
Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? - danielpal
http://42floors.com/blog/is-this-what-its-supposed-to-feel-like/
======
jkldotio
A word to the wise regarding your employment benefits, you say:

"Shiny Apple Products Seriously, get whatever you want (PC users may have to
justify themselves)."

That will simply turn off some people and there is no reason for a self-
interested business to do that. Apple computers actually are PCs, and always
were but especially now they are PCs, so you should make a distinction
regarding Linux. The top machine learning company in the world even has their
own distribution of Linux[1](or flavour of Ubuntu, however you want to put
it). They and many others who don't make such snarky remarks almost certainly
pay more than you and are working on more interesting problems than you, you
are just narrowing down your potential employees without any reason. So, even
though it's in jest, remove that statement from your hiring page if you are
serious.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu>

~~~
dangrossman
+1 to counteract the downvotes. This turns me off too. I know they're a Rails
shop, and that's super popular with hardcore Apple fans, but Ruby code doesn't
seem to mind when I write it on my Windows laptop. When I chose my machine, it
outspec'd the MBP in every way (from screen to SSD/RAM to build quality) for
less money -- not a valuable mindset at an early startup? The host OS doesn't
matter all that much when you spend half your time SSH'd into Linux servers
anyway.

~~~
sneak
> When I chose my machine, it outspec'd the MBP in every way

...

> to build quality

What, praytell, did you buy?

~~~
dangrossman
A first-generation HP Envy 14. This was about 3 years ago, long before Retina:

* Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, 160GB SSD

* 1600x900 14" IPS "Radiance" panel

* Switchable graphics (Intel integrated / Radeon discrete)

* Backlit island-style keyboard with oversized multitouch touchpad

* Amazing build quality (aluminum-magnesium alloy case, no plastic, slot-loading disc drive, edge-to-edge glass)

It was, essentially, an MBP clone, with an objectively better display panel,
lower price tag at the same configurations, and Windows 7 instead of OS X. 3
years later it's still in perfect condition it was built so solidly.
Unfortunately HP ruined the brand name by applying it to cheaper, inferior
laptops in the years since, so you can't compare it to an "Envy" today.

@bluedino: It was just as sleek, with the same pixel density as the best
screen you could custom order for an MBP, but better brightness & contrast.
Here's what it looked like next to an MBP of that time:
[http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2011/11/d929dd...](http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2011/11/d929dd56d79feb68775bcad88d1b3999.jpg)

~~~
MaysonL
I wonder why this brand ruination happened: did some manager at HP have a P&L
compensation setup so that by cheapening the product he got a bigger bonus for
a year or two?

------
MattRogish
"I just got an email from an engineering prospect who has decided to turn down
our offer. We put so much time and effort and passion into recruiting him. He
decided he wants to go off and start his own company right now."

I think more and more startup CEOs are figuring this out. At least, I'm
telling every one I meet - for technical talent, you are not competing against
the other startups in your neighborhood. Or even ones doing the same thing. Or
startups in general. You're competing against the awesome developer doing
their own thing.

The cost of booting a startup is trending to zero. 10 years ago you'd need
massive capital investment (servers, networking, etc.). I can spin up a Heroku
server for free (or a series of AWS for nearly-free). I have super-powerful
development environments (Ruby/Rails, Clojure/Lighttable, whatever) that are
free or nearly so. Great infrastructure (Postgres, Unicorn, whatever) - free!

All I need is a product idea and a vision and I can bootstrap my company. I
can charge money on day one without needing a business checking account, LLC,
and all that.

What does this mean for you? As a startup founder, you are competing against a
person owning 100% and running the show as they see fit. This is a completely
different power dynamic and one that is going to be the new normal. You really
need to have your stuff _completely_ together in order to get the best people.
It's very hard, but possible (I advise founders how to do that all the time).

I'd also caution against "this person needs to be passionate about my idea or
we won't" hire them. I see that all the time, too. Look, it's your baby; it's
going to be very difficult to get them to love it as much as you do. Figure
out what this person wants out of life (their career, whatever) that _you can
provide that they alone cannot_ (work from home, presenting/attending
conferences, learning new technologies, mentoring, leading a team, education,
building their personal brand, whatever). THAT'S how you get them. Constant
tending to their needs and giving them opportunities to further their growth
is how you KEEP them.

What value are YOU bringing to the table other than an idea and some cash?
Those are table stakes now.

Good luck! :D

~~~
ry0ohki
This is the worst part IMO, in theory it's great that everyone can have the
freedom to do what they want, but the reality is most people don't have the
skills, the right idea, etc... to make a successful startup and would have
been better off working for someone else.

Is this a unique problem to our industry? In a housing boom do construction
people start making their own construction companies instead of working for
others?

