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Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

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Re: Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

#81
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly the same - it's not human conversation and the poster couldn't even assess what they were posting.

> the poster couldn't even assess what they were posting Uhm disagree, I know what I was posting (doesn't seem it was against the rules either), I was trying to understand better the answer that OP had submitted as a reply to my first question. It definitely helped me put it into a better perspective (i.e. no clue what an average salary at a large company looks like). That being said the answer to my question from th…

I know what I was posting

I didn't say you didn't know what you were posting, I said you couldn't assess it which is a conclusion I reached by reading your comment which ends: "Not sure if that helps or if it's accurate". But like the mod comments say, HN is for conversation between people rather than a conversation between you and an LLM.

Re: Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

#82
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the poster couldn't even assess what they were posting Uhm disagree, I know what I was posting (doesn't seem it was against the rules either), I was trying to understand better the answer that OP had submitted as a reply to my first question. It definitely helped me put it into a better perspective (i.e. no clue what an average salary at a large company looks like). That being said the answer to my question from th…

This thread is kind of going on and on, but for whatever it's worth, the general rule is "don't post generated comments". We're not the thread police, but you're going to find that comments that are significantly LLM-generated are going to get flagged to death. We're here for human conversation. Maybe next time, just suggest "here's a prompt I used that got a good GPT 4o response, go try it".

Noted, ty, wont do it again - sucks to be downvoted and flagged but lesson learned

Re: Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

#83
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is kind of going on and on, but for whatever it's worth, the general rule is "don't post generated comments". We're not the thread police, but you're going to find that comments that are significantly LLM-generated are going to get flagged to death. We're here for human conversation. Maybe next time, just suggest "here's a prompt I used that got a good GPT 4o response, go try it".

Noted, ty, wont do it again - sucks to be downvoted and flagged but lesson learned

It's no big deal! You shouldn't feel bad about anything.

Re: Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

#84
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thread is kind of going on and on, but for whatever it's worth, the general rule is "don't post generated comments". We're not the thread police, but you're going to find that comments that are significantly LLM-generated are going to get flagged to death. We're here for human conversation. Maybe next time, just suggest "here's a prompt I used that got a good GPT 4o response, go try it".

Noted, ty, wont do it again - sucks to be downvoted and flagged but lesson learned

don't take it to heart, the content wasn't bad and in the context, a chatgpt answer made sense (in place of you using its content as your own message which would be weird).

Re: Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

#85
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We’re fortunate to have landed in a middle ground that more founders should be aware of earlier on (and I think awareness is increasing). You mean the area 97% of businesses who don't go bust operate? I think most business owners are well aware of it. For some reason though, startup founders live in a different reality.

You're comparing unlike things here. 97% of businesses are things like "open up another pizza place in the corner", "franchise a McDonald's", "open up a town hardware shop", etc. That's what being an entrepreneur means for much of the world. Startups, at least the kind that are usually built in tech, and which VCs usually fund, are an entirely different thing. They are pursuing innovation , trying to build a new prod…

> Startups, at least the kind that are usually built in tech, and which VCs usually fund, are an entirely different thing. They are pursuing innovation, trying to build a new product that didn't exist before into a real business.

Is "new pizza place that makes dessert pizzas" really that different to "new financial modelling website that can import from Excel and Xero"?

I've also run multiple businesses, and the qualifier for startups seems to be less around innovation and more around self-labelling.

Re: Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

#86
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing unlike things here. 97% of businesses are things like "open up another pizza place in the corner", "franchise a McDonald's", "open up a town hardware shop", etc. That's what being an entrepreneur means for much of the world. Startups, at least the kind that are usually built in tech, and which VCs usually fund, are an entirely different thing. They are pursuing innovation , trying to build a new prod…

> Startups, at least the kind that are usually built in tech, and which VCs usually fund, are an entirely different thing. They are pursuing innovation, trying to build a new product that didn't exist before into a real business. Is "new pizza place that makes dessert pizzas" really that different to "new financial modelling website that can import from Excel and Xero"? I've also run multiple businesses, and the qual…

> Is "new pizza place that makes dessert pizzas" really that different to "new financial modelling website that can import from Excel and Xero"?

Yes. I mean, I'm not thinking of "dessert pizzas", which I guess is some innovation, I'm just thinking "another franchise of Pizza Hut" or something.

But yes, that is different, depending on what the modelling website is trying to do. If it's trying to build a high-growth product with a lot of potential customers and a lot of potential for growth, by building a new product that doesn't exist yet - then yes, that's a very different thing from a pizza place. The kind of questions they need to ask and answer are different, the kinds of actions they need to take are different, and their potential outcomes are very different.

> I've also run multiple businesses, and the qualifier for startups seems to be less around innovation and more around self-labelling.

I mean, self labelling as in "deciding I'm trying to build a high-growth product"? Then yes, obviously that's right, if you're not trying explicitly to do t then you're likely doing it wrong.

It's pretty self evident that there is a difference between something like Microsoft or Facebook and something like the corner branch of Target, no?

Re: Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

#87
post #66
post #47

If you did it again, would you use AG-Grid, or would seek to own the table with something like Tanstack Table?

Curious to hear about other people's experience with Tanstack. I built a complex app [1] around AG-Grid and here are my thoughts: I would recommend AG-Grid for most data apps until a well supported alternative comes out. My understanding is that Tanstack Table is aimed at generic apps that happen to have a table. Perspective's [2] table component is most likely more capable than AG-Grids, but it needs significantly m…

Great write up -- hadn't seen Perspective.

Would Perspective work for a similar use case as Causal's where the data tables have a large amount of interactivity, tree-based information and/or master-detail style UI concerns?

We're building a product that is more oriented around the interactive DAG concept and less about big data. The snappiness of those examples is very impressive.

Re: Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

#89
post #9
post #8

What is good about getting acquired?

$$$ It’s an exit strategy.

It can also be an advantageous continuation strategy. Being acquired doesn't necessarily mean giving up on the project, or losing ownership in it's future.

If you have a startup with a product, that product's path to further growth (and therefore its current and future value), can be expanded many times in the context of a family of synergistic products.

You can attempt to partner with existing synergistic products and companies. This can accelerate growth, but is also risky. Those other companies will likely see an opportunity to create their own competing version or your product.

That leaves creating synergistic products yourself, which may be a long road. Or being acquired by a synergistic company.

Either way, you end up owning a piece of a family of synergistic products, worth more together than apart, and with higher growth and stability prospects.

Whether its better to build out or get acquired depends on the risk vs. reward of the current context. If creating synergistic products reflects your strengths, and is open market territory, that is a great position to be in.

But if creating synergistic products is going to turn into an uphill battle of replacing products already on the market, then getting acquired may be a much faster safer higher value generating path.

Re: Tell HN: We (Causal) got acquired – thank you HN

#90
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing unlike things here. 97% of businesses are things like "open up another pizza place in the corner", "franchise a McDonald's", "open up a town hardware shop", etc. That's what being an entrepreneur means for much of the world. Startups, at least the kind that are usually built in tech, and which VCs usually fund, are an entirely different thing. They are pursuing innovation , trying to build a new prod…

> Startups, at least the kind that are usually built in tech, and which VCs usually fund, are an entirely different thing. They are pursuing innovation, trying to build a new product that didn't exist before into a real business. Is "new pizza place that makes dessert pizzas" really that different to "new financial modelling website that can import from Excel and Xero"? I've also run multiple businesses, and the qual…

> "new pizza place that makes dessert pizzas"

That would be Brazilian pizza!

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