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Startup Cheat Codes
21–30 of 34 posts
Re: Startup Cheat Codes
#22I'm a single founder. Even though I know I must delegate, I still have difficulty putting it in practice. I'm told that I must focus on the business side of things, and outsource (some parts of) development. Being a programmer myself, I always think that "good programmers are expensive, and cheap programmers are not good", so it hinders me from hiring my peers. How do you guys handle this situation? Esp. if you're pe…
To quote the old adage, "Quality, Speed, Cost: Pick any two." Quality is possible without cost, but the speed at which you will acquire those developers is low. You will need to hunt from the bargain bin of inexperienced and/or overseas developers. You will choose poorly and you have to be ok with that. Create a process where you can let go the developers who don't work out and retain those who do easily. Parallelize…
Shouldn't that be Good/Fast/Cheap? Basically means the same and is known as the Trilemma :)
Re: Startup Cheat Codes
#23I'm thinking of creating a startup, but I'm a busy guy. Can I pay someone else to make it for me? I'd still collect the profits of course.
Re: Startup Cheat Codes
#24I'm a single founder. Even though I know I must delegate, I still have difficulty putting it in practice. I'm told that I must focus on the business side of things, and outsource (some parts of) development. Being a programmer myself, I always think that "good programmers are expensive, and cheap programmers are not good", so it hinders me from hiring my peers. How do you guys handle this situation? Esp. if you're pe…
if you are aiming for perfection you are moving to slow. there is no time for perfection in a startup
That explains why most startups suck.
Re: Startup Cheat Codes
#25The things that irked me most about this terrible article have to do with the absence of any real product that "startup" has to offer, and when it does talk about making a product it's more a cumbersome afterthought than anything else. Don't I need a product? Nah, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Hey, just outsource that onerous coding task to some monkey, it's not important. Don't get me wrong, not every found…
>Hey, just outsource that onerous coding task to some monkey, it's not important.
I don't think that's a fair characterization of the author's advice about outsourcing, which I think is pretty clearly a relatively smart way to do outsourcing. They are not saying to outsource all of your coding, but to pick well-encapsulated units with a clear spec, and outsource those.
That makes sense, because doing it that way means that you can completely tear out that component and rewrite it later if needed.
Re: Startup Cheat Codes
#26Use two phones without ringtones so you're always on the offence, never defence.
Re: Startup Cheat Codes
#27The things that irked me most about this terrible article have to do with the absence of any real product that "startup" has to offer, and when it does talk about making a product it's more a cumbersome afterthought than anything else. Don't I need a product? Nah, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Hey, just outsource that onerous coding task to some monkey, it's not important. Don't get me wrong, not every found…
>Hey, just outsource that onerous coding task to some monkey, it's not important. I don't think that's a fair characterization of the author's advice about outsourcing, which I think is pretty clearly a relatively smart way to do outsourcing. They are not saying to outsource all of your coding, but to pick well-encapsulated units with a clear spec, and outsource those. That makes sense, because doing it that way mean…
You have a point. Maybe it's not quite fair if you just take the paragraph about outsourcing, but it all slides into place if you look at the entire article. Of course, having clearly-defined components is a good idea, and maybe I am somewhat weary from experience with these people. But the overall impression this article leaves just conjures these images up for me.
Re: Startup Cheat Codes
#28How did this get on the front page of HN? Following those steps if you want to go out of business before starting :)
Re: Startup Cheat Codes
#29...because we all know the way to make your start-up successful is to begin by looking for the easy way out for every possible decision...
Re: Startup Cheat Codes
#30The things that irked me most about this terrible article have to do with the absence of any real product that "startup" has to offer, and when it does talk about making a product it's more a cumbersome afterthought than anything else. Don't I need a product? Nah, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Hey, just outsource that onerous coding task to some monkey, it's not important. Don't get me wrong, not every found…
The problem with that statement is that it works: I seen plenty of startups with a lot of flare and filler but no product getting some generous seed rounds while the tech guys from another startup despite having an early version of the product get nothing.
Why? because their tech demo was boring to the non-tech investors, while the productless startup had a very clean well-prepared presentation that catches the eye of angels, even if they have nothing resembling an actual product.
Because doing that is easier for most people a lot of startups are born productless and focus almost solely on the presentation and pitch.