~~~
brandon272
What I witnessed during a regional housing boom where I live is exactly that:
employees starting their own companies. So instead of paying a construction
worker $25 an hour, you're suddenly paying his company $80 an hour for the
same work. And you have little choice but to do so because part and parcel
with the housing boom was a skilled labour shortage! And once the employee
becomes a company, the companies hiring them were suddenly more limited in
what they could demand and the workers were more inclined to set their own
hours and do the work as they preferred because, as they saw it, they were now
business owners who could do their own thing instead of an employee beholden
to someone else's preferences on hours and work style.

From what I saw, some individuals regretted that decision because as it turns
out, despite some added flexibility, they just wanted to work as a plumber or
an electrician. They didn't want to have the added responsibility of being a
business owner.

~~~
UK-AL
That's called competition and its required so business owners can't completely
rip off employees.

------
kirinan
I don't know if you guys allow remote workers (Seattle guy here), but that
would be a good start to getting more workers. However, I think you guys are
in the stage where a lot of people call it quits, say its hard and just give
up. They don't have enough people (does anyone really?), they can't get things
done, and the things that they want to get done are out of reach. The key to
get through this is work harder (not longer), and just grind it out.
Literally, make every wednesday code a thons. No meetings, no chats, just
code. Get things done. Heads down time. This will get you through it, and I
wish you the best! 42floors is on a mission, and don't you forget it.

~~~
Zimahl
Hate to say it but they are onto the boring stuff. The cleanup after the
Superbowl, if you will. People just aren't that interested in coming in and
fixing code to run better. It's a really tough sell because it's tedious, un-
sexy work.

~~~
wheaties
Really? That has to be the most "sexy" job out of all of them. Anyone, and I
do mean that, can build an app that runs off of 1-4 boxes and a single DB
instance. Not many people can build a system that scales to 100+ boxes and a
DB that spans several boxes (not counting slaves.)

By that time, you're having to solve the "hard" problems. That's where a back-
end guy shines.

~~~
Zimahl
Please don't confuse what I'm saying. I don't know what type of developers
that they are chasing but what happens after the startup phase and into the
profitability/scaling phase is code cleanup. I've done enough of it to know
that it's not that fun (or sexy, in my book) to see what shortcuts were made
to get something working _right now_. Untangling that and getting it to work
on a grand scheme doesn't sell all that well to the type-A 'let's hack this
out!' startup mentality.

This is where you need the pragmatic developers who you probably wouldn't have
hired at the start. They are (relatively) slow and tedious, but the job will
be done right. This tends to be a natural flow of from start-up to mature
company.

------
tempaccount9473
> PC users may have to justify themselves

> Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?

Yes, this is exactly what you should feel like if you compete for a limited
pool of hipster developers in San Francisco.

I know three different guys who can come in and clean up someone else's shit,
but they aren't in San Francisco, and they all currently have jobs, so none of
them would come cheap. But if you offer a ton of money to someone with 10
years of experience architecting and deploying web apps with 1M+ users, they
will do the boring work of fixing your scalability problems.

------
jconley
Yup that's normal. The key to get through is priority. What is the most
important single thing for each person to be doing? Do that. Repeat. Focus.

If its any comfort this isn't even unique to startups. Every software project
I've ever done has felt like this. The list of possible tasks to do always far
outpaces the resources on hand to do them.

~~~
onemorepassword
> _What is the most important single thing for each person to be doing?_

I figured out the focus and priority part, but that angle, each person, is
still an eyeopener.

It's something I've been struggling with, I know what the priorities for the
product are, but not everyone can contribute (equally) to those priorities,
and I don't want to make them feel like their work is less important.

I think looking at it from this angle will help a lot.

------
nwenzel
Just don't forget that you're dealing with problems caused by growth and
demand. You're basically being crushed by latent, pent up demand. I feel your
pain. But I have to say, having problems for those reasons can't be all bad.

And, if high quality photos are your issue, talk to Pete Warden over at
Jetpac. He's wicked smart, friendly, in SF, and deals with high quality travel
photos on Jetpac.

Or (And?), talk to AirBnB. They deal with photos, are in SF, and are also YC
alums. Don't you all have each other on speed dial?

As a founder, I wish I had your problems. But, I have to say, I also wish I
had your level of access to potential solutions and advisors.

My YC interview is on Sunday. Hopefully by Monday we'll have each other on
speed dial. :)

~~~
jaf12duke
OP here. Contact me today.

