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How a startup loses its spark

blog.johnqian.com

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Re: How a startup loses its spark

#61

Post by dventimi »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #33

I disagree - as someone who has started up small companies and worked in megacorps, including FAANG and major banks, it’s entirely possible to build that intoxicating environment anywhere. It’s more about having a dynamic leader who assembles teams into collections of individuals who know precisely why they are there - and are given the work they excel at and the work they don’t the manager ensures someone who does h…

> The arguments are entirely false: ex N^2 communication. No team depends on every [other] team in the org.

From the article:

"You can’t just work on whatever you want; coordinating would be an O(N^2) communication mess."

Evidently, you're agreeing with the article. So which part is false then?

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#62

Post by fnordpiglet »

dventimi wrote: post #61
fnordpiglet wrote: post #33

I disagree - as someone who has started up small companies and worked in megacorps, including FAANG and major banks, it’s entirely possible to build that intoxicating environment anywhere. It’s more about having a dynamic leader who assembles teams into collections of individuals who know precisely why they are there - and are given the work they excel at and the work they don’t the manager ensures someone who does h…

> The arguments are entirely false: ex N^2 communication. No team depends on every [other] team in the org. From the article: "You can’t just work on whatever you want; coordinating would be an O(N^2) communication mess." Evidently, you're agreeing with the article. So which part is false then?

That coordinating is a quadratic mess, because no task requires bidirectional communicating with everyone else.

I also disagree with all the other points they make about large companies. Not that there exists teams in large companies that suffer these issues, but that there exists no teams in large companies that don’t have these issues. I further extended it to say startups also aren’t without issue, and many are totally screwed up. They just don’t last very long.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#63

Post by geophile »

I went through this cycle a few times. My favorite, and last successful startup was acquired by a gigantic international corporation four years in (2007), and I stuck around for another two years.

After the product shipped, the need to support customers and sales definitely slowed things down. Our fantastic VP of Engineering became CTO, and hired a middle management moron as VP, and that was the end of the good times. The new VP then hired "team players" instead of good engineers, rewarded loyalty over competence, and hilarity ensued. And then we were acquired.

My fun startup-like time was reduced to ONE WEEK per year -- the week between Christmas and New Year. The rest of the year, all the layers of management were present and doing what they do. But that one week of the year, nobody was around, so I found myself much freer to do what I thought was important. And that wasn't just self indulgence, (I mean, it was, but not only), and having an alpha version of a shiny new thing forced the organization to go along.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#64

Post by dventimi »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #50
lukaszkorecki wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The arguments articulated are entirely false I’d would disagree - I had the exact experience that the autor described. But you are right on this point > it’s entirely possible to build that intoxicating environment anywhere. It’s more about having a dynamic leader who assembles teams into collections of individuals who know precisely why they are there I still think it’s related to size and bad incentives. I heard…

Yes, thats correct. However the existence of X department at all refutes the authors premise and conclusion - and if X exists, it’s entirely possibly for Y to become better. Specifically this is entirely false due to the existence of X: > Is this preventable? I think not. I> f you look closely, all these problems fundamentally come from: > Decreased skin in the game, which reduces team alignment > N^2 communication,…

Would you describe your work at large companies as "intoxicating"?

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#65

Post by endorphine »

samhuk wrote: post #54

I'll raise your spark for complete destruction. Here's an incomplete list that I keep around of the mechanisms that I've observed so far that have played a big part in the decline/destruction of an engineering team (and product thereof): 1. Too-technical leaders: As startup scales, there can sometimes be a mad dash to fill new leadership roles (e.g. VP of Eng, Arch, CTO, etc.). Super-star engineers present at startup…

Maybe by avoiding fast scaling, which implies avoiding VC money.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#66

Post by fnordpiglet »

Throw10987 wrote: post #59
fnordpiglet wrote: post #33

I disagree - as someone who has started up small companies and worked in megacorps, including FAANG and major banks, it’s entirely possible to build that intoxicating environment anywhere. It’s more about having a dynamic leader who assembles teams into collections of individuals who know precisely why they are there - and are given the work they excel at and the work they don’t the manager ensures someone who does h…

I am the most senior engineering IC by position and years of experience at my current company in a 100+ person engineering group. The only problems I deal with are non technical and organisational in nature, despite on paper being expected to code 30 percent of the time.

