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What I’ve learned from users

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I’ve learned from users

#131

Post by phpthrowaway99 »

sgustard wrote: post #110
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #94

PGs take on why early stage VCs gain so much experience reminds me of my opinions on why car sales is the best sales experience. I sold cars for almost a decade and was pretty good at it averaging 30 cars a month. That means every year I helped people sign for $16 million of products. In the end I probably sold 3000 cars for over $100 million. (Note, I stayed in it way too long. I think most of these benefits would c…

One thing I learned about the industry is that dealership salespeople are hired from the same pool as, say, McDonalds employees. These are not college graduates who have white-collar job offers. They join with no existing skills at low wage. Turnover is massive, the average sales agent leaves within a year. Meanwhile, the whole industry is pushing hard to adopt Tesla's model of fixed pricing and replacing people with…

I went to a top US university in a stem degree. My coworker was a med student that couldn't pass the Mcats, but wasn't a bozo. Basically everyone had a degree, and everyone made atleast $100k. I personally made about $225k but as I said, I was pretty good. I know a person in Bay area car sales making $300k+. I assume there are many others.

I assume you agree a McDonald's employee is not going to close accountants and doctors and lawyers and programmers on a car as often as an engineering grad would... And if that's true, why would a car dealership hire McDonald's type employees instead of slightly failed but still intelligent university stem grads? They don't cost more, since it's all pay for performance.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#133

Post by PeterisP »

killerdhmo wrote: post #92
TigeriusKirk wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Coinbase ipo'ed and Instacart about to ipo, that's not a bad batch from a purely investment perspective.

Coinbase? they're down 80% since their IPO (I am a shareholder); I suppose if the checkbox is "they IPOd" then sure.

Investors generally cash out at IPO, so if IPO price was 5x the real/current value, then that was a very, very profitable deal for the early investors.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#134

Post by phpthrowaway99 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #107
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #94

PGs take on why early stage VCs gain so much experience reminds me of my opinions on why car sales is the best sales experience. I sold cars for almost a decade and was pretty good at it averaging 30 cars a month. That means every year I helped people sign for $16 million of products. In the end I probably sold 3000 cars for over $100 million. (Note, I stayed in it way too long. I think most of these benefits would c…

This is interesting because as a car buyer, the only experience I want is car sellers quoting me prices until I get the lowest one. All via email.

I would get many of these type leads. The better you are, the more of these you can close. They're not anyone's favorite, but if I have a car we can't sell because it's an ugly color, or weird options configuration, or in general we need to move some cars, I'd play along. I'm just kidding a bit.

In reality, even very desirable cars can have this game played on them. I once sold a car $25k over MSRP, and the customer was thrilled because that was the lowest markup he could find.

When it comes to used cars, finding the lowest price is usually a terrible plan I could go into for longer than a PG blog post.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#135

Post by mcguire »

NhanH wrote: post #18

I adore pg’s essay. But this time something is tripping my spider sense, so I had to take a closer look (at my spider sense, and a bit on the essay too). This is the first time an essay feels like a sale pitch. Specifically, a sale pitch for YC. I’ve read pg’s essay about YC for about 15 years, and this is the first one I have that feeling. This one is a bit too abstract. I’m getting the idea that YC can help founder…

Well, PG did just say out loud that founders were YC's users. And, as a user, if you aren't paying for the product, you are the product...

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#136

Post by Hallucinaut »

ianmcgowan wrote: post #113
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #36

The thing that leaps out is "fund lots of small startups, the lessons are repeatable". I occasionally bang on about "Million Startups". Some back of the envelope maths and I reckon one could finance a literal million startups with what SoftBank might call a bad year (around 30 billion). When YC started they funded people with 5k per founder. I am not saying fund the next fusion machine, but put momentum into cities a…

Maybe rebrand UBI as the government funding a few million startups? That and universal healthcare probably would free up enough people to start their passion project. Enough to cover the ones that want to be artists, caregivers, or just go surfing/play video games.

My favourite brainwave on UBI was to brand it a negative income tax. Would stymie a lot of the more traditional fiscal conservative arguments (albeit not going to counter the drive for regressive rates).

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#137

Post by tchock23 »

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #94

PGs take on why early stage VCs gain so much experience reminds me of my opinions on why car sales is the best sales experience. I sold cars for almost a decade and was pretty good at it averaging 30 cars a month. That means every year I helped people sign for $16 million of products. In the end I probably sold 3000 cars for over $100 million. (Note, I stayed in it way too long. I think most of these benefits would c…

Alex Hormozi was on a podcast recently talking about how you should learn high volume sales skills in a scenario like a gym chain, car dealer, etc. Do that for a few years and then take those skills to sell the most expensive thing you can to make “real” money with better quality customers. Seemed like reasonable advice and aligned with your experiences...

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#138

Post by baxtr »

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #94

PGs take on why early stage VCs gain so much experience reminds me of my opinions on why car sales is the best sales experience. I sold cars for almost a decade and was pretty good at it averaging 30 cars a month. That means every year I helped people sign for $16 million of products. In the end I probably sold 3000 cars for over $100 million. (Note, I stayed in it way too long. I think most of these benefits would c…

Super interesting. Super stupid question from someone not really versed in sales: what’s your key takeaway about how to be good at selling something?

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#139

Post by phpthrowaway99 »

peterkos wrote: post #125
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #94

PGs take on why early stage VCs gain so much experience reminds me of my opinions on why car sales is the best sales experience. I sold cars for almost a decade and was pretty good at it averaging 30 cars a month. That means every year I helped people sign for $16 million of products. In the end I probably sold 3000 cars for over $100 million. (Note, I stayed in it way too long. I think most of these benefits would c…

I recognize that it could be a helpful and rigorous experience in sales, but most car people I've gone to across dealerships have tried to guilt trip and lie to me to get me to spend more money than I have. As a student paying full in cash, I was pushed ruthlessly despite firmly saying no, and ultimately I got my car somewhere else. It reminds me how Best Buy used to have horrible customer experience, it was all comm…

I was about top 1% in the country. So buying from me would be a different experience. Maybe you landed on someone in the bottom 50%, at a bad dealership too.

The owner of our dealership was a Cal grad, the sales manager was a Jewish accounting major, I had an engineering degree, my favorite coworker completed medschool but couldn't pass the MCATS, and everyone else had a degree too.

When I went to work for a Penske dealership (a public company), corporate was in town one day and had a meeting with me to ask how the owner at my previous dealership did things. So maybe it wasn't your typical car dealership.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#140

Post by ghiculescu »

baxtr wrote: post #138
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #94

PGs take on why early stage VCs gain so much experience reminds me of my opinions on why car sales is the best sales experience. I sold cars for almost a decade and was pretty good at it averaging 30 cars a month. That means every year I helped people sign for $16 million of products. In the end I probably sold 3000 cars for over $100 million. (Note, I stayed in it way too long. I think most of these benefits would c…

Super interesting. Super stupid question from someone not really versed in sales: what’s your key takeaway about how to be good at selling something?

It’s in the comment:

> an accelerator course for *interacting with, reading*, and closing people

(Emphasis mine)

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