This was always a marketing gimmick.
The golden era of being an open startup is gone
81–90 of 114 posts
Re: The golden era of being an open startup is gone
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I personally find the lack of vaporware from Apple refreshing. With Apple, when you hear about the thing you can go out and buy the thing. From too many companies you hear about cool tech, only to find it disappointing or hobbled a year later when they actually get to release.
>I personally find the lack of vaporware from Apple refreshing. They recently nixed their AR products that had been hinted at for forever, and the 'Apple Car' was 'right around the corner' sitting as a boogey-man juxtaposed to Tesla's efforts for years before being cancelled. They're more reliable than most groups, but post-Jobs Apple loves to mention fantasy stuff that consumers will never see, it's part of their hy…
Apple at no point ever “announced” a car or any AR products.
Re: The golden era of being an open startup is gone
#83It’s not being an Open Startup that kills your chances. If you have an insurrmountable business advantage (it’s who you know, not what you know) and you keep the how-to details of your solution hidden behind a generic description where the solution is really hard to pull off well, being open only helps you. Firstly, by using idiots who would steal your idea to create buzz in the market for you as they pitch their sil…
I can’t cite examples, but in my long experience, ever since the Osborne computer was released, it was understood that if you talked about a future product, people would simply stop buying the current product because they were waiting for the replacement.
Re: The golden era of being an open startup is gone
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hey, G here, CMO at testimonial.to. There's still plenty of profits left each month, that's not the reason! In one sentence, he just no longer believes in sharing every core metrics but still plans to build in public.
>In one sentence, he just no longer believes in sharing every core metrics ...which seems to be for the reason the parent mentions? "We're open until we're not." isn't "open".
How is it not? It's literally the definition of open, the opposite of closed, so "open until they decide to close" is perfectly valid. We are not dealing with libre or free software here, let each run their company how they want cmom.
Re: The golden era of being an open startup is gone
#85Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi Reid, G here, CMO at testimonial.to. In one sentence, Damon just no longer believes in sharing every core metric but still plans to build in public. It's been a core part of what he does and something I know he likes to do instead of building everything behind curtains with no feedback loop.
Feedback loops should be coming from customers, not outsiders. That would be noise, IMO. And if that one core sentence is what he believes, I think the whole post could have been more clear and concise instead of making a grand claim that is based on his anecdotal experience.
Sharing every little details of our internal metrics brings more noise tbh. It has nothing to do with our feedback loop.
Re: The golden era of being an open startup is gone
#86In general, it doesn’t matter whether you’re open to the public or not. What matters much more is that you’re open with your own employees. The “open startup” idea always seemed superficial to me, founders seeking external validation. Over the long-term, what really matters is keeping your people (employees) happy, and one very easy way to do that is to show that you appreciate and respect them by sharing your compan…
> Over the long-term, what really matters is keeping your people (employees) happy
customers
Re: The golden era of being an open startup is gone
#87In general, it doesn’t matter whether you’re open to the public or not. What matters much more is that you’re open with your own employees. The “open startup” idea always seemed superficial to me, founders seeking external validation. Over the long-term, what really matters is keeping your people (employees) happy, and one very easy way to do that is to show that you appreciate and respect them by sharing your compan…
> Over the long-term, what really matters is keeping your people (employees) happy customers
Both
Re: The golden era of being an open startup is gone
#88In general, it doesn’t matter whether you’re open to the public or not. What matters much more is that you’re open with your own employees. The “open startup” idea always seemed superficial to me, founders seeking external validation. Over the long-term, what really matters is keeping your people (employees) happy, and one very easy way to do that is to show that you appreciate and respect them by sharing your compan…
Not sure I agree.
Of the two places I've worked, the one who was hiding the metrics ended up having great financials and selling.
The other said they had to do layoffs but would be fine until X years later. A few months later they laid off another round of employees.
Re: The golden era of being an open startup is gone
#89In general, it doesn’t matter whether you’re open to the public or not. What matters much more is that you’re open with your own employees. The “open startup” idea always seemed superficial to me, founders seeking external validation. Over the long-term, what really matters is keeping your people (employees) happy, and one very easy way to do that is to show that you appreciate and respect them by sharing your compan…
Not sure I agree. Of the two places I've worked, the one who was hiding the metrics ended up having great financials and selling. The other said they had to do layoffs but would be fine until X years later. A few months later they laid off another round of employees.
It's better to say nothing than it is to mislead or say something wrong, but best of all would be if they had been honest. I don't think that sounds like a disagreement.
Re: The golden era of being an open startup is gone
#90The golden era is over for those startups that have matured.
If you are small, being open brings alot of momentum and notice.
This blog post isn't acknowledging that being open is actually even more viable for thousands of new startups given previous successes.
He has confused popular startups closing as the end of all openness.