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Enough

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Re: Enough

#41

Post by notahacker »

edanm wrote: post #36

Of course everyone is free to choose what they want to do with their own business. And I have personally also chosen non-standard paths of smaller growth (e.g., I started a software consultancy instead of a VC-backed company). However, there are a few concrete reasons why companies, especially software companies (as opposed to e.g. restaurants), tend towards growth: 1. Some companies will require some amount of growt…

Not sure how true (2) and (3) are: you can face new challenges every day in the tiniest consultancy ever, and have all sorts of fun learning about new niches to organically expand into that would make no sense for a VC backed company to waste their time dominating. Sure, it's not going to mollify the CTO who's not satisfied if he's not scaling a service to a million concurrent users or the VP Sales who feels underemployed if he's not running an army of junior salespeople, but if your goal was an organically-grown medium-sized business you probably didn't need their skillset anyway. And some of the roles that scaling up creates requirements for are repetitive drudge work...

Re: Enough

#42

Post by gedrap »

fredley wrote: post #6

This mindset applies to many things besides growth. For example, how much money (as an annual income) is enough for you? Have you ever sat down and reasoned it out? I see many people stuck chasing larger and larger payouts, to the extent it makes them unhappy or even unwell, who never stopped to consider how much money was enough.

Money and income are more complex than that. It is related to ones sense of self-worth, fairness, etc. Ideally, one should try to detach money & income from these senses, as it is a pretty much lose-lose situation. But it's not easy and I think recognizing that it is the case, that it does have impact, can go a fairly long way.

Re: Enough

#43

Post by coldtea »

austenallred wrote: post #33

Am I the only person sick of DHH and the 37 Signals people writing the same article 800 times? We get it. You don't have to raise VC or grow exponentially to have a great company. They have seriously written the same thing hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways, and it's barely even a contrarian view anymore. I hear as many people saying, "I wish more people would talk about how you don't have to raise VC" a…

>Am I the only person sick of DHH and the 37 Signals people writing the same article 800 times?

Well, for one, nobody forced anyone to read it.

Second, you should at least be even more sick of the 50,000 other sources shouting and blogging the opposite message all the time.

At least DHH brings a tiny balance to this.

Re: Enough

#44

Post by tawayyy »

tybit wrote: post #20
forgottenacc57 wrote: post #17

DHH's writing sort of radiates a sense of superiority.

Yeah, he has a decent point but someone commissioning custom super cars isn't in the best position to make it.

Doesn't this make his point stronger? Even with a company that does not want to grow indefinitely, he can still afford super cars. Reality is that unicorns only benefit VCs. Most founders should not take any VC money and try to bootstrap and get, like, N million dollars businesses, not to try to achieve billion dollar businesses. The former is 1000x times simpler.

Re: Enough

#45

Post by raleighm »

austenallred wrote: post #33

Am I the only person sick of DHH and the 37 Signals people writing the same article 800 times? We get it. You don't have to raise VC or grow exponentially to have a great company. They have seriously written the same thing hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways, and it's barely even a contrarian view anymore. I hear as many people saying, "I wish more people would talk about how you don't have to raise VC" a…

"I hear as many people saying, "I wish more people would talk about how you don't have to raise VC""

Aren't their articles doing that talking?

If you fully get their point, there's probably not much value in you ready article #801, but their message is one that bears repeating.

Re: Enough

#46

Post by the_common_man »

austenallred wrote: post #33

Am I the only person sick of DHH and the 37 Signals people writing the same article 800 times? We get it. You don't have to raise VC or grow exponentially to have a great company. They have seriously written the same thing hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways, and it's barely even a contrarian view anymore. I hear as many people saying, "I wish more people would talk about how you don't have to raise VC" a…

There are a million articles also promoting the opposite. Are you sick of that too? What do you read these days ? Hn has already 50 stories of funding every day.

Re: Enough

#47

Post by shubhamjain »

coldtea wrote: post #43
austenallred wrote: post #33

Am I the only person sick of DHH and the 37 Signals people writing the same article 800 times? We get it. You don't have to raise VC or grow exponentially to have a great company. They have seriously written the same thing hundreds of times in hundreds of different ways, and it's barely even a contrarian view anymore. I hear as many people saying, "I wish more people would talk about how you don't have to raise VC" a…

> Am I the only person sick of DHH and the 37 Signals people writing the same article 800 times? Well, for one, nobody forced anyone to read it. Second, you should at least be even more sick of the 50,000 other sources shouting and blogging the opposite message all the time. At least DHH brings a tiny balance to this.

VC talk can be overbearing at times but I haven't seen anyone harping on how raising money is superior to bootstrapping. DHH, on the other hand, keeps on lambasting the VC industry without much helpful advice. It's not the contrarian view that is exasperating, it's his parochial attitude that venture capital hasn't done any good. He strikes as a person who would use Uber everyday without acknowledging that without VC capital the company couldn't have existed.

Re: Enough

#48

Post by the_common_man »

pmlnr wrote: post #18
notenoughdhh wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Drew Houston, Travis Kalanick... The list goes on.

Seriously? Gates, OK, I may agree with him, due to the amount of charity he's doing, but the rest? Elon Musk is still a big question mark (see Tesla vs tinkering), the others... Why not put Marissa Mayer on the list, she made a lof of money as well. I'd rather see a list of people like RMS, even though he's quite mad, he actually made the word a better place.

Gates killed many businesses and lives with his business tactics (including one I know). No amount of charity will replace the business owners life.

I don't get all starry eyed with tales of people who made billions by doing questionable things and then giving it away as charity later.

Re: Enough

#49

Post by benjaminwootton »

It takes ambition and drive to get to the successful point of "enough".

Once you are there, these traits don't just turn off. They probably amplify because you have line of sight to bolder ambitions.

Re: Enough

#50

Post by pmlnr »

the_common_man wrote: post #48
pmlnr wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? Gates, OK, I may agree with him, due to the amount of charity he's doing, but the rest? Elon Musk is still a big question mark (see Tesla vs tinkering), the others... Why not put Marissa Mayer on the list, she made a lof of money as well. I'd rather see a list of people like RMS, even though he's quite mad, he actually made the word a better place.

Gates killed many businesses and lives with his business tactics (including one I know). No amount of charity will replace the business owners life. I don't get all starry eyed with tales of people who made billions by doing questionable things and then giving it away as charity later.

That is a completely fair and valid stand, and you're right.
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