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After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

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Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#131

Post by kristofferg »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #129
dagw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American startup culture is so weird On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. If you told most European startup founders that in 5 years you'll have plateaued at 15-20 employees, a steady income flow, and you'll be paying yourself $200-250k a year, they'd…

Swinging big or not, the odds of (by definition of startup) "failure" are high. Therefore, you might as well swing big. A swing small experiment that doesn't connect is still a "failure". Put another way, there is an endless supply of noise (read: competition for attention). If you're not swinging big enough to cut through that clutter odds are good you're just adding to the clutter. That's going to be an endless str…

“Less risk is actually more risk.” - Maybe the title of Nassim Talebs next book?

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#132

Post by vanillaicesquad »

Hendrikto wrote: post #118

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business. […] We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product […, but] we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us believe that we were on the right track to build a huge business. American startup culture is so weird. Not everything needs to be a hyper-scaler, not everything needs to be hug…

[dead]

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#133

Post by brabel »

dagw wrote: post #124
Hendrikto wrote: post #118

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business. […] We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product […, but] we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us believe that we were on the right track to build a huge business. American startup culture is so weird. Not everything needs to be a hyper-scaler, not everything needs to be hug…

American startup culture is so weird On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. If you told most European startup founders that in 5 years you'll have plateaued at 15-20 employees, a steady income flow, and you'll be paying yourself $200-250k a year, they'd…

> If you never take big swings and big risks and are happy with small wins and stable growth you'll never win the big prize.

If you do, you still won't win the big prize. The people who do win the big prize are so few, even in the US, that it's an almost certainty you won't do it. Perhaps you're right that there must be thousands of losers for even a single winner to come up, but that seems so inefficient I doubt that's really true.

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#135

Post by confidantlake »

dagw wrote: post #124
Hendrikto wrote: post #118

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business. […] We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product […, but] we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us believe that we were on the right track to build a huge business. American startup culture is so weird. Not everything needs to be a hyper-scaler, not everything needs to be hug…

American startup culture is so weird On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. If you told most European startup founders that in 5 years you'll have plateaued at 15-20 employees, a steady income flow, and you'll be paying yourself $200-250k a year, they'd…

I would argue it is less healthy for the economy. Large companies are very good at extracting value, not necessarily producing it.

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#136

Post by brabel »

jf22 wrote: post #123
mediaman wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why people even think about selling $10/mo licenses. Just go sell $2-4k/mo SaaS to a medium sized traditional industry that has ancient, crummy software with a target customer employee size of 50 - 1,000 people. Customer problem discovery is easier, you get reputation network effects within the vertical, you gain trust because you learn the industry lingo, you can actually solve peoples' problems b…

>Just go sell $2-4k/mo SaaS to a medium sized traditional industry that has ancient, crummy software with a target customer employee size of 50 - 1,000 people. As if that is easy.

The guy is so out of touch it's like a cartoon. Like, right, why did they think of that?! Just create something that's worth several thousands a month instead of a small value product!!! And get all the big companies who can actually afford that kind of thing to buy your product!!! How hard can that be?

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#137

Post by vjk800 »

dagw wrote: post #124
Hendrikto wrote: post #118

> While we gained some traction with some startups, we ultimately weren't able to build a hyper-growth business. […] We then decided to pivot into a vertical B2B SaaS AI product […, but] we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us believe that we were on the right track to build a huge business. American startup culture is so weird. Not everything needs to be a hyper-scaler, not everything needs to be hug…

American startup culture is so weird On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. If you told most European startup founders that in 5 years you'll have plateaued at 15-20 employees, a steady income flow, and you'll be paying yourself $200-250k a year, they'd…

> If you never take big swings and big risks and are happy with small wins and stable growth you'll never win the big prize.

You don't win the big price either by taking the big swings. I mean, some people do, but they are so few that they can be considered a rounding error.

Maybe the economy wins when one-in-a-million business unicorn appears, but I don't make any of my other life choices by considering the global economy either, so why would consider it here?

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#138

Post by redeux »

brabel wrote: post #133
dagw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American startup culture is so weird On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. If you told most European startup founders that in 5 years you'll have plateaued at 15-20 employees, a steady income flow, and you'll be paying yourself $200-250k a year, they'd…

> If you never take big swings and big risks and are happy with small wins and stable growth you'll never win the big prize. If you do, you still won't win the big prize. The people who do win the big prize are so few, even in the US, that it's an almost certainty you won't do it. Perhaps you're right that there must be thousands of losers for even a single winner to come up, but that seems so inefficient I doubt tha…

I’m not going to look for stats but as someone who’s been in the startup scene for a long time, it’s true and the stats are probably even worse than that. It’s totally inefficient for the entrepreneur but very efficient for the VC. One of my other observations is that the ones who do make it often come from families that have already made it and are able to leverage those connections and experiences.

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#139

Post by fourseventy »

confidantlake wrote: post #135
dagw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American startup culture is so weird On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. If you told most European startup founders that in 5 years you'll have plateaued at 15-20 employees, a steady income flow, and you'll be paying yourself $200-250k a year, they'd…

I would argue it is less healthy for the economy. Large companies are very good at extracting value, not necessarily producing it.

Did you use an iPhone to type this?

Re: After 3 Years, I Failed. Here's All My Startup's Code

#140

Post by motorest »

vjk800 wrote: post #137
dagw wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

American startup culture is so weird On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world. If you told most European startup founders that in 5 years you'll have plateaued at 15-20 employees, a steady income flow, and you'll be paying yourself $200-250k a year, they'd…

> If you never take big swings and big risks and are happy with small wins and stable growth you'll never win the big prize. You don't win the big price either by taking the big swings. I mean, some people do, but they are so few that they can be considered a rounding error. Maybe the economy wins when one-in-a-million business unicorn appears, but I don't make any of my other life choices by considering the global e…

> On the one hand, sure. On the other hand this relentless focus on "hyper-scale" or bust is what has pushed the US startup scene to where it is and probably why it is so far ahead of the rest of the world.

I don't agree. I think this is specious reasoning fueled by a mix of cargo cult mentality and survivorship bias. Just because a hand full of startups made it all the way through to a unicorn status, and some where bought out for undisclosed reasons,that means nothing on whether an idea is or can be hiper-scalable. To make matters worse, this reeks of short-term mentality that serves no purpose whatsoever other than find yet another angle to put together a kind of pump and dump scam.

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