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If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

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Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#81

Post by radu_floricica »

StriverGuy wrote: post #61

This was written by a VC who has no track record as an operator or founder. The only consistent advice I have ever gotten from the most financially successful people I know (many worth >$100MM) has been to never give up. Some of them took decades to get to even moderate success. The last decade has been an illusion of how quickly you can get rich starting a company. It can take years to see payoff and it is not alway…

> Some of them took decades to get to even moderate success.

1. Was it worth it? I have moderate success, and I'm still making less than I would if employed.

2. Wouldn't it be faster if you did it with another idea/team? Pivots do some of that, but sometimes it's a structural problem.

Not to mention that many entrepreneurs try it when they're young and just plain don't have the experience necessary. Not sure what would be a good education on that, other than keep burning other people's money for 2-3-5 times.

Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#82

Post by Swizec »

0x20cowboy wrote: post #80
anonymouse008 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would you do differently? How do you know now that you were wasting your time? These moments make you more powerful than ever to be able to articulate why those precious (auto corrected but worked) times were not the myths you heard.

> How do you know now that you were wasting your time? For me, this is very hard advice to give, and I usually equate it to running. When you run, it often hurts after a while. There is a kind of hurt that you just need to push through, and then there is the kind of hurt that will cause bad or long term damage. It’s sometime hard to know the difference. You can sometimes quit when you shouldn’t have, and you’ll proba…

Persevere when winning is worth the cost and quit when it isn’t.

Joint pain 20 miles into a 26 mile race? Keep going. Joint pain 10 miles into a 15 mile training run? Quit. Feeling like you’re blowing out your ACL during a race that isn’t at the olympics? Quit. Muscle pain during any type of run? Keep going, that’s growth.

Depending on the startup or project you’re evaluating, there are models you can run to decide if what you’re doing is ever going to be worth the pain. SaaS for example has a growth ceiling you can calculate based on a few key metrics. Would be a shame to keep pushing on something that even theoretically doesn’t have the potential to achieve the goal you’re after.

Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#83

Post by danielbln »

Swizec wrote: post #82
0x20cowboy wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you know now that you were wasting your time? For me, this is very hard advice to give, and I usually equate it to running. When you run, it often hurts after a while. There is a kind of hurt that you just need to push through, and then there is the kind of hurt that will cause bad or long term damage. It’s sometime hard to know the difference. You can sometimes quit when you shouldn’t have, and you’ll proba…

Persevere when winning is worth the cost and quit when it isn’t. Joint pain 20 miles into a 26 mile race? Keep going. Joint pain 10 miles into a 15 mile training run? Quit. Feeling like you’re blowing out your ACL during a race that isn’t at the olympics? Quit. Muscle pain during any type of run? Keep going, that’s growth. Depending on the startup or project you’re evaluating, there are models you can run to decide i…

Just to add, you should never have joint pain, even if you run a marathon. Adjust your running form. At the end of a tough race your muscles should scream at you and some tendons might hurt, but if your joints hurt, you're doing something wrong.

Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#84

Post by onion2k »

user3939382 wrote: post #48
nlh wrote: post #32

A great quote sticks in my mind, shared with me by a founder who was going through hard times with his startup. The company was going through a bad spot, and one of his investors suggested just giving up and returning the existing capital to the investors. An advisor then said: "It's not their money anymore. Don't you dare give up." He didn't, he persevered, and the company had a fine outcome years later. I would not…

I burnt years of my life following advice like this when I was young and didn’t know better. If your formula is sufficiently wrong, which is the rule not the exception, you can’t make up for it with perseverance. There’s a selection bias in these stories you hear. Stories about people who gave it their all and failed aren’t popular.

If your formula is sufficiently wrong, which is the rule not the exception, you can’t make up for it with perseverance.

You can make up for it by examining your formula and experimenting with changes to it though, even when something is hugely wrong. Persevering with the same thing when it doesn't work is stupid; understanding that and trying to fix it is not. It's what startups call pivoting.

You might still fail if you pivot but you'll definitely fail if you stop.

Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#85

Post by ncmncm »

dvt wrote: post #77
ncmncm wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bill Gates, Bernie Madoff, and Jordan Belfort are smaller grifters, the latter two much smaller. (Gates, additionally, was tight with Jeffrey Epstein for decades, also a much smaller grifter.) Rich does not mean bad. Grift is bad. I think there is a difference. Or do you mean that nobody can be that rich without being a grifter? That might be true, but I don't think of Warren Buffet as one. Or even Jeff Bezos.

How did Bill Gates grift anyone? I think you have some sort of moral chip on your shoulder. People aren't perfect, and I don't know enough about Bezos or Buffet, but I'm sure they've done some shady things in their past. But the reactionary response is just very odd. I'm too busy, worried about my own life, plans, goals, etc. to so vehemently hate some random billionaire who doesn't even know I exist. If it was perso…

Missing the point. I don't hate Musk. (Anybody who does probably was fired during one of his tantrums.) I do recognize him as a grifter, for reasons. Can you understand the difference?

This isn't the place to explain Gates's failings, or Putin's; that's easy to look up.

I don't think you are using that word "reactionary" in any meaningful way. Have you ever looked it up?

Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#86

Post by urbandw311er »

smachiz wrote: post #71
user3939382 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I burnt years of my life following advice like this when I was young and didn’t know better. If your formula is sufficiently wrong, which is the rule not the exception, you can’t make up for it with perseverance. There’s a selection bias in these stories you hear. Stories about people who gave it their all and failed aren’t popular.

Certainly true, but start ups pivot and find success all the time. Or redefine what success is if they're early enough and wind up in great lifestyle businesses that'll never be unicorns or deca unicorns or whatever. I guess the moral of the story is really be sure that you are holding a losing hand, and that you can't play go fish instead of poker.

“All the time” is quite a vague non-quantitive phrase though.

How many startups successfully pivot? How many fail? What is that as a percentage? Personally I think that’s a more useful indicator of risk when deciding.

Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#87

Post by cheerioty »

This is the worst advice I've seen trending on HN for a while. Speaking as an angel investor, as well as a startup founder myself. In fact, I'd feel quite offended when people offer me the money back. Luckily it didn't happen to me yet!

I've seen dozen of early startups that went through a multitude of hard times (most of the time at the "finding product-market fit stage"), but pretty much all of those who kept going found mild to large success eventually.

Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#88

Post by ncmncm »

memish wrote: post #67
ncmncm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is not weird. He is the world's biggest grifter. Precisely, a great deal more of what he says is a lie than is true, and he has profited more from his grift than anybody except (maybe!) Putin. Pedo Guy. Hyperloop. Full Self-driving. Electric truck-tractor. Cybertruck. Sub-orbital passenger service. Sub-orbital freight. One-day turnaround. Mars Colonization. (To be clear: Starship, even 1000 of them, is totally ina…

Of all the people to call a grifter you choose the one who's doing the most to solve climate change, pushing forward EVs and space, is employing thousands of great engineers and inspiring new generations of engineers? Get a grip.

Musk is doing very, very far from the most to solve climate change. He puts batteries in pathologically unreliable self-crashing cars. And burns thousands of tons of kerosene or natural gas in each rocket.

Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#89

Post by ncmncm »

memish wrote: post #52
dvt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with the weird Elon hate recently? I don't care for the guy one way or another, but it's just bizarre. Plus, I have friends that worked for both Tesla and SpaceX and from what I hear, apart from being big and corporate-y, it's a pretty awesome place to be at.

He challenged the narrative and now he's a sworn enemy of the establishment.

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Re: If it isn't going to work, just shut it down

#90

Post by drewrv »

memish wrote: post #52
dvt wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's up with the weird Elon hate recently? I don't care for the guy one way or another, but it's just bizarre. Plus, I have friends that worked for both Tesla and SpaceX and from what I hear, apart from being big and corporate-y, it's a pretty awesome place to be at.

He challenged the narrative and now he's a sworn enemy of the establishment.

The stuff he’s criticized for doesn’t “challenge” any narrative. It’s all self inflicted like lying about FSD or calling someone a “pedo”.

And what do you consider “the establishment” to be exactly?

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