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What I’ve learned from users

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I’ve learned from users

#221

Post by robocat »

lisper wrote: post #45

This essay is getting a surprising amount of hate, and I must confess that my first impression on reading it was that it sounded an awful lot like a Robert Kiyosaki book [1]. But then I followed the two links in the essay [2] [3] and that put it into perspective: the thing that Paul learned from his users is that they are looking for The Answer, the formula, the procedure for how to succeed, and there is no such form…

> Robert is cagey and deceptive

It is good to be skeptical, I but I would counsel anyone to avoid becoming deeply cynical and missing out on the value because you don’t like the messenger. I learn as much from arseholes like Thiel, as I do from Paul Graham who appears to me that he is one of the good guys (disclaimer: I haven’t met Paul, & I disagree strongly with some of his theses).

Rich Dad Poor Dad is a very worthwhile book IMHO - it costs you a few dollars and a few hours. I read it and later became a moderately successful founder. I think that book had some positive influence on that success: my guess is that I got high $10’s of thousands value for $10’s of input. In particular the idea of designing a money machine, versus selling hours for dollars. Good knowledge is like that: you can get 1000x return or more. Of course that is offset by the other shit I have read that didn’t give good return ($0 return is OK, highly negative returns from crap knowledge is the real risk).

This link summarises some of the value of the book: https://sergioschuler.com/rich-dad-poor-dad-tl-dr-version-3e... (edits: minor improves).

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#222

Post by [deleted] »

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #134
lotsofpulp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#223

Post by robocat »

O__________O wrote: post #88

Oddest part of this post to me is that the author founded HN, but largely abandoned it because dealing with the users was a huge mental sinkhole for them; not able to find the quote, but clearly recall him saying this, though might be wrong. As it relates to HN, PG what have you learned from the users? If HN was a startup, would it make it into YC?

> PG what have you learned from the users?

To me it appears that the users of HN and the users of YC have slowly become a disjoint set. I felt it used to be more of an internal message board where founders interacted, and outsiders were welcome. It is now more of a publishing media outlet, with few founder cross-interactions.

You might as well ask about other groups of users PG is — or was — associated with.

HN turned out to be a side-track, and PG hasn’t posted here for two years https://news.ycombinator.com/threads?id=pg — the last time he really interacted was when he posted about his hobby project, bel.

> If HN was a startup, would it make it into YC?

It would lose it’s HNness, become more social media. It could monetise by political influence, rather than advertising dollars.

Disclaimer: my own opinions. No idea what PG thinks.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#224

Post by acchow »

vl wrote: post #156
ejb999 wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd rather go get a cavity filled, then buy a new car. Do it as infrequently as possible (hoping to get another 10 years out of my 11 year old Toyota). Every time I visit a new car dealer I feel a need to take a shower, just to get the stink off of me.

BTW, apart from fixed price online sales, there are fixed priced dealerships. They advertise price on the website and don't negotiate. You just show up and get car at this price. Very smooth.

Uhhh....they don't add on unnecessary charges? Like a paint coating you didn't ask for?

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#225

Post by dexterdog »

lnwlebjel wrote: post #102
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…

Interesting. I rank buy a car from a new car salesman as the worst consumer experience of my life. So much so that I've since bought used cars and in the future hope to buy a Tesla in large part to avoid that experience. I understand that it could greatly benefit the salesperson in understanding the social psychology of the consumer ... but never again will I subject myself to that process.

Just remember that what Tesla saves you in the purchase experience will come back to bite you in the service experience. You need to go into the delivery process as sanely as possible and be willing to walk away from it if you see any issues that you want fixed. The problem is that by that time you will have been waiting a month or more for your car and will then be back at square one and on Tesla's shit list to boot.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#226

Post by PNWChris »

m-ee wrote: post #209
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

The MCAT is for admission into med school. How did they complete it without passing?

Likely they mean one of the step exams. Med school and residency are a brutal game - the exams don’t stop till you pass the boards at or around the time you become an attending!

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#227

Post by batch12 »

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #139
peterkos wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 d…

> the sales manager was a Jewish accounting major

One of these things seems out of place when listing qualifications

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#228

Post by [deleted] »

punnerud wrote: post #213
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very few franchise dealerships would ever sell a car with problems knowingly. It does happen, because people trade in cars with intermittent problems without telling the dealership. Compared to Craigslist where there is no shortage of people selling cars directly with current problems, intermittent problems, hidden problems, and massive paperwork issues that can stop you from registering the vehicle all together unti…

That’s why you always ask to take the car to a well known 3.party that don’t benefit on the sale, and check the car for you for any hidden problems. So you still can buy from Craigslist without the risk.

[deleted]

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#229

Post by mizzao »

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…

Early stage founders also have to sell something (a hope and a dream) that's harder to move than used cars, so maybe that selling experience translates!

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#230

Post by O__________O »

robocat wrote: post #223
O__________O wrote: post #88

Oddest part of this post to me is that the author founded HN, but largely abandoned it because dealing with the users was a huge mental sinkhole for them; not able to find the quote, but clearly recall him saying this, though might be wrong. As it relates to HN, PG what have you learned from the users? If HN was a startup, would it make it into YC?

> PG what have you learned from the users? To me it appears that the users of HN and the users of YC have slowly become a disjoint set. I felt it used to be more of an internal message board where founders interacted, and outsiders were welcome. It is now more of a publishing media outlet, with few founder cross-interactions. You might as well ask about other groups of users PG is — or was — associated with. HN turne…

My core point I was indirectly making, as both a founder and advisor, is that in my experience it is frequently easier to give others advice about learning from users than to be the one literally dealing with users and making something meaningful of those exchanges.

As for the decline of HN, having been around HN long, long time, in my opinion there’s no real pattern, or at least there’s massive amount of randomness that people tend to read into. If you’re interested in interacting with founders on HN, very easy to do, if you’re intentional about it.

As for if HN was focused on growth, would it change? - Maybe, though I would like to hope that would be a net positive, not negative.

PS - In case you missed it, posted the comment by PG related to HN here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32918742

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