

Founder's Hell: Competitive Horror - mittermayr
http://mittermayr.tumblr.com/post/13920013660/founders-hell-competitive-horror

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currywurst
I think this feeling is a staple of all involved in "longer-term" creative
efforts that have to compete for the same mindshare. I'm sure PhD/grad
students have the same horror when one of their Google alerts pops up with a
conference paper abstract that reads _just_ like what they've been slaving on
for three months :o !!

~~~
disgruntledphd2
They (we) do. Fortunately, no one appears to have scooped me yet. Its actually
much worse in academia though, as someone could be winding their way through
publication for a year while you're still collecting data, and by the time
you're done, its too late. Contrast with startups where they tend to be
promoted from day one, and it makes for a much scarier experience.

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mittermayr
By the way, I'm interested in chatting with anyone willing to join me on this
ride. If you want to create stuff along the lines of skills, semantic skill
graphs, recruiting, I'm doing anything I can to let you go wild with what I
already have. I track over 2000 unique skills, more than 20.000 skills
associated and start getting great data. if this sounds cool, i'd really love
to chat! find me on twitter @mittermayr or anywhere else, my address is all
over the place. thanks HN, i really, really, really love how you make some
people's days, like mine, today.

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davedx
I tried to upload my CV by downloading it from Google Docs as 'Word format'
and uploading it to your site but it said it wasn't a supported file format.
I'd check that as lots of people use Docs these days :)

~~~
mittermayr
thanks man! we just changed to a different parser, will look into this right
away! really appreciated!

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faisalkhalid
Nice article, though I'm a bit confused by what your startup does. You may
want to make the benefits/problem you're trying to solve a bit more obvious on
the main page.

~~~
mittermayr
yeah, most common feedback, that's why I decided to trim it down and we'll
release a new, much clearer product that uses this beast as a backend, and has
a clear message up front. just not ready yet. man i wish i knew this would pop
up so much here on HN. THANKS!!!

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combray
What we've learned from this post is that when the author was at Microsoft
talking and interviewing startups and people in new, innovative spaces, they
had absolutely no clue what so ever of what startup founders go through. Yes
starting a company it is of course one of the most difficult things you can do
-- especially if you waste time trying to raise money rather than say staying
focusing on making money.

~~~
mittermayr
well i've always been sort of self-employed before, projects here, projects
there, wrote a book, just had jobs on and off - but it was never a thing i did
as 100% like now - which is a hell lot scarier

~~~
combray
Right. What I said. :)

But I will say that it's hard to imagine that a startup will be successful
unless you are emotionally all in, and that quote failure is not an option
unquote. Doing stuff on the side never really made sense to me, other than as
a bootstrapping strategy. The anxiety and stress, if you are able to channel
them productively, are amazing sources of energy and focus. Good luck!

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alain94040
Very realistic experience of what starting your own startup feels like. Read
that first before you quit your job. Then quit if you're still up for it.

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alanwells
I think I'm going to send this one to my (also very sane) girlfriend so she
understands better why I crawl into bed and then 30 minutes later get up again
and go back to the computer. Thanks for putting words to that feeling that
feeling that many of us know so well - if nothing else, it's nice to know that
other people experience the same thing.

~~~
mittermayr
thanks man, love reading comments like that.

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gscott
The best time to kick the ass of a venture based start up is when they flame
out because the money ran out, the founders get bought away, or their system
gets bought & subsequently shut down.

So let your system stay up naturally while things shake out and you might end
up on top just because of longevity.

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AznHisoka
Your idea doesn't seem like one where first-move takes all (whether it's
customers, hype, media press, etc). I recommend just going all in with the
enterprise market, and marketing it as a tool for employers to keep track of
the skills their employees have. Sort of like a poor man's SuccessFactors.

~~~
mittermayr
you nailed my second iteration right there. when i realized that the consumer
market is just filled with services, i figured, the hell with it, i'll create
an enterprise only product, full with virtual hosting environments and
everything - never made enough progress to push it out yet, but it's at 80%
done or so and does 100% what you said right there... appreciated!

~~~
jconley
Following this train of thought, it might be worth exploring if this would
work best as an SAP or Jive add-on or some such. . . Getting a sales channel
would be helpful in the Enterprise world.

