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Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#81

Post by [deleted] »

rizpanjwani wrote: post #80
blizkreeg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also something called dealing with the consequences. People figure it out. It's not a joy ride, but it's not the end of the world. At least most people in tech have the skills to fall back on a career if their company fails. Needless caution advice coated in a cynical tone just creates negativity around the whole topic. Can't we just celebrate that the founder of Webflow managed to rescue his company from th…

so basically you're saying it's ok to create positivity around a topic on a regular basis, but not negativity, even though the negative consequences happen more often than not?

[deleted]

Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#82

Post by exolymph »

darepublic wrote: post #40

On an ironic note, your company is part of a trend that threatens the livelihood of devs everywhere

This is like thinking that WordPress is bad for developers. No, it just helps people get to the point where they need + can afford a developer.

Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#83

Post by lotsofpulp »

artur_makly wrote: post #67
Techonomicon wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love this comment. I don't think this notion gets highlighted enough. This is definitively anecdotal, though I've been at / through approximately 5 startups across 12 years, and looking back, I believe each end everyone one (except for one) was definitely helped / started by a founder or set of founders who didn't have to worry about whether they went belly up or not due to family wealth. Hell, I still know some th…

in sports at least the old saying was: "A ball player's got to be kept hungry to become a big leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family ever made the big leagues. - Joe Dimaggio

I’m seeing quite a lot of athletes whose parents were athletes, or had the means to pay for elite training.

I don’t expect the hungriest kids to have any chance in most pro sports unless they’re above average, at least in size for the major US sports.

Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#84

Post by blizkreeg »

rizpanjwani wrote: post #80
blizkreeg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also something called dealing with the consequences. People figure it out. It's not a joy ride, but it's not the end of the world. At least most people in tech have the skills to fall back on a career if their company fails. Needless caution advice coated in a cynical tone just creates negativity around the whole topic. Can't we just celebrate that the founder of Webflow managed to rescue his company from th…

so basically you're saying it's ok to create positivity around a topic on a regular basis, but not negativity, even though the negative consequences happen more often than not?

And what do you aim to accomplish with that negativity? We all know the risks in everything.

By educating me about the risk, you haven't accomplished anything. If you have ideas for how I can play the odds better and improve my success rate, I'm all ears. It's better to say look to each side of the road when you cross vs you're gonna die if you're not careful.

Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#85

Post by composer »

tornato7 wrote: post #43
darepublic wrote: post #40

On an ironic note, your company is part of a trend that threatens the livelihood of devs everywhere

To me it's ironic to say that greater automation is threatening the livelihood of devs. That's what good devs should do, automate themselves out of their job and move up one tier of abstraction. Maybe those devs who feel threatened should start writing webflow extensions

ReRe's Law of Repetition and Redundancy [3] agrees with you:

  A programmer can accurately estimate the schedule for only the repeated and the redundant. Yet,
  A programmer's job is to automate the repeated and the redundant. Thus,
  A programmer delivering to an estimated or predictable schedule is...
  Not doing their job (or is redundant).
[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=192

Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#86

Post by [deleted] »

rizpanjwani wrote: post #80
blizkreeg wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also something called dealing with the consequences. People figure it out. It's not a joy ride, but it's not the end of the world. At least most people in tech have the skills to fall back on a career if their company fails. Needless caution advice coated in a cynical tone just creates negativity around the whole topic. Can't we just celebrate that the founder of Webflow managed to rescue his company from th…

so basically you're saying it's ok to create positivity around a topic on a regular basis, but not negativity, even though the negative consequences happen more often than not?

[deleted]

Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#87

Post by yawnxyz »

dvt wrote: post #44
dumbfounder wrote: post #41

I have mixed feelings about this story. I applaud your resolve, and you have certainly had a tremendous amount of success that should be celebrated! But I can't help but think about the 9 founders of other companies that had the same resolve in the same situation, but things did not work out so well. All you other people thinking about going for broke need to be ready to hit bottom and build yourself back up afterwar…

> But I can't help but think about the 9 founders of other companies that had the same resolve in the same situation, but things did not work out so well. Everyone on HN knows that the startup life is, in many ways, a lottery. But that doesn't mean it's not still one of the most reliable ways of exercising self-determination, working on something you're truly passionate about, taking full responsibility for your fate…

we've been at this for two+ years and making a ton of progress but it's been a continuous, unfunded slog, and we continuously think "maybe it's better to just shut things down and join an already funded startup?"

but then the people work with us tell us how important our work is to them / the community and it encourages us to push through... it's kind of bittersweet

Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#88

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

HN is a community of people that want to do what you did, develop an idea to a successful business. One thing that differentiates this community over others is that many here are willing to learn and do the work.

I ask that you put together a video, document, book that gives a general idea on how you did it and what it takes to continue to have a successful business. Everyone will thank you and it will makes this community that has helped to get you off the ground become better.

Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#89

Post by aerosmile »

Techonomicon wrote: post #55
TAForObvReasons wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

*younger people with family wealth. Some of my friends were unable to take risks because they needed to support their parents as well, and that puts a huge pressure to go with the safe money

I love this comment. I don't think this notion gets highlighted enough. This is definitively anecdotal, though I've been at / through approximately 5 startups across 12 years, and looking back, I believe each end everyone one (except for one) was definitely helped / started by a founder or set of founders who didn't have to worry about whether they went belly up or not due to family wealth. Hell, I still know some th…

If you don't come from wealth, please don't be deterred by this and similar narratives. The OP is not referring to any facts or data, just a personal experience, aka n=1. If you're looking for a more reliable guidance in life, look at YC which is n~3,000. If there's anyone who knows where to look for startup success, it's YC - and their search has increasingly shifted towards India, Nigeria and similar countries [1].

[1] YC publishes stats on each class, but here's an umbrella stat that should cheer us all up: in the last 5 years alone, around 1,000 YC founders were female, Black or Latinx (https://www.reuters.com/article/venture-capital-y-combinator...)

Re: Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make a living

#90

Post by CuriouslyC »

dvt wrote: post #78
quickthrower2 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can also get to millions by investing while working a regular job

Again, the upside is significantly higher if you start a company (financial independence is just one piece). It can be risky (see OP), but it's pretty rational to be a founder, especially if you can weather the adversity. I'm not even sure how my claims are controversial (especially here on HN, of all places).

The only problem with that is that I think a lot of people are okay with any really good upside above XXX dollars (i.e. comfortable financial independence). Given this, even though the potential dollar amount of the upside is much larger, the odds of an "acceptable" upside are significantly lower, and as a result it is a bad choice for people who aren't extremely ambitious.
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