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That's why I will never invest any money in your company

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Re: That's why I will never invest any money in your company

#11

Post by jasonlotito »

zaidf wrote: post #9

The tone of your post smells of too much hate. You sound like someone who could write a cool-headed post explaining when you think startups should try to raise money and when they should just enjoy the passive income from a weekend project. Also, don't forget the biggest hit of this decade(facebook) was a college kid's side project just some years ago. As was twitter. And many others.

"Also, don't forget the biggest hit of this decade(facebook) was a college kid's side project just some years ago. As was twitter. And many others."

Facebook was a weekend project long before it went to raise money. It wasn't merely a weekend project trying to raise money.

Twitter wasn't a college kid's side project. It was developed by Odeo.

Indeed, the "biggest hits of this decade" seem more to be weekend projects that evolve from that, and then seek funding, rather than weekend projects that remain that, and seek funding.

And while his tone does come off somewhat harsh, I think the message is still a good one.

Re: That's why I will never invest any money in your company

#12

Post by prog »

This raises an interesting question actually. What works better, scratching your own itch (hobby project) and then putting a business idea around it (e.g. http://www.couch.io/) or putting business first? I think some VCs might prefer putting business first.

I suspect the prior works better but may need some patience. I have a bunch of projects in various stages of completion and now I am working on (enjoying!) something new and hoping to make it useful.

IMO make-something-useful and then bother about business should work better, but then I haven't made much using this approach yet.

Re: That's why I will never invest any money in your company

#14

Post by zaidf »

jasonlotito wrote: post #11
zaidf wrote: post #9

The tone of your post smells of too much hate. You sound like someone who could write a cool-headed post explaining when you think startups should try to raise money and when they should just enjoy the passive income from a weekend project. Also, don't forget the biggest hit of this decade(facebook) was a college kid's side project just some years ago. As was twitter. And many others.

"Also, don't forget the biggest hit of this decade(facebook) was a college kid's side project just some years ago. As was twitter. And many others." Facebook was a weekend project long before it went to raise money. It wasn't merely a weekend project trying to raise money. Twitter wasn't a college kid's side project. It was developed by Odeo. Indeed, the "biggest hits of this decade" seem more to be weekend projects…

If he is arguing that many or most weekend projects are seeking funding, he is setting up a strawman. I don't think most or many weekend projects seek funding, especially ones posted here.

Re: That's why I will never invest any money in your company

#15

Post by adharmad »

[deleted] wrote: post #2

[deleted]

What differentiates weekend projects from real startups is the seriousness of the founders. If the founders have very little at stake, then failure of the project will not affect them much. As the founders increase their stake (mental involvement, hardwork, investment of time, money) in their project, they start getting more serious and the "weekend project" starts morphing into a startup.

Re: That's why I will never invest any money in your company

#16

Post by loumf »

carbocation wrote: post #6
idlewords wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Barely making the salary of a really, really highly-paid person.

On the side of whatever you do normally, to boot.

With 10k/month, it's unlikely that it could be a side job, but it's also likely you could live on it and try to grow it.

Re: That's why I will never invest any money in your company

#17

Post by dunhamda »

jasonkester wrote: post #10
Asa-Nisse wrote: post #8

While I agree that most of the "review my " here are pretty Lame I must say that this post entirely misses the point. So what if the authors of these project chooses to call them startups. Nobody has a right or the power to decide what is a startup or not. Especially not some guy with a whiny attitude.

So if the little website that takes text you type in and gives you a URL that has that text shown REALLY BIG is now defined as a Startup, what should the rest of us with real businesses call ourselves?

I don't know, but I'd like to know how I can invest in your URL embiggener startup

Re: That's why I will never invest any money in your company

#18

Post by [deleted] »

Asa-Nisse wrote: post #8

While I agree that most of the "review my " here are pretty Lame I must say that this post entirely misses the point. So what if the authors of these project chooses to call them startups. Nobody has a right or the power to decide what is a startup or not. Especially not some guy with a whiny attitude.

[deleted]

Re: That's why I will never invest any money in your company

#19

Post by run4yourlives »

jasonkester wrote: post #10
Asa-Nisse wrote: post #8

While I agree that most of the "review my " here are pretty Lame I must say that this post entirely misses the point. So what if the authors of these project chooses to call them startups. Nobody has a right or the power to decide what is a startup or not. Especially not some guy with a whiny attitude.

So if the little website that takes text you type in and gives you a URL that has that text shown REALLY BIG is now defined as a Startup, what should the rest of us with real businesses call ourselves?

Profitable?

Oh wait a lot of us fail in that regard, don't we?

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