Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

Post by nostrademons » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 5:27 PM UTC

danieltillett wrote: post #37

nostrademons wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure I'd hate it. (I had the opportunity a few years back but turned it down because it wasn't the right time to leave Google. Also, my wife is an institutional investor, but in philanthropy and not tech.) Some of the downsides: Your life is consumed by pitch meetings, and you have to say no to the vast majority of them. You have to constantly be out hustling for deal flow. If you miss the wrong startup, y…

This sounds like hard work - I think I might just have to keep running my own business :) Out of curiosity why can’t anyone know that you built something? Do you mean for your own company, or you can’t help your portfolio companies build things?

When you build stuff, it's usually to gain a competitive advantage over other firms, and so it's only useful as long as you keep it secret.

Post by stevebmark » Mon, Nov 02, 2015, 5:53 PM UTC

liamcardenas wrote: post #34

stevebmark wrote: post #31

> Homejoy was led by two software engineers. Both wildly talented humans, but both wildly out of place given the nature of the problem we were solving. A tangent: This is something that scares me about many Bay area startups. What do software developers really care about home maintenance? This is a serious question. Some startups you can tell the founders are in love with the idea. The founders ARE the idea, and they…

I don't know much about Homejoy or its founders, however, I wouldn't assume that they weren't dedicated to their idea. I believe that being excited about something is largely a choice. I, personally, could easily be excited about a cleaning related start up. And trust me, I hate cleaning... but there is a huge difference between the act of cleaning and making a cleaning service. Maybe you are right, but I think it is…

I'm actually hoping someone will reply and show me why I'm wrong, because it's a scary view. As a software engineer in the startup scene I personally don't see how they could care about the idea deeply, based on all of my experiences. I'm hoping someone has an experience that proves me wrong.

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure

Re: Pondering Homejoy’s Failure