Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
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Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
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Re: Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
#2The "heavy hitters" in the room at "demo days" seem to be firm associates. Associates are mostly irrelevant to you. If you try just a little bit, you should be able to get meetings with firm partners. You probably don't have any traction with a firm until you've taken a 1-on-1 with a partner.
Maybe my VC knowledge is stale (it's from 2005) but a room full of VC associates seems pretty unattractive.
Re: Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
#3[deleted]
Re: Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
#4I am usually pretty bored by "x lessons from my y experience" posts, but this one hit the nail on the head. Very poignant observations.
Re: Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
#5The "heavy hitters" in the room at "demo days" seem to be firm associates. Associates are mostly irrelevant to you. If you try just a little bit, you should be able to get meetings with firm partners. You probably don't have any traction with a firm until you've taken a 1-on-1 with a partner. Maybe my VC knowledge is stale (it's from 2005) but a room full of VC associates seems pretty unattractive.
You definitely have partners in the room as well—but I would say the closer the VC's office are to the Demo Day location, the more likely you will have a partner present. The further, the more likely it will be an associate. Agreed?
Re: Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
#6Is it possible you need business founders more when building something people have to pay for, and tech founders more when building 'consumer web' stuff?
If so, that explains several observations: the anecdote-based disagreements that keep coming up about the need for business folks, the general bias of YC for consumer web startups in the early years (I think they tended to fund all-programmer teams more so than they do now)
It also seems incredibly useful for figuring out what your startup should do, far more useful than whatever idea you have this week. The skills of the initial team are perhaps the most immutable of resource constraints you have. If you don't have a business/sales guy, don't get into selling software just because "37signals told you to." If you are a business guy, don't waste your time on a twitter app or social network.
Like Dijkstra said, "Do what only you can do."
And yes, I'm aware of Mark Zuckerberg, patio11 et al. Are they counter-examples or exceptions?
Re: Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
#7Re: Lesson #3. And where is Woz now? I would be reluctant to put forward that Woz was more important to Apple’s overall success than Jobs or vice versa. Truth is, they were both important and (assuming the author is suggesting Jobs was the 'business' guy and Woz was the 'programmer') Apple would not be what it is today if one or the other didn’t play a role.
One of the most important lessons I learned at my startup as a programmer is the value that commercial business people bring. Yes, we programmers are important at the beginning when the product is being developed, but once the business of the product gets going, the business people become very important.
Check out some of Steve Blank's posts on customer development vs. product development. In a recent slide presentation I flipped through, he states that most startups fail because of a lack of customer development (typically what 'business' people do), and not because of a lack of product development (which is typically what developers do). (And yes I realize that the programmer can possibly do both, but not as fast as two people who work well together can).
At the end of the day, both skill sets are required to make the startup successful, and for one to say he or she is more important than the other is like the fable I once heard about the eyes saying they were more important than the ears who thought they were more important than the hands who thought they were more important than the feet, etc. etc.
I know I will likely get seriously down voted for this type of comment on a programmer centric board, but the programmer 'divas' who think that the world would stop if it were not for their brilliance annoy the hell out of me. To those people I would say that you will get a lot further in the long run if you pool your skills with someone who brings to the table what you lack.
Re: Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
#8Is it possible you need business founders more when building something people have to pay for, and tech founders more when building 'consumer web' stuff? If so, that explains several observations: the anecdote-based disagreements that keep coming up about the need for business folks, the general bias of YC for consumer web startups in the early years (I think they tended to fund all-programmer teams more so than they…
I think the key point is nothing happens in the beginning with our great technical people. You will always need great business people in the end to drive the business (Google). But we're talking about startup programs where there is little capital and little time.
Re: Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
#9Re: Lesson #3. And where is Woz now? I would be reluctant to put forward that Woz was more important to Apple’s overall success than Jobs or vice versa. Truth is, they were both important and (assuming the author is suggesting Jobs was the 'business' guy and Woz was the 'programmer') Apple would not be what it is today if one or the other didn’t play a role. One of the most important lessons I learned at my startup a…
Agreed 100%. Again, we are talking about startups in incubator programs. A team with three MBAs is a recipe for disaster in that scenario—or at least lesser odds of success.
Re: Lessons from My AlphaLab Experience
#10Re: Lesson #3. And where is Woz now? I would be reluctant to put forward that Woz was more important to Apple’s overall success than Jobs or vice versa. Truth is, they were both important and (assuming the author is suggesting Jobs was the 'business' guy and Woz was the 'programmer') Apple would not be what it is today if one or the other didn’t play a role. One of the most important lessons I learned at my startup a…
Agreed 100%. Again, we are talking about startups in incubator programs. A team with three MBAs is a recipe for disaster in that scenario—or at least lesser odds of success.
Yeah, I understand and ultimately agree with you with respect to startup programs.
My rant stems from a general theme that seems to come across in comments on this site that business people and managers are idiots, and programmers are gods. I know that is not the point you were intending to make.