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What Startups Are Really Like

paulgraham.com

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Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#101

Post by trevelyan »

apsurd wrote: post #74
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?

Suspect it also has something to do with the presence (or not) of a full time job. I think working is the smart move in Patrick's case for the extra financial freedom, but it definitely takes pressure off.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#102

Post by JoeAltmaier »

lloydarmbrust wrote: post #78
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 ar…

We counted the times our Founder announced "We're funded!" - total of 21 in 2 years. We never got ANY money.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#103

Post by JoeAltmaier »

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.

Good for you! But in my experience, 1+1 is MUCH greater than 2. If I'm right 99% of the time, the other guy has hauled his own weight just by correcting me that 1% - because I'd have been blocked, or gone the wrong way, or dropped a ball. And there are 99 decisions to make every week.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#104

Post by JoeAltmaier »

caffeine wrote: post #48
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.

However, the wannabe founders reading it are also probably single males who don't understand marriage. We do, however, probably all share a very similar caricature of marriage - and thus the analogy is useful in communicating the bizarre mix of love, hate, co-dependence, shared depression and elation, occasional jealousy and careful maintenance that characterizes the relationship between two guys in a foxhole with la…

Right! So most unmarried founders are not really thinking marriage, but girlfriend. Or rooommate.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#105

Post by JoeAltmaier »

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.

I'll disagree. DropBox is somewhat slick, but has embarrassing flaws. They have some way to go. So I guess they did it right!

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#106

Post by JoeAltmaier »

gbookman wrote: post #65

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.

Remember its a survivor that said that. The ones that got squashed dead by competition aren't in the conversation.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#107

Post by known »

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." --George Bernard Shaw

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#108

Post by JoeAltmaier »

tpyo wrote: post #29
codexon wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

P(winning the lottery) * winnings - (cost to play) I think this is false with startups, but the chances of succeeding are still low.

Actually the lottery can do better than that. The expected value of a lottery ticket can exceed the cost to play ($1) when its in its third or fourth round without a winner.

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#109

Post by clintavo »

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.

I've had that surreal experience myself. My tech support people are so great and they sometimes explain to me how they did something to "hack" our software to work a certain way for a customer and I think, "how did I not think of that?"

Re: What Startups Are Really Like

#110

Post by pmjordan »

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.

I think that's in no small part due to the problem Dropbox solves. Don't forget this problem has been "solved" about a gazillion times before, but the lack of polish made those "solutions" unusable in practice.
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