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Startup Playbook

playbook.samaltman.com

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Re: Startup Playbook

#181

Post by zdean »

m_fayer wrote: post #36

I wish there was a similar level and quality of resources for what I think are called lifestyle businesses. By that, I mean product-based businesses with at most a few million in revenue, a 5ish person team, a solid sustainable market position, and no desire to revolutionize any unicorns. I know a lot of people attempting this and they mostly seem to be flying under the radar, or at least have nowhere near the cachet…

I'm a big fan of Noah Kagan...I think he offers products/help often on this front through AppSumo. Example:

http://www.appsumo.com/monthly1k/?rf=brws

Re: Startup Playbook

#183

Post by bmh100 »

danieltillett wrote: post #152
ska wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By that, I mean product-based businesses with at most a few million in revenue, a 5ish person team, a solid sustainable market position, and no desire to revolutionize any unicorns. I believe this used to just be called "a small business". Not a terribly new idea, but being rediscovered perhaps by tech people?

This is as good excuse as any to link to my rant post that we need a new term for startups that are not focused on VC funding. 1. http://www.tillett.info/2014/11/24/lets-kill-the-term-lifest...

This has arguably already been done in the "entrepreneurship" world through the label "small giant", coined by the book [1] of the same name.

"Small Giants: Companies That Choose to Be Great Instead of Big"

[1]: http://www.amazon.com/Small-Giants-Companies-Choose-Instead/...

Re: Startup Playbook

#184

Post by dreamdu5t »

nl wrote: post #155
tdicola wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regarding DHH, I'll just point at [1], with the comment that Facebook made $891 profit last quarter. It's also currently valued at ~$300B. > [1] https://signalvnoise.com/posts/2585-facebook-is-not-worth-33... . To be fair that blog post was written in 2010 when Facebook was still a private company and had nowhere near the level of advertising, reach, etc. that it has today. In particular they had barely scratched t…

That's kind of the point!! The trajectory was clear enough that all those investors DHH called "star struck" put money in. To quote him: Irrational investor exuberance indeed . I think it would be more sensible to class them as "investors who had more foresight than DHH". He berated them for being dumb. Since we can now see that they weren't dumb at all we should consider DHH's insights questionable.

They were still dumb, they just got lucky. When you have enough money to throw shit and see what sticks, you don't need to be smart and pick winners. That's the whole crux of why people don't respect VC.

Re: Startup Playbook

#185

Post by david927 »

societylevel wrote: post #161
ekanes wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of room for both models. Lifestyle businesses are awesome. 100% great. But we wouldn't have society-level upgrades like Uber, Twitter or Apple without venture capital. They just don't work any other way.

I disagree strongly. We have the web because Tim Berners-Lee didn't raise an angel round, so he didn't ask 'how do I monetize' and built an amazing open system. Before him we had CompuServe and other VC backed trash. VC businesses like Twitter and Uber create centralized points of stagnation that seem great at first, but can't innovate the way open systems can. If Twitter was open we wouldn't be wondering if they'll…

Well said!

What I find funny is that if you make an analogy to music you find exactly where these platitudes lead to. "Great team" like One Direction or Britney Spears. "Make something that people want," such as Hit Me Baby One More Time.

Innovation is more like this: "The Velvet Underground's first album only sold a few thousand copies, but everyone who bought one formed a band." [Brian Eno]

When I see VC's like Peter Thiel who openly (and correctly) complain about the lack of innovation, I have to scratch my head and think, "Well, then, get out of the way."

Re: Startup Playbook

#186

Post by clearf »

societylevel wrote: post #161
ekanes wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of room for both models. Lifestyle businesses are awesome. 100% great. But we wouldn't have society-level upgrades like Uber, Twitter or Apple without venture capital. They just don't work any other way.

I disagree strongly. We have the web because Tim Berners-Lee didn't raise an angel round, so he didn't ask 'how do I monetize' and built an amazing open system. Before him we had CompuServe and other VC backed trash. VC businesses like Twitter and Uber create centralized points of stagnation that seem great at first, but can't innovate the way open systems can. If Twitter was open we wouldn't be wondering if they'll…

It's an interesting point, but I'm wondering how to unpack it.

"If Twitter was open... a dozen people innovating on it..."

