

Rules for startups - pjharrin
http://blogmaverick.com/2008/03/09/my-rules-for-startups/

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fallentimes
_"11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in
the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read.
Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information
related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them
an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff.
They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you
establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer
their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart,
they will use you."_

It always amazes me how much money startups spend on PR instead of development
or other necessities. Cuil comes to mind.

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shabda
Rule 0: These are advices, generally true, but not necessarily in your case.
Use your best judgement instead of blindly following them.

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dhimes
I see this as: "Here are potential problems you may have, here is how I
prevent them." I found it an interesting read for his itemization of the
problems; YMMV with his solutions, of course.

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MaysonL
Re coffee & sodas: Cuban should check out the relative health effects of the
antioxidants in coffee and the high fructose corn syrup in sodas and retract
that idiotic comment.

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mrtron
Plus good coffee is much better for you than any of that 'instant' stuff. But
I think his point was more you don't need to spend 5000 on a coffee machine,
especially when stepping out for a coffee is a good time to socialize with
colleagues.

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eru
You can also drink tea. That does not involve an expensive machine.

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motoko
How about: $20 coffee machine, (free) tap water, and a $10 ground coffee in a
can from the grocery store?

It's not that complicated.

~~~
pmjordan
How about: if it's that big a deal, ask the people with whom you're working on
this what they'd prefer, then work out some kind of compromise.

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redorb
handing out 100 dollar bills seems like something that pets.com would do.

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fallentimes
I think they handed out stock options like free cheese samples. At the time,
these were ironically thought to be worth far more in value.

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xiaoma
This is one of my favorite of Mark's articles on HN. The advice about PR firms
and cost cutting was great, and the bit about doing what you love, rather than
something you're looking for an exit plan was even better.

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lsc
on schwag:

I was kindof thinking of distributing free T-shirts when I speak at LUGs
and/or to customers who express interest. At $5-$10 each, well, it might be a
dumb idea, I'm not sure. Average customer gets me $10/month or so in revenue.

See, I was thinking that my target market (cheap Linux hobbyists and cheap
micro-businesses) might actually wear free shirts. I would think the value of
the schwag as advertising directly correlates to how much it is used in public
by the recipient.

The thing is, as I'm self funded, the credit crunch doesn't mean anything, so
long as I keep my consulting gigs. I'm buying hardware right now like it was
1999. This next month, after I get my new capacity up, I am going to need to
spend some money on advertising.

I do ok for the relevant google searches, and my target market is very
technical (yes, I could vastly expand my market by making it easier. I'm
working on it, but my core customer base is people like me- people who don't
click on ads.) so I don't think buying 'sponsored results' from google will
make much difference.

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callmeed
Great article and, IMO, much better than that recent one by Calcanis on saving
money with your startup.

Interesting, I was seriously considering a PR firm for one of my startups. I
had met a PR guy from the Bay Area at a wedding and considered using his
company. Good to know.

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jraines
"Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for
closers." Awesome. But he follows that up with "Sodas are free." Wha? Please
share your free soda hacks.

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mcargian
Pretty sure he was referring to Calacanis' horrible post on how to "save
money" by buying a $3,000 to $5,000 espresso machine.

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ojbyrne
I think espresso machines get a bum rap - there are cheaper, and more
importantly, more maintenance/mess free alternatives to big commercial barista
machines.

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run4yourlives
Cheap espresso machines are almost universally crap. This is certainly one
case where value correlates to cost.

Point is, if you really want an espresso, go to a fricken coffee shop.

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ojbyrne
I guess it's more of a coffee maker, even though it has crema, but where I
work everyone loves our Senseo:
[http://www.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=136943...](http://www.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=136943&PartnerID=FROOGLE&BannerID=PD677)

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sabat
This sounds more like religion/zealotry than it does startup advice. Just
because you have a good business idea doesn't mean you have to commit to it
for life. Nothing wrong with having an exit strategy in mind. It may be years
before you see it, and that does have to be OK.

But if Cuban is so gung-ho, why isn't he still at his startup?

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colinplamondon
Billions of dollars free and clear, you'd have to be an idiot to turn down the
deal he got from Yahoo.

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steveplace
Pretty sure it wasn't free and clear... he got YHOO stock out of it. But he
was smart by hedging against downside using stock option synthetics.

