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Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

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Re: Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

#81

Post by adrianwaj »

pg wrote: post #25
edw519 wrote: post #23

My questions: - What advice would pg (2010 instance) give to pg (2004 instance)? - What property of the 4 yc partners, if removed, would do the most damage? - What has surprised you the most? - What is the biggest mistake people have made? - What is the biggest thing that will have to be different (about yc) in the future? - What kind of yc startup is most likely to hit a grand slam home run?

Wow, these are good questions. But it's 10:58 so I'll try to answer them afterward. Edit: Answers: 1. Not to be influenced by credentials. Where people went to school in particular. 2. Our own determination, probably. We need it too, not just the founders. 3. How many people just give up. 4. That founders have made? Building stuff users don't really care about. 5. Doing everything on a larger scale. 6. The kind with…

People are hard-wired to give up. There has to be a carrot, stick or both to overcome it. Ideally, just wanting to make a change, or being really excited by something is what keeps people going against the odds: like Steve Jobs. Developers are basically problem solvers, I suspect giving up occurs when a certain set of problems seem or have proven to be insurmountable.

Re: Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

#82

Post by pg »

weaksauce wrote: post #79
pg wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the time of year. People want to talk a lot more the week before Demo Day than in April. On average I'd guess 10-15 hours a week. But I also talk to startups outside office hours; e.g. at the dinners, which span about 6 hours each.

Is it all at the table or do you have some kind of presentation too from past founders?

There are all kind of presentations and special events. I'm just talking here about individual conversations. (I'm not sure what you mean by "all at the table.")

Re: Paul Graham on Mixergy, today 2pm EST/11am PST

#83

Post by gridspy »

gridspy wrote: post #80
commonsense wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $10k might very well buy the next facebook Get the fuck out of here. The amount of engineering the founders put into facebook far outpaces $10k. You're living in a fantasy land.

My point is that those founders didn't draw a salary until well after they had a value proposition for investors. Or to put it another way, Stephen and I have put > $400,000 of hours into Gridspy, but our costs are limited to board prototyping, outsourced layout and web hosting. For most internet startups, costs are perhaps $10,000 per founder for 3 months + hosting (perhaps $100/mo until there is enough traffic to d…

One further point. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that facebook is burning through $1m per day now.

http://www.google.co.nz/#hl=en&q=facebook+burn+rate would seem to agree with me ($200m per year perhaps).

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