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grannyg00se
Why so many mentions about TechCrunch? There was never any indication as to
why it is such a focus aside from finding articles about people doing
something similar.

For example: "There’s a plethora of successful businesses, ideas, projects and
products, all happening outside of TechCrunch"

Yes this is obvious, but again why would you mention TechCrunch in this
context as though there are millions of people who feel it is the central
business information repository online?

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billpatrianakos

        as though there are millions of people who feel it is the central business information repository online?
    

I think because there really are millions who feel that way. Getting featured
on TC has become one of the must-accomplish tasks for startups and so many
feel, maybe even rightly, that TechCrunch can make or break you. They've kind
of become the decider of what's cool and what's crap and you'd be surprised
how many people don't question it and take their word as truth.

There's this whole group of us living outside the major startup capitals,
looking in from the outside, and wondering how they can rocket to the center
of the universe too. That group often feels frustrated when we see all these
me-too startups while they're working on a labor of love for all the right
reasons. Then when someone with their same idea gets into TC they fear being
considered a me-too company as well despite having worked on whatever project
for so long. It's not a jealousy thing, I think it's different. All in all
they just feel like they're very deserving of some help from the players in
Startupland but can't get it because they're an outsider.

~~~
jacques_chester
> wondering how they can rocket to the center of the universe too

Make lots of money. That's a traditional way to garner press.

~~~
billpatrianakos
Just like that? Easier said than done. You're leaving out the most important
part. The traditional way usually involves getting that lucky connection,
getting funded, making a huge PR push using that funding and _then_ make lots
of money (or at least be in a position to). Otherwise there could be people
out there who have products far better than what's around but can't rocket to
the center of the universe because of the way things work now. It's like
there's this bubble that you either live inside of or outside of which is
created by tech rags like TechCrunch. If you're outside the bubble then good
luck getting noticed. And for all the talk about how all these sexy new
startups are being so innovative we sure do see a ton of me-too apps,
networks, and SaaSes. What's an outsider to do? It's like getting mega rich.
There's an unspoken truth that your position in life is governed by the class
you we born in. Moving up a class is a true rarity. It's a myth in the style
of The American Dream.

~~~
jacques_chester
The overturning of insiders by hungrier outsiders is as old as civilisation.
It didn't work out for the outsiders most of the time, but it did eventually.

Maybe that's you, maybe it's not. But you've got to play the hand you're
dealt.

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salimmadjd
If the writer had only interviewed a few startup founders while he was doing
his benchmarking, he wouldn't be so surprised. A good idea is the last thing
you need to be a successful entrepreneur. Grit, resilience, scrappiness,
nimbleness are few things that you need to have before a good idea.

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omouse
This was a pretty good post.

I would add that if you can't figure out how to beat out the competition and
if you can't get much traction but already have a code base, you should make
it free software. Release it under the AGPL or GPL. Might as well help
everyone out ;)

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herval
At first I thought I was reading my own story or something. Guess there are
many, many of us (as some other comments also indicate)...

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cousin_it
Today I learned that I can use AdBlock to kill that annoying fixed-scrolling
header. Just right click it and select "Block this ad".

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mittermayr
just wanted to say thanks again to everyone trying to sign-up for the service,
i wasn't expecting this that much, we pushed an update last night and it seems
nobody was able to sign up. ha, what better day, right? - it's fixed now.
thanks again and sorry.

~~~
msellout
Could you allow us to view results without making an account? I was going
through the process until you asked me to make an account and/or link to
social network. I need to see proof of usefulness before taking that step. At
least a view of what results _might_ look like. If there was one, I didn't see
it in my sign-up process.

~~~
mittermayr
done just a few minutes ago, added it to the blog post.

use: 20demo@binkmail.com / twentypeople

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irrlichthn
Looking at your "twenty people" website, greeting me with a big "Warning: You
are using Opera. This browser is not supported" text on the top, maybe
explains a bit that this thing is failing. There are about 30 - 40 million
opera users out there. If the main website of your project starts with that
attitute, I'm wondering if it goes on like that.

