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5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

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Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#41

Post by zackham »

cullenking wrote: post #26
jon_dahl wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How business savvy are you? As a single founder, you might be better off with a hybrid co-founder who can code and do business stuff too. Like sales - the ability to sell is probably the most important non-technical skill for a startup founder. Startups need to sell all the time - to customers, partners, investors, journalists, etc. It doesn't hurt to have 2+ founders who can sell.

This is how my co-founder and I operate. We both code and we both swap business duties. It works VERY well when bootstrapping, as one person dipping out for a week for school/work/family time doesn't bring the operation to a halt. Additionally, having two founders familiar in tech and business allows you to become very productive when one needs work over the other. The ability to tag-team and push out work is fantast…

I read this comment and was nodding along thinking this sounded exactly why I'm happy with my bootstrapped project, then looked at the username and realized you are my co-founder, doh =)

Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#42

Post by gridspy »

cullenking wrote: post #27
chime wrote: post #2

Does anyone else who quit their job and went fulltime into their startup want to add anything about their experience? Did it make you a lot more productive? Were you worried about paying the bills? How were you able to stay on track? Where did you find the motivation? How did you stay sane and not go crazy?

I am not quite to full-time on ridewithgps, but it's so close I can see it. Just knowing that I will, in a matter of a couple months, have only one focus is enough to get me working like crazy to make it happen. Until then it's odd-jobs to make rent. If there was a single founder instead of our team of three, we'd be at ramen profitability - a hazard of a larger bootstrapping team, however, it has huge benefits in ab…

Either that or you would still be developing, perhaps even given up and gone home

Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#43

Post by bluishgreen »

"Trust me, you’re not, and no matter how much you think you know about what it’s going to be like, when that first jab comes, you’ll begin to truly understand for the first time."

I think some one has to pitch in and add some perspective here. This, frankly is not helping. I appreciate the warnings and all - but the echo chamber is getting a bit too loud lately. The worst thing that will happen is I will fail. Miserably and in front of the whole world for everyone to see the weakling stupid naive ass that I am. Whats so bad about that? Relax people, stay calm. It will all work out just fine. Trust me! :)

Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#44

Post by paraschopra »

epi0Bauqu wrote: post #20

"Traction is the only thing that matters." I could not agree more with this. If you get traction everything else falls into place so really you should be spending all your time figuring out how to do this and then making it happen. The problem is as you say, it is of course non-trivial. However, while all cases are different, I do think there are strategies and best practices that one can employ. Your next post shoul…

Hey, great idea for a book.

Just one extremely minor suggestion: use a better cover image for the book :) The existing one is fine but I think it can be improved a lot to give it a more professional and serious look.

Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#45

Post by paraschopra »

bluishgreen wrote: post #43

"Trust me, you’re not, and no matter how much you think you know about what it’s going to be like, when that first jab comes, you’ll begin to truly understand for the first time." I think some one has to pitch in and add some perspective here. This, frankly is not helping. I appreciate the warnings and all - but the echo chamber is getting a bit too loud lately. The worst thing that will happen is I will fail. Misera…

I used "Trust me" in a blog post http://visualwebsiteoptimizer.com/split-testing-blog/debunki... and my friend quickly reminded me that it is a cliche and usually doesn't add much value to the argument. Ideally, your argument should be so strong that it doesn't require an explicit reminder for readers to trust you.

Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#46

Post by aberman »

bluishgreen wrote: post #43

"Trust me, you’re not, and no matter how much you think you know about what it’s going to be like, when that first jab comes, you’ll begin to truly understand for the first time." I think some one has to pitch in and add some perspective here. This, frankly is not helping. I appreciate the warnings and all - but the echo chamber is getting a bit too loud lately. The worst thing that will happen is I will fail. Misera…

Nothing is so bad about that. I'm not trying to say that life is going to suck, you are going to fail, and therefore you should never try.

I'm just saying that "knowing" something will be hard, and experiencing something that is hard are two very different things. And to the extent that you can prepare yourself for what's about to come, it will be much easier for you to resist the urge to quit.

Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#47

Post by aberman »

geoffc wrote: post #25

Have to disagree on point 4 about Boston. I have raised VC during the boom and the bust here, it is do-able, maybe not as easy as the Valley but not impossible either. Agreed on the importance of customer traction.

I just reread my post, and I realize how point #4 sounded. It was somewhat unintentional.

Raising money in silicon valley is hard to do without being part of the silicon valley in-crowd.

Raising money in Boston is hard to do in general, but I don't think it's impossible (although I wouldn't know). I don't think we were ready to raise money when we were still in Boston, and I certainly don't blame investors for not throwing money our way at the time. We were a very different company in Boston than we were after YCombinator.

Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#48

Post by zackattack »

patio11 wrote: post #24
zhyder wrote: post #15

We too have learned the hard way about 5.: customer acquisition is tough. 5.1. We'd read it before but hadn't quite internalized the cardinal rule: Cost of Customer Acquisition 5.2. It's easy to think "hey my product costs me only $1, and the competition charges $100: I'll do great by just charging $10". But when you're charging $10 you won't be able to pay $30 per ad click, and so will (continue to) lose customers t…

I could talk about reason 5.2 for a whole afternoon. It is one of the best reasons not to compete on price. Additionally, if you're doing ads on Google, there are some weird interactions here that Econ 101 would not predict. For example, although Google describes AdWords as an auction, it is really "auction-like": the highest bid doesn't necessarily win. One factor which can cause lower bids to beat higher bids is if…

If you were to write an AdWords ebook, I would buy it. Like a good one, I could easily rationalize spending lots of money on it.

Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#49

Post by freshfunk »

chime wrote: post #2

Does anyone else who quit their job and went fulltime into their startup want to add anything about their experience? Did it make you a lot more productive? Were you worried about paying the bills? How were you able to stay on track? Where did you find the motivation? How did you stay sane and not go crazy?

Having a fulltime job and doing your project outside of it is like sticking a dagger into the heart of your idea. If it's a great idea, someone is likely working on a solution (sorry, but there are other smart/creative people out there).

I know people who try to work part-time. But part-time does not == 50%. From what I've seen, it looks more like 25%. Those part time jobs have a way of encroaching more and more into your life. PG has wise words on one of his essays about this.

Working full time on an idea, gives a great sense of fulfillment and you can make great progress on a day to day basis. The downside is that it's easy to fall into a vacuum where you're isolated from the world. If you take a day off and slack, there's no one who's going to fire you. The downside of that is that you really have to manage your time yourself and be good about it.

If you have experience managing yourself to a daily schedule and also managing yourself to a roadmap/sprint/plan then you can do well.

In terms of bills, really most people have more money than they think. At least that's my opinion. I think the average person who saves some and has worked for a few years has some money saved up. If you haven't been working for long then you're probably used to living on a shoestring budget. If you can deny yourself all the things you don't really need in life, your money will go a long way.

Lastly, get out! Don't just work from home all the time. Work from a cafe or the library. Meet up with friends.. esp any who may be in the same situation as you. Get out. Exercise. Take breaks!

Oh another last thing. Doing your company really takes much longer than you anticipate. It's a marathon, not a sprint. So make sure you take care of yourself in the process. It's too easy to become a workaholic and let everything else (health, relationships) go to waste.

Re: 5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

#50

Post by cullenking »

gridspy wrote: post #42
cullenking wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not quite to full-time on ridewithgps, but it's so close I can see it. Just knowing that I will, in a matter of a couple months, have only one focus is enough to get me working like crazy to make it happen. Until then it's odd-jobs to make rent. If there was a single founder instead of our team of three, we'd be at ramen profitability - a hazard of a larger bootstrapping team, however, it has huge benefits in ab…

Either that or you would still be developing, perhaps even given up and gone home

That's the other big benefit of having one or two other people there with you. You have your own cheerleading team - many times we have had conversations that get us re-psyched to tackle some hard problems that otherwise seemed daunting. Motivating myself would be hard without other people alongside me, giving up other social and business opportunities for what seems like a great idea.
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