than this, yes?

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#75

Post by jcapote »

pg wrote: post #69
johnrob wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And here I thought the favicon was on purpose...

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#76

Post by c00p3r »

cperciva wrote: post #35
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…

When you are in an emotional low, it's very difficult to think, "I should just persist because PG says it usually works." I usually take the opposite approach: I should persist because PG says that single-founder startups don't work, and I'm going to prove him wrong, damnit.

There are a lot of explanations why one is not enough. Think about practicing a foreign language - how it's much better when you have someone to talk to. That's also correct for almost any kind of evolving processes. Even a reading (which is a classical example of a lonely activity) could do better if you will develop the habit of reading aloud, like Tibetan and many other cultures have.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#77

Post by c00p3r »

marcofloriano wrote: post #56

#13 My advice is generally pessimistic. Assume you won't get money, and if someone does offer you any, assume you'll never get any more. I´m a business wannabe from Brazil and i just laugh when i read that one. Here we dont have ANY chances of getting money from VCs so when we start something new, specially with technology, we never expect to get money. Ramen profit system is not an option at poor countries, it´s the…

That's it. Think about self-developing as a startup. This should be one's first startup - build your own self (yes, go toward unknown, launch fast, evolve, iterate, grow).

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#78

Post by lloydarmbrust »

marcofloriano wrote: post #56

#13 My advice is generally pessimistic. Assume you won't get money, and if someone does offer you any, assume you'll never get any more. I´m a business wannabe from Brazil and i just laugh when i read that one. Here we dont have ANY chances of getting money from VCs so when we start something new, specially with technology, we never expect to get money. Ramen profit system is not an option at poor countries, it´s the…

I've been unconsciously practicing number #13 since the beginning of our start-up. Every time I close a deal I'm thinking, "it's not over until we start getting paid from these guys."

That attitude has served me well, I mean, I've had groups back out on us after they signed an agreement. What are we going to do? Lawyers cost to much and who wants to work with someone who doesn't want to work with us? Our customers are our partners and we love them--but if the feeling's not mutual I'd rather cut it off.

It's funny, I'm so optimistic about our success--I'm an entrepreneur after all--but I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop when closing a new customer.

BTW: I should mention that our customers are newspapers, who are notorious for taking a long time to make bad decisions . . . so when we close someone, it's time to break out the scotch.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#79

Post by lloydarmbrust »

Very timely post for me as I started up earlier this year--amazing how many of these things I've already learned the hard way.

#1 is aptly chosen. I've always heard that picking the wrong business partner is worse than picking the wrong spouse and I have to agree. Some days I spend more time talking with my co-founder than I do my wife, and right now he is currently six states away.

But I wanted to add that #5 also plays a role here. I vividly remember the first time my co-founder and I had a disagreement: we were both pissed and thought the other was pretty stupid. Some things were said and I got offended but we were both able to take a step back and remove our emotion. I told myself, "this is how start-ups die." Once we both removed our emotion from the situation we were able to address the problem and ultimately make the product better. We needed to be persistent not only in our work, but also in our relationship.

Ever since that time we've decided that while we may at times offend each other (it is a natural reaction), we just need to get over it, and quickly. Now we can say things like, "you're doing this wrong" or "that looks ugly" or "we need to completely rethink this" and no one wants to take their toys and go home. By removing emotion we can more direct, more efficient. And our product is better and we have more clients because of it.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#80

Post by arh »

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…

You're not overanalyzing it - you're making generalizations about women that are naive and, in my view, offensive.
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