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Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground up

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Re: Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground up

#61

Post by thirdsun »

typeliftr wrote: post #24

I feel like there’s an ‘all or nothing’ attitude recently around starting a business which doesn’t make sense to me. Either you’re making millions and have 100 employees or nothing. I work in a company that has 5-10 employees, nobody is working their ass off and there’s steady income and gradual growth. Our CEO is not a millionaire, but he enjoys his work and the company he works for. There is no plans for fast growt…

You might like the rather humble attitude of Basecamp: https://m.signalvnoise.com/enough-1d48019c7335

(I'm not affiliated with them in any way, just a fan of the product and someone who sympathizes and agrees with their views.)

Re: Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground up

#62

Post by onion2k »

travisjungroth wrote: post #58
onion2k wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're wrong. There's lots of people here who want to build massive businesses at scale and believe VC is the right way to go, but that doesn't mean people can't also see the benefits of going more slowly. If you read HN a lot you start to see people here have huge amounts of respect for people who bootstrap their businesses. Comments from the likes of candyjapan, idlewords, and patio11 about their journeys p…

lol they’re not wrong. People seem to forget the facts about HN. It’s hosted by a incubator/VC company that uses it to promote discussion and the company itself. Which is fine and makes sense. Yeah, there’s other stuff here too. But there’s a huge bias towards startups compared to the rest of the world.

But there’s a huge bias towards startups compared to the rest of the world.

Of course. That's not the point of contention here. HN is mostly about startups.

The post I replied to suggested that there's a "pro-VC / anti-bootstrapping" slant on HN. That's what I think is wrong. Many people who post here are sensible enough to understand that both approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages. People don't generally advocate taking on VC funding unless there's a good reason to.

Other startup communities have people who are seriously against the idea of bootstrapping, and level accusations of building a "lifestyle business" at anyone who chooses that path. I don't see that very often that on HN.

Re: Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground up

#65

Post by kulu2002 »

xstartup wrote: post #38
typeliftr wrote: post #24

I feel like there’s an ‘all or nothing’ attitude recently around starting a business which doesn’t make sense to me. Either you’re making millions and have 100 employees or nothing. I work in a company that has 5-10 employees, nobody is working their ass off and there’s steady income and gradual growth. Our CEO is not a millionaire, but he enjoys his work and the company he works for. There is no plans for fast growt…

>> Can anyone explain to me where does this obsession with VC funding and huge growth come from? I feel like if you grow your company by more then 50% YOY you will end up with a totally different company culture, and you might end up hating your own company. Startups need an exit strategy. Employees want to work 5-10 years max and end up with millions to retire peacefully while working in an intense environment which…

Wow!! This actually gave me answer to one of my question/ comment in another thread

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17446121

Re: Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground up

#67

Post by sah2ed »

The book mentions "Percentage of tickets closed" as a metric by which engineering should be evaluated, which IMO is incredibly short-sighted.

The Google Doc has all editing disabled at the moment, but does anyone know if the author would welcome improvements to the text?

Re: Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground up

#68

Post by rizzin »

baby wrote: post #59
throwawayqdhd wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I track my productivity very assiduously. For some tasks, such as writing, it is next to impossible to be productive for more than 5-6 hours/day. Your brain gives up after a while.

As a founder you would probably spend more time on calls and other administrative tasks that don’t require much brain energy. That’s how you end up doing long hours.

However constantly switching contexts between different tasks is also very taxing...

Re: Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground up

#69

Post by kulu2002 »

thirdsun wrote: post #61
typeliftr wrote: post #24

I feel like there’s an ‘all or nothing’ attitude recently around starting a business which doesn’t make sense to me. Either you’re making millions and have 100 employees or nothing. I work in a company that has 5-10 employees, nobody is working their ass off and there’s steady income and gradual growth. Our CEO is not a millionaire, but he enjoys his work and the company he works for. There is no plans for fast growt…

You might like the rather humble attitude of Basecamp: https://m.signalvnoise.com/enough-1d48019c7335 (I'm not affiliated with them in any way, just a fan of the product and someone who sympathizes and agrees with their views.)

Nice article

Re: Founder to CEO: How to build a great company from the ground up

#70

Post by DenisM »

rizzin wrote: post #68
baby wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a founder you would probably spend more time on calls and other administrative tasks that don’t require much brain energy. That’s how you end up doing long hours.

However constantly switching contexts between different tasks is also very taxing...

The idea is two spend first half of the day braining and second half doing busy work. Also championed by pg: http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html
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