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

dylanhuang.com

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

#191

Post by tivert »

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. And while this might be healthier for you as an individual, it's bad for the Economy.

Correction: it's not bad for the economy, it's bad for the investors (the only people who matter in the whole world).

I'm sure a tremendous amount of actual value in the economy has been destroyed by VCs demanding a binary result of either total failure or exponential growth.

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

#192

Post by [deleted] »

akoboldfrying wrote: post #39
tptacek wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need funding to cover your monthly nut, you need a plausible path to hyper-growth; the portfolio math doesn't work for investors otherwise. If you set out to build a small-scale sustainable business, and you succeed , you can avoid funding. But if you're pivoting to something entirely new mid-to-late-ways through your company, you've probably burned down most of your reserves.

>your monthly nut That means... something different where I come from. Are you using it to mean "monthly fixed costs"? I haven't come across that meaning before.

[deleted]

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

#193

Post by jefftk »

bigfudge wrote: post #157
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…

Worth pointing out that something being bad for the economy, from this perspective, isn’t necessarily the same as being bad for the population. Median incomes are stagnant and quality of life is declining in the US. In part, I’d argue this is because hyper scaling and overoptimising are squeezing the humanity out of most economic life, and most people are not benefitting from these trends. There are exception: we nee…

> Median incomes are stagnant

But they're not? Adjusted for inflation, median US household income is 18% higher than fifteen years ago and 32% higher than it was thirty years ago: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N

You could say it was stagnant from 1999 to 2015, though.

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

#194

Post by tivert »

Sytten wrote: post #30
gortok wrote: post #25

> 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 because we felt we could use the breakthroughs in Gen AI to solve previously unsolvable problems, but after going through user interviews and the sales cycle for many different ideas, we haven't been able to find enough traction to make us beli…

People say that but as someone trying to actually do that, it is freaking hard to commit to 3-5 years of virtually no salary to maybe get to the same outcome you would have had with a funded business. You need to sell a lot of 10$/month licenses for it to even viable to a 2-3 people startup in a developed country. There is also the cost of opportunity to consider in that.

>> How many wonderful niche products would be around if their owners had tried for a small business instead of a 'huge business' with 'hyper growth'?

> People say that but as someone trying to actually do that, it is freaking hard to commit to 3-5 years of virtually no salary to maybe get to the same outcome you would have had with a funded business.

Isn't that a better outcome than putting in exactly the same effort but winding up with a totally failed business (i.e. nothing).

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

#195

Post by rs999gti »

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.

But it works for the USA. Most, if not all the start ups that matter, originate in the US and a lot of them are the unicorns we all use daily like TSLA, GOOG, NFLX, MSFT, META, etc.

And the founders are natives and immigrants, so it is not a demographics issue. It is more of a process issue for the rest of the world.

> Not everything needs to be a hyper-scaler, not everything needs to be huge. Businesses should focus more on sustainability, and not shut down after 2–3 years after pivoting three times.

How do you get the moon, if you don't aim for the moon? Risk == Reward. When you don't risk, you end up with startups like in DE e.g. Auctionata, Moped, etc.

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

#196

Post by palmfacehn »

realce wrote: post #180
robertlagrant wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think any of this is the case, and you haven't really said why. Focusing on winning big is absolutely not survivorship bias. Everyone in the 100m is aiming to be the fastest human on earth, but only one will win. That's not survivorship bias. Throwing fallacy names as insults is still just insults.

The 100m is not a sustainable model for a nation or world's economy. Everyone needs to eat, not just the single individual who runs fastest.

Value creation isn't a zero sum game. Increased productivity benefits everyone. Whether it hyperscales or not, genuinely profitable businesses add value to the economy. This in turn creates more opportunities for everyone willing to participate.

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

#197

Post by emodendroket »

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…

Well to be honest, you could be earning that much money somewhere else with a lot less stress and insecurity.

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

#198

Post by abe94 »

cj wrote: post #47
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. I’ve successfully done exactly this. Except in order to get there, we had to spend 3-4 years selling cheap $29/mo self-serve plans at volume to iron out all of the kinks in the product and UX. Only after that were we able to go upmarket selling $40-90k/yr con…

We experienced something similar - we were able to wrangle a $30k/year contract as one of our first contracts, but the expectations around the software were and continue to be incredibly high - we sort of wish he had had a few $100/mo customers first to iron out the UX, and just learn more about how to work with a midmarket/enterprise buyer.

Anyway we survived but we understand why companies move upmarket over time now haha.

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

#199

Post by emodendroket »

bigfudge wrote: post #157
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…

Worth pointing out that something being bad for the economy, from this perspective, isn’t necessarily the same as being bad for the population. Median incomes are stagnant and quality of life is declining in the US. In part, I’d argue this is because hyper scaling and overoptimising are squeezing the humanity out of most economic life, and most people are not benefitting from these trends. There are exception: we nee…

If we’re comparing ourselves to Europe we are certainly not worse off (or anyhow the portion of the population that is worse off is not evaluating whether they should work at FAANG or a startup). Any serious discussion has to start from acknowledging that we are richer.

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

#200

Post by realce »

robertlagrant wrote: post #182
realce wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 100m is not a sustainable model for a nation or world's economy. Everyone needs to eat, not just the single individual who runs fastest.

That doesn't seem in any way relevant to the point about survivorship bias. Nor to the US, whose system has if anything produced far too much food for its citizens.

> That doesn't seem in any way relevant to the point about survivorship bias.

To me, it seems exactly like the point of view that someone who wins the 100m would have.

> Nor to the US, whose system has if anything produced far too much food for its citizens.

Where people still starve, where people are still homeless, where people still live in poverty. What's your point here?

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