Though not 100% independent of their funding model (loss-aversion bias might lead us to conclude that big companies take less risk), presumably Twitter has at least a dozen people trying to innovate on it?

They may not be doing what [parts of] the community wants, but that's not quite the same thing as not innovating.

Re: Startup Playbook

#187

Post by curun1r »

societylevel wrote: post #161
ekanes wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's plenty of room for both models. Lifestyle businesses are awesome. 100% great. But we wouldn't have society-level upgrades like Uber, Twitter or Apple without venture capital. They just don't work any other way.

I disagree strongly. We have the web because Tim Berners-Lee didn't raise an angel round, so he didn't ask 'how do I monetize' and built an amazing open system. Before him we had CompuServe and other VC backed trash. VC businesses like Twitter and Uber create centralized points of stagnation that seem great at first, but can't innovate the way open systems can. If Twitter was open we wouldn't be wondering if they'll…

> We have the web because Tim Berners-Lee didn't raise an angel round

Perhaps, but how successful would TBL's creation be without the Kleiner-Perkins investment in Netscape. The paid web browser probably wouldn't have taken off and the VC funding allowed Netscape to invest in building a quality browser while not charging end users to download.

VC has it's place and we shouldn't write it off entirely. But we should also realize that there are other ways for important changes to develop and VC isn't the panacea as it's often presented as here.

Re: Startup Playbook

#188

Post by bjwbell »

rconti wrote: post #166
davepeck wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Basecamp (née 37Signals) folks have been beating this drum for quite some time. DHH posted "Reconsider" to their blog today, actually; it's an entertaining read, if nothing else: https://signalvnoise.com/posts/3972-reconsider Here in Seattle, there's a great community of small software businesses with meaningful profits and impact. We have ties to the broader Seattle startup and technology community, without bein…

Thanks for reposting this, I didn't see it the first time around. Many of the pro-startup stuff I see, in particular this Altman piece, make me subtly uncomfortable, and I couldn't quite put my finger on why. Maybe it's because, while I live in the Valley, I'm a Seattle native. Maybe it's because Sam's younger than I am. Maybe it's because I like the suburbs better than San Francisco proper. Maybe it's because I'm no…

Results don't scale linearly with effort. I don't know if it's worth it.

Re: Startup Playbook

#189

Post by nl »

dreamdu5t wrote: post #184
nl wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's kind of the point!! The trajectory was clear enough that all those investors DHH called "star struck" put money in. To quote him: Irrational investor exuberance indeed . I think it would be more sensible to class them as "investors who had more foresight than DHH". He berated them for being dumb. Since we can now see that they weren't dumb at all we should consider DHH's insights questionable.

They were still dumb, they just got lucky. When you have enough money to throw shit and see what sticks, you don't need to be smart and pick winners. That's the whole crux of why people don't respect VC.

Lucky?

They were desperately buying anything they could on the secondary markets. That isn't luck, it's seeing an opportunity.

It's like Pinterest 2 or 3 years ago (say around the time of the 27M A16Z B round). Putting as much money into that as you could isn't being lucky, it's seeing an opportunity. Their 2014 and 2015 rounds are basically just ways to print money.

That's the whole crux of why people don't respect VC.

Um. Some people don't respect some VCs. I don't agree with everything Marc Andreessen says, but I'd be pretty silly if I didn't respect his opinion on technology.

Re: Startup Playbook

#190

Post by saturdayplace »

patio11 wrote: post #150
soneca wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is your place I guess: http://www.microconf.com/ I never went to one, I just follow patio11 tweetstorms whenever he is on it and it is full of gems (the tweets, I can only imagine the conference itself). They have lots of videos on the website, but a "playbook" format would by an awesome resource! BTW, I work at "trying-to-be-big-with-outside-investment" startup applying to YC, but I see A LOT of value on the ad…

Microconf is the best conference anywhere. Other options if you enjoy that one: Baconbiz and DCBKK (less software focused but much of the content and crowd generalizes). To the extent bootstrapped SaaS has a playbook, it is Start Small, Stay Small. I'd probably write one eventually but Starfighter is cutting into my writing bandwidth at present.

Hold the phone. You're hoping to write the bootstrapped SaaS playbook? I know it'd be wrong (and futile) of me to ask you to put off Starfighter to write it, but I'll drop my email (again) into whatever form you'd put up to get an idea of public interest in such a work.
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