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Failed Startup Post-Mortems

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Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#51

Post by jacquesm »

kqland wrote: post #40
mts_ wrote: post #39

It seems the book has been taken down now, returns a 404.

Yeah, there are some suckers in this post who do nothing better than complain. Author did not copy anyone's content rather simply linked and compiled the list. By that logic you should also complain about Google because all they do is show results for query and link to other people's content. Does anyone have link to cached version ?

Presumably I'm one of the 'suckers' you refer to.

Author copied everybody's content verbatim without obtaining permission first, what you are saying is simply not true.

I think this is a very worthwhile project but that doesn't mean the author should trample over other people's rights.

So no, your 'logic' does not hold up for google because they LINK to the content rather than that they copy it and display it in their own environment (incidentally, google images does do that and I think they ought to be slapped for that).

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#52

Post by jacquesm »

jonkelly wrote: post #35
asanwal wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pud - bring back FuckedCompany. Based on all of our data, it's about that time.

Please don't. Lots of horrible things were said there behind a wall of anonymity. Think Secret + 4chan for failed startups. For those of us that tried to do the right thing by our employees, it was very hurtful.

The commentors on fuckedcompany were the kind of people that like to rubberneck around accidents and disasters. Some people get off on other people's misery. That doesn't mean that the site itself served a purpose, and a FC sans comments would already be plenty useful.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#53

Post by asanwal »

hywel wrote: post #47
tieTYT wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Perhaps more useful, we also sifted through and analyzed each post-mortem to identify the top 20 reasons for startup failure. "But you must provide an email to get access to that."

"And our email validator is totally broken"

We use an ESP to send the emails and sometimes, the PDF goes instantly and sometimes upto an hour. If you didn't receive for some reason, feel free to ping me directly. Email in profile.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#54

Post by TeMPOraL »

jacquesm wrote: post #49
dublinben wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A journalist will freely quote you and misrepresent your statement regardless of any copyright license.

That's why you write in situations like these in the first place. That's a way to pre-emptively stake your position giving journalists minimal room for creative mis-interpretation. Interviews are a totally different situation and 'on the record' quotes out of context are the very reason I avoid interviews like the plague. I've yet to have one where that didn't happen, journalists are also called 'reporters' but from…

> journalists are also called 'reporters' but from my experience 'reporting' to them does not mean reporting what was told to them but retelling in a way that suits their own agenda

I've seen arguments that there are too many facts to be told, so it is the very job of a journalist to take those facts and tell a story by selectively highlighting ones that matter in that story.

I disagree with the premise. I think we (the audience) could handle all the facts if they were given to us straight. The narrative journalists are creating is not helpful, is actively harmful - because it's always someone's agenda and because they twist the facts too much (i.e. they lie through their teeth) to tell that story.

INB4 I get accused of generalizing, I'm invoking Sturgeon's law twice - once on journalists and once on critical thinking of general population, all that while giving a friendly reminder that this "general population" is the majority of the electorate. Sometimes all that crap tends to reinforce instead of cancelling out.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#56

Post by aswanson »

pud wrote: post #19

Here's a book I wrote that covers 150 failed internet startups from the late 90's. http://amazon.com/FD-Companies-Spectacular-Dot-com-Flameouts... I think many of them could be successful if relaunched today.

Flake.com even? Loved fuckedcompany, man.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#57

Post by hywel »

asanwal wrote: post #53
hywel wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"And our email validator is totally broken"

We use an ESP to send the emails and sometimes, the PDF goes instantly and sometimes upto an hour. If you didn't receive for some reason, feel free to ping me directly. Email in profile.

It doesn't get that far. I type in my email, press the button and "Please enter a valid email address." appears. Not sure why I've been downvoted for the previous comment, your validator really is broken.

6 alpha chars @ gmail.com, on Firefox and Chrome on OS X 10.9.5. Really should work; doesn't. Console shows that you're passing an empty string to getElementById at some point.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#58

Post by gregpilling »

pud wrote: post #19

Here's a book I wrote that covers 150 failed internet startups from the late 90's. http://amazon.com/FD-Companies-Spectacular-Dot-com-Flameouts... I think many of them could be successful if relaunched today.

Thanks for the link. I just bought your book from Amazon. Paper version.

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#59

Post by timfletcher »

kqland wrote: post #40
mts_ wrote: post #39

It seems the book has been taken down now, returns a 404.

Yeah, there are some suckers in this post who do nothing better than complain. Author did not copy anyone's content rather simply linked and compiled the list. By that logic you should also complain about Google because all they do is show results for query and link to other people's content. Does anyone have link to cached version ?

I grabbed the epub — http://d.pr/f/pJqJ

Re: Failed Startup Post-Mortems

#60

Post by asanwal »

hywel wrote: post #57
asanwal wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We use an ESP to send the emails and sometimes, the PDF goes instantly and sometimes upto an hour. If you didn't receive for some reason, feel free to ping me directly. Email in profile.

It doesn't get that far. I type in my email, press the button and "Please enter a valid email address." appears. Not sure why I've been downvoted for the previous comment, your validator really is broken. 6 alpha chars @ gmail.com, on Firefox and Chrome on OS X 10.9.5. Really should work; doesn't. Console shows that you're passing an empty string to getElementById at some point.

If you want the pdf, feel free to send me an email, and I'll send it to you. (email in profile)

Note: I didn't downvote you.

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