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Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

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Re: Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

#31

Post by cperciva »

zepolen wrote: post #29
azharcs wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, Do you hate CSS ;-) When I visited your website, I actually checked my web developer toolbar to see if CSS is disabled. Can I design tarsnap and provide you a CSS template.

It just goes to show that a pretty landing page is not all that necessary. Functionality and usefulness are more important than web 2.0 glitz and glamor. You think tarsnap's website is ugly now? You should have seen it at the beginning. I wish more HN startups would realize that. Almost all of the 'review my startup' posts are just a single page with an email signup form you fill out to be notified when the app will…

You should have seen it at the beginning.

To be fair, at the beginning it didn't claim to be a website -- it just said "there will be a website here later, meanwhile go read these blog posts about tarsnap".

Re: Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

#32

Post by cynicalkane »

azharcs wrote: post #20
cperciva wrote: post #2

This doesn't quite qualify as ignoring, but I think it matches the spirit of the question: I wouldn't be running Tarsnap now if Paul Graham hadn't listed "Single Founder" as the #1 mistake that kills startups. Having read that, I decided I was going to prove him wrong, damnit.

Hey, Do you hate CSS ;-) When I visited your website, I actually checked my web developer toolbar to see if CSS is disabled. Can I design tarsnap and provide you a CSS template.

I like Tarsnap's design. It's easy to tell what's going on and there's no eye-candy to get in the way. The lack of design is old-school in a pleasing way.

Re: Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

#33

Post by JoeAltmaier »

uuilly wrote: post #17

Paul Graham is not some magic oracle. He's a statistician who has seen, experienced and analyzed (formally and informally) a lot of very rich data. To ignore him and get away with it you either have to be an outlier in his model or the kind of person who would never appear in his model to begin with. He mainly sees YC applicants and there may be a selection bias among them. Entirely possible that there is a really gr…

Or his model is wrong. So many folks assume, since they succeeded, they are responsible for that success. Market conditions, accidental sales, and Brownian motion may in fact be more important.

Even considering YC companies, who's to say how many would have succeeded anyway? There's no control, so no experiment.

Re: Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

#34

Post by suckerfish »

thailandstartup wrote: post #15
cperciva wrote: post #2

This doesn't quite qualify as ignoring, but I think it matches the spirit of the question: I wouldn't be running Tarsnap now if Paul Graham hadn't listed "Single Founder" as the #1 mistake that kills startups. Having read that, I decided I was going to prove him wrong, damnit.

While I'm happy to run a startup as a single founder myself - I think I'd prefer to invest in teams too. A team already has something to match your investment (the team itself). Also, I wonder if its not more difficult to judge which single founders will be successful, and easier to judge when it is a small team. So I think treat this rule as investment advice, but if you're confident of running your own startup, tru…

That is an interesting piece of advice. Credit yourself in areas that you are capable but be humble to recognize your weaknesses, and you'll have a clearer picture of whether you can make it on your own.

In the words of Sun Tzu, "If you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles."

Re: Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

#35

Post by suckerfish »

hasenj wrote: post #8
cperciva wrote: post #2

This doesn't quite qualify as ignoring, but I think it matches the spirit of the question: I wouldn't be running Tarsnap now if Paul Graham hadn't listed "Single Founder" as the #1 mistake that kills startups. Having read that, I decided I was going to prove him wrong, damnit.

Great to hear! Reading PG got me convinced I can't run a successful startup on my own. I was gonna try doing it anyway, but I would've been expecting to fail from the start.

So what did you do in the end?

Re: Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

#36

Post by suckerfish »

todayiamme wrote: post #14

What's the use? Seriously. Hero worship aside Mr. Graham is good at what he does; distilling an idea until that potent cocktail is finally derived. This process in itself is something far more important than having an idea in the first place, and in order to truly work with someone like Mr. Graham you need to teach yourself to be ego-less. It is my ego that says to me; 'no that can't be true at all. He's wrong!' with…

"So, what if he is wrong and you know that you're right? Listen to what he has to say and try to understand why he raised that objection. Perhaps, there's a gem hidden beyond the surface."

That's a gem right there.

Re: Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

#38

Post by hasenj »

suckerfish wrote: post #35
hasenj wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great to hear! Reading PG got me convinced I can't run a successful startup on my own. I was gonna try doing it anyway, but I would've been expecting to fail from the start.

So what did you do in the end?

I'm still at the beginning ..

Re: Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

#39

Post by stoney »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #33
uuilly wrote: post #17

Paul Graham is not some magic oracle. He's a statistician who has seen, experienced and analyzed (formally and informally) a lot of very rich data. To ignore him and get away with it you either have to be an outlier in his model or the kind of person who would never appear in his model to begin with. He mainly sees YC applicants and there may be a selection bias among them. Entirely possible that there is a really gr…

Or his model is wrong. So many folks assume, since they succeeded, they are responsible for that success. Market conditions, accidental sales, and Brownian motion may in fact be more important. Even considering YC companies, who's to say how many would have succeeded anyway? There's no control, so no experiment.

Even considering YC companies, who's to say how many would have succeeded anyway? There's no control, so no experiment.

I guess you could look at rejected applicants as a sort of control group (not perfect though)? How many of those have gone on to be a success (I have no idea)?

Re: Ask YC: Have you ever ignored Paul Graham?

#40

Post by run4yourlives »

stoney wrote: post #39
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or his model is wrong. So many folks assume, since they succeeded, they are responsible for that success. Market conditions, accidental sales, and Brownian motion may in fact be more important. Even considering YC companies, who's to say how many would have succeeded anyway? There's no control, so no experiment.

Even considering YC companies, who's to say how many would have succeeded anyway? There's no control, so no experiment. I guess you could look at rejected applicants as a sort of control group (not perfect though)? How many of those have gone on to be a success (I have no idea)?

Assuming that PG is not a complete idiot and can identify obvious skill and/or obvious product home runs, thus removing them from the "rejected" list, your control group isn't very accurate.
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