~~~
Tomis
As an Opera user I find it a bit annoying as well but I think it's just a
silly warning that doesn't impact functionality.

~~~
mittermayr
it did for a while when we used the canvas I believe, we had some major issues
- but there was one charting thing that just needed it and we couldn't get it
to work on IE/Opera... so we tried to fix it, but got stuck.

~~~
Tomis
I'm not a web developer but if you're willing to throw a few minutes at the
problem I have a few suggestions.

1\. Open your app in Opera (if there's a hard link to a page containing the
offending issue then it's even better) and go to the main menu button - help -
report a site problem, and you should fill all the relevant details. Hopefully
you will get someone from Opera to assist you since they have an entire team
dedicated to this sort of thing.

2\. You can check the answers to this post (Opera IamA on reddit, 1 year ago)

[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dtbcz/hey_reddit_join_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/dtbcz/hey_reddit_join_the_opera_browser_team_for_an/c12qw0r)

and you can try sending the Opera employees PM-s with your problem. I'm sure
it will be sorted out in the end.

Cheers.

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billpatrianakos
I want to meet _this_ guy. It's like I've got a clone of myself somewhere out
in the world thinking, feeling, and saying exactly as I do.

It wasn't explicitly said but I got hints of the authors frustration with
hype, the idea that successful startups only work in trendy SV, they all have
the sexy cool factor, and the only investors worth getting funded by are the
ones you read about on techcrunch.

To the author I'd say I feel your pain. There's a whole heap of us out here in
the Midwest, the South, and just outside the major metro areas that seem to
get all the press. We've had the same ideas as others and we see them
surpassing us daily knowing that if we just had that extra something we could
be them and deserve to be. We quit our day job, work alone in our living
rooms, can't find skilled people where we live and even if we could don't have
the cash to hire them. But it's okay because TechCrunch isn't real life and
these investors and founders aren't real people. They're like characters from
a movie. You want to be them and they seem so realistic that you sometimes
believe you can. That's a mistake. It's like trying to become Hercules or some
other mythical character. It's covered because its a rarity and the myth is
sexier than the truth. Some of us will make it but we just have to keep
jumping ponds. Become the biggest fish in your current pond before moving on
to a pond with even larger fish.

Even though I generalized all the well known founders and investors and called
them not real, I know they are. My point was to dissuade people from comparing
themselves to people like that because it's often futile and results in more
frustration than progress.

~~~
mittermayr
just wanted to say thanks for your comment, seems like we do share some
things, couldn't have expressed it better. great comment. really appreciated.
thanks for reading the post.

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davidhansen
One minor thing I'd pick out of this rant is your exasperation at the fact
that VCs did not respond favorably to being cold-pitched.

One thing you need to understand is that VC is a networking game, not a
capital allocation game. You will get nowhere without access to a couple of
trusted connections. Your idea, team, market, traction, revenue, and earnings
mean absolutely nothing without "knowing a guy who knows a guy".

~~~
mittermayr
thing was, i had a prototype and all that, my own money and I figured i can
skip the first part of funding and go straight to VC, which sounded like a
plan back then, but now makes absolutely no sense anymore. much more
interested in business angels and people who can help refine... learned a lot
right there... thanks for the comment!

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jacobquick
The blog post is long-winded but the site is dumb: "I'm not going to tell you
what my site does but please upload me your CV."

How about you make a fake result set so I can see what you're up to instead of
being another useless "social tool" begging for my personal info?

~~~
billpatrianakos
What are you talking about? Did you even follow the link to the site or read
the whole post? Long doesn't mean long-winded. He's talking about stuff that
really speaks to what a lot of us are going through. You may not have that in
common with him but that doesn't mean it's dumb. What if I said "your comment
is dumb. You made a short sarcastic quip and left no constructive criticism".
It's cool not to like it but give a decent reason that isn't so unnecessarily
condescending. Guy poured his heart out, give him a break.

Also, you can sign up right now _and_ he even gives you access to a demo
account. Plus the site itself explains what he's doing. I'm not trying to be a
dick or anything but I really liked what he was talking about and I feel like
I just can't let unfair criticism go unrefuted.

~~~
mittermayr
Bill, you make the internet a nicer place. Thanks for that. Really
appreciated.