I’m sorry - I’d advise either making your role better or finding a better team. They exist.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#67

Post by fnordpiglet »

dventimi wrote: post #64
fnordpiglet wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, thats correct. However the existence of X department at all refutes the authors premise and conclusion - and if X exists, it’s entirely possibly for Y to become better. Specifically this is entirely false due to the existence of X: > Is this preventable? I think not. I> f you look closely, all these problems fundamentally come from: > Decreased skin in the game, which reduces team alignment > N^2 communication,…

Would you describe your work at large companies as "intoxicating"?

Absolutely. The most exciting work I’ve done that has literally changed our world was done at systemically important multinational megacorps, where we created environments of unfettered innovation and an assembled teams of amazing individuals working as a coherent team. I had some really great leaders early in my career that showed it’s not only possible it’s the only way to enjoy any role at any company no matter the size. While you can’t clone their method to work in any environment, you can adapt their method to any environment with enough energy applied. The essential secrets are the ones I outlined. As an IC though it’s all about finding those leaders among the functionaries.

Likewise, most of the startups I worked at were exciting by not intoxicating. They were relatively banal in their goals (change the world through prestige makeup e-commerce or something), their technology modern but not innovative, and the teams tight but not always coherent like a well oiled machine.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#68

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

I liked parts of this and disagreed with other parts.

Perhaps the part I agreed with the most is "don't hire too fast". It's difficult for me to think of a startup (or, honestly, any company) that failed or experienced pains from hiring too slow, but I can think of tons of problems (often from personal experience) from hiring too fast.

One piece I couldn't help roll my eyes at is the "don't use Jira" bit - like the sun rising in the East, bashing on Jira is the favorite past time of engineers. Depending on your type of startup, Jira may be a great tool for the job. E.g. if your company has lots of different workflows it needs to support, it can be very easy to waste a ton of time due to "dropped balls" if things aren't tracked well and issue ownership isn't explicitly clear. Of course, it's easy to waste a ton of time over-complicating Jira with a million unnecessary issue states, but IMO Jira has made it much easier for small teams to use it and be productive quickly (i.e. team-based projects). I'm also not saying Jira is the best tool to start with (my last startup stated with Trello and it worked well), but once you get into production and have a lot of operational issues to manage and prioritize alongside new feature development, you're likely going to need some Jira-like tool to keep everyone aligned and informed.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#69

Post by l5870uoo9y »

There is an incredible important step missing: find a viable business model. Getting ideas and building them is "relatively" easy (just look at the vast open source ecosystem) for engineers but integrating/pairing/merging them with a business models that generates revenue within a limited time period is hard.

Re: How a startup loses its spark

#70

Post by jSully24 »

New ideas getting shot down for fear of cannibalizing existing revenue.

The product that was the breakthrough is likely (somewhat) wonderful and loved (or at least used) by many and generates the bulk of your revenue. However we all know that solution that has gotten you this far has problems and there are many ideas to be able to go to the next level.

But any idea that is seen to take away from the focus of that main revenue generator will be fought unless there is VERY strong leadership. Anything "new" will impact marketing budgets, Sales incentives and revenue goals, threaten those who are working on the "legacy" project, not to mention external forces who are only interested in the bottom line revenue and EBITDA numbers for the next quarter, not the next 1, 3 and 5 years.

I've had this happen at 2 startups I've been through. Both had successful exits, but could've been more and build a much better future path for themselves.

Now trying to avoid this in my current home.

What if Apple had stopped the iPhone for fear of it cannibalizing* the iPod line of products revenue? * https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/economics/articles/ap...

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