

The Early Early Stage - dorkitude
http://blog.keen.io/post/16663334473/the-early-early-stage

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nhashem
It's pretty hard to start a startup while you have full-time employment you're
relatively happy with, both because of physical time constraints and
reconciling the risk mentally.

In the past I felt exactly like these guys did: apply for incubators, which
will provide both validation and financing, which makes a transition a lot
less painful. It's one thing to tell your wife, "yeah so I quit my $125,000
job to work with Joe on our startup, which is really just a bunch of
unreleased code at this point" as opposed to, "yeah so I quit my $150,000 to
work with Joe on our startup, but we're in YC, which is like Harvard for
startups, and we're getting over $150,000 in funding, and like half these
companies raise venture capital really quickly after the program." Hell, it's
a lot easier to _tell yourself_ that.

A few months ago I wrote a post about my experience interviewing at YC and
getting rejected, and I mentioned how we didn't continue working on our idea,
and a lot of people asked me why. And the most honest answer I could give was,
"I felt it was too big of a risk to take off my golden handcuffs without Paul
Graham's approval," which sounds kind of absurd but is the most plain
explanation I can give.

Well it's been over a year since then and I've realized two main problems with
that way of thinking. 1) All an incubator can really do is _amplify_ your
ability to conceive of ideas and execute well on them. But if you can do both
of those things well anyway, then you'll be successful regardless of
acceptance or not. 2) If you refuse to embark on starting a startup without
getting accepted into an incubator, then you're limiting yourself to
"incubator-friendly" ideas, which is generally something that is consumer-
facing and disruptive in some theoretically huge market (or eventual market)
(e.g. AirBnb, Dropbox) or is a tool/platform that can improve the startup
ecosystem of tools and platforms (which it seems like Keen.io is, if I
understand their value prop on their home page correctly).

So congrats to the Keen.io for getting into TechStars, and I'm sure their
product will be great, and they'll go on to be successful without having to
sacrifice much more than going out to dinner a little less and downgrading
their Netflix subscription. But it's very possible they were going to be
successful anyway.

~~~
dkador
Just for context, I'm the author of the OP.

First, thanks for the thoughtful reply. I remember your post about your YC
experiences, and it was great, especially since I was considering doing
something like this and really identified with it. I think I probably would
have quit my job anyways, but getting into an accelerator like TechStars
really made it a no-brainer.

I'd like to raise the point that the idea you apply with doesn't matter a ton.
It should be good enough to show that you're not stupid, but that's about it.
We've already changed what we're working on significantly based on early
customer development and discussions with the amazing TechStars mentors. It's
actually been a little hard to convince myself that the reason we got accepted
was like 90% team and only 10% idea (totally made up numbers, of course, but
you get the drift).

I completely bought into the concept of an accelerator validating your idea,
and that was really just kind of wrong (at least in our case).

Anyways, thanks again for the comment. Here's hoping we'll be as successful as
you suggest. :)

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gfodor
It sounds to me like you guys are more focused on getting into an incubator
and less focused on starting a company. Maybe it's just the gist of the post,
but you guys _do_ realize that this is, for lack of a better term, the 'real
deal', right? Every choice you make has consequences, and spending so much
effort focusing on incubators when instead you could be doing the "schleps"
that pg talks about may be opportunity squandered when you have the time
together with this idea as a priority.

Balance in all things. Incubators are surely helpful, but they surely should
not be your _primary_ focus right now, and you're setting yourself up for
failure if you are banking on getting into one. This _is_ a zero sum game, and
putting creative energy into a YC application when it could be going into a
product is a real choice, and I hope you guys are _aware_ it's a choice. I'm
not saying it's the wrong one, but this post led me to feel you are looking at
the goal of starting a company similar to getting into college. It is not. It
is not a game of one of one or two big victories and resting on your laurels,
but instead a game of many small ones (hopefully peppered with a few big ones
as well :)) If you are focusing just on the big ones then you are doing it
wrong and will likely join the 99% of those who do not make it. Incubators,
funding, and so on are a means to an end not an end in itself. Remember that
and carve a path that makes sense for _your company_ and _your team_ , not one
that you think is in line with what everyone else is doing.

~~~
dkador
Fair comments, and completely accurate. But you're responding to a post that
was focused 100% on what our experience was when applying to an accelerator.
So yes, it's going to sound like we're only talking about that stuff and not
everything else that matters more (like execution). That's not the full
picture of us and what we're working towards. We'll have future posts that are
(hopefully) interesting and aren't at all about the accelerator process.

FWIW, though, it's hard to overestimate the value of getting into a program
like TechStars. Forget about the money (although it's awesome that we have
enough runway that we won't have to raise immediately following demo day if we
don't want to). It's the network and relationships and simply amazing people
that we get to meet. Of course that's not enough, but it's crazy valuable. I
know for sure that we're already more successful because of it.

Thanks for the comments!

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PLejeck
I really connected with this post, because my startup is also in this "early
early stage". It's only been a month or two that we've actually taken our idea
seriously, after coming to the realization that "woah, we could actually do
this!"

Too many blogs like to focus in on what it's like in the "early stage" but not
enough focus on that stage before you get funding, when everything looks much
scarier and your idea feels like total shit. Hopefully this post will help
many other startup founders to realize they're not alone. I've added this to
my "suggested reading" list in my company, as I think my cofounders will
appreciate it as much as I did.

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erikch
Congratulations getting into TS Cloud. I can't wait to see all the amazing
companies to come out of the program. Beware of "Mentor Whiplash", I hear it
can be a real problem.

I've thought of quitting my job to start a business. I know it would give me
the best chance of success. With that said moonlighting makes much more sense
to me. It has much less risk and if the business fails I'll still have
something to fall back on. Getting into YC and TS feels to me like winning the
lottery. With acceptance rates around 2%-3% it doesn't seem like a realistic
option.

~~~
dkador
"Mentor Whiplash" is real and has already been felt. Whether or not it will
get worse remains to be seen. :)

Getting in to one of these things is a bit like winning the lottery, but that
doesn't mean you shouldn't try for it. Regardless, there have been successful
businesses started with both the "fuck my job, I'm going to do this full-time"
and the moonlighting approaches. Do what makes sense and feels right for you
is all I can say.

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chrisabruce
So happy for you guys!

