51–60 of 78 posts
Loved this quote: ...this is exacerbated by the existence of this term "growth hacks"... whenever you hear anybody talk about "growth hacks", just mentally translate it... to "bullshit".
A counterpoint: https://medium.com/designing-for-results/if-by-growth-hackin...
"I don't think I'm very efficient. I have two ways of getting work done. One is like during YC, the way I worked at YC is I was forced to. I had to set the application deadline, and then people would apply, and then there were all these applications that I had to respond to by a certain time, so I had to read them, and I knew if I read them badly we would get bad startups, so I tried really hard to read them well. So I set up this situation that forced me to work.
The other kind of work I do is like writing essays, and I do that involuntarily. I'm like walking down the street and the essay starts writing itself in my head. And so really I either force myself to work on less exciting things, or I can't help working on exciting things. I don't have any useful techniques for making myself efficient. If you work on things you like, you don't have to force yourself to be efficient."
"I have in my head more data [about starting a startup] than anybody else does... and you're asking me questions a reporter would ask because they can't think of anything interesting?" I was blushing down to my beltline for that guy.
However here is one additional counterintuitive point. Not all startups work hard. The good ones are focused and might not have all the answers but you at least know what your going to be doing. Some startups are just there, they don't work consistent hours and spend allot of time doing fluff stuff and not productive stuff. Some startups are just there because it's the cool thing now and they come in at 12:00pm and leave at 4:00 pm.
For reference I have worked few startups, some small companies and one very large company. I am currently working out of a co-working space. I see very few startups here working any type of consistent hours. I don't mean 9-5 , I mean consistently being here and working no matter what hours they prefer, even though they are full time members of the space.
I can reference companies like Apple in which people are basically working as much as humanly possible[1]. Their work culture is actually more intense than allot of startups. Even at a small-medium company I worked at I would see executives up at 3am, even after they have been at work all day long.
[1] - http://9to5mac.com/2014/10/01/former-apple-managers-talk-of-...
Here you have some notes on the lecture. By the way, we are a couple of italian friends building FlashUp, a platform for sharing notes on lectures, videos, books, panels so other people can enjoy the nitty-gritty without having to spend hours and hours glued to their screens. Any feedback is appreciated. --- NOTES: --> Startups are very counter-intuitive – if you trust and never question your intuition you will make…
Am I the only person who ever found the course list for an MBA genuinely interesting ? Like, intellectually so. I get the general usefulness of advising undergraduates that MBAs are, in general, a bad idea for them. They're certainly about as poor of a financial investment these days as a degree in English. But the hopeless idealist in me asks if it isn't possible to get an MBA to actually try to theorize about custo…
Even though it's just a website, I think of HN as a community that I am part of. And as such, I am always saddened to see how people in here talk about MBAs. Sure, there are those that just want to get into business to make quick bucks but there are also smart, good people who want to create a business that just happen not to be technical. But who have skills that many developers don't (and often, I think, skills tha…
Here you have some notes on the lecture. By the way, we are a couple of italian friends building FlashUp, a platform for sharing notes on lectures, videos, books, panels so other people can enjoy the nitty-gritty without having to spend hours and hours glued to their screens. Any feedback is appreciated. --- NOTES: --> Startups are very counter-intuitive – if you trust and never question your intuition you will make…
Zuckerberg can backpack wherever he wants, whenever he wants. He does what he wants.
Here you have some notes on the lecture. By the way, we are a couple of italian friends building FlashUp, a platform for sharing notes on lectures, videos, books, panels so other people can enjoy the nitty-gritty without having to spend hours and hours glued to their screens. Any feedback is appreciated. --- NOTES: --> Startups are very counter-intuitive – if you trust and never question your intuition you will make…
You're notes in Markdown: http://markdownshare.com/view/c97aed92-513d-46f0-b097-0fb12e...
Here you have some notes on the lecture. By the way, we are a couple of italian friends building FlashUp, a platform for sharing notes on lectures, videos, books, panels so other people can enjoy the nitty-gritty without having to spend hours and hours glued to their screens. Any feedback is appreciated. --- NOTES: --> Startups are very counter-intuitive – if you trust and never question your intuition you will make…