I'll do a mock-interview with you to prep-- jason at 42floors

~~~
nwenzel
Thanks again Jason. Your advice and insights were very helpful.

I feel obligated to pass on what I learned:

1) Don't forget what it's like to not have your background in your industry.

2) Be very good at explaining what you do. Succinctly. Clearly. And be able to
give that explanation without assuming prior industry knowledge (see point 1).

3) If it takes a long time to explain who your customer is, you're doing it
wrong.

4) Don't forget that YC partners are also looking for your potential on demo
day.

------
nate
With great success comes great expectations. I think a lot of us feel like
this. Once we get one thing, there's a million other things to accomplish.
There's a great book called Bounce that describes the low people go through
once they accomplish something. It's a tangent to this.

I've loved working with remote folks. You can hire the best, it's cheaper,
there's people that love working remotely and are even more focused and
productive because they can work without the typical office distractions.

Experiment with some Location: Anywhere job posts?

------
tenpoundhammer
It is simple supply and demand, you either need a bigger market for the labor
you are seeking or you need to offer more money to "purchase" the employment
you desire.

This is kind of an insane problem to have, with a clear solution. I'm not sure
what it is about startups that makes them think that basic economics don't
apply to them?

~~~
scrozier
Have to agree. As soon as I read the first paragraph, I said, "capital-
starved."

------
thesash
One of the things I think about on long runs while training for a marathon is
precisely how _not_ fun running often is while training. Running through pain,
heat, cold, rain exhaustion, etc. is not _fun_ and certainly not easy, but
it's precisely those difficulties that makes crossing the finish line such a
triumphant moment. All those moments of struggle are like little deposits
towards an immense payoff; the sum of everything you've endured.

There's something satisfying about doing things the hard way. If this stuff
were easy or fun all the time, it would get boring.

The difficult part is maintaining that drive to do things the hard way. When
hard things get harder, and then impossible, its hard not to start to feel
depleted. _Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance_ [1] calls this reservoir
of inner strength "gumption" and points out that you have to make an effort to
keep the tank full. I see it as a kind of faith, not in God, but in yourself;
faith that you can and will overcome whatever insurmountable obstacle you
face. I try to keep that tank topped off by running, reading, and, despite how
hard it is, taking regular vacations where I step away to disconnect
altogether. That way, I can feel anticipation in the face of a challenge
rather than fear or despair; anticipation of a journey that won't be easy, but
will certainly be rewarding.

[1][http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-
Inquiry...](http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-
Inquiry/dp/0061673730) \- I read this book every 5 years and each time I find
something completely new. It's a remarkable work.

------
jtreminio
Can't find new talent? How about not limiting your search to people in your
immediate geographical area?

------
benjaminwootton
Refreshingly honest. Do you allow remote workers as this seems like an obvious
solution to widening the talent pool.

------
zwieback
I don't know what it's like to be an entrepreneur nor am I currently on the
job hunt but I feel like your post lessened your chances of hiring good
people. You're sounding a bit desperate and discouraged. Maybe better to take
the afternoon off and try again in the morning.

~~~
porter
I thought his honesty made him more likable and trustworthy.

~~~
freyr
I agree. It was honest and raw.

People are constantly trying to sweep their problems under the rug, hiding
them from customers, investors, employees, and themselves. Smart employees are
never fooled by this, and they'll end up viewing leadership as delusional,
dishonest, or incompetent.

This guy at least recognizes and identifies the problems (or at least the
symptoms of underlying problems). That's something.

------
lcusack
I'm really surprised by the number of people trying to solve the author's
problems. I don't think he posted this because he didn't have any good ideas
on how to hire someone or wanted copy help on his hiring page.

I think he posted it because sometimes the most helpful thing is knowing that
you're not the only one who wakes in the middle of night thinking about
payroll and customer acquisition. I think he's wondering if other people have
doubts and struggles. And anyone trying to start a company right now would
know that as soon as they read it.

So, yes Jason, this is how it's suppose to feel and it's okay that it sucks.
Just remember, you're more important than your work.

~~~
john_b
You might be right, but he did post it to a community that leans toward the
hyper-male-minded-problem-solving side of the spectrum, so it shouldn't be
surprising.

------
bdickason
Just to chime in with the 'this is normal' crew, I work at Shapeways, where
from the outside we (probably) appear to be crushing it. We just raised a big
rouf from A16Z and have been written up in tons of blogs/etc.

For the past two years (since I joined), we've all been feeling the same
thing. Scaling, running out of disk space, needing that one Product hire
terribly, hearing from investors about that one feature we discussed back in
Dec 2010 that is still 'a few releases away.'

I have fallen into this trap a few times as the dirextor of product.

However what I've realized, is one thing that helps me sleep at night: Despite
feeling like we're losing the race and not making progress, we've overhauled
our architecture, revamped our entire consumer and internal software to be
much more user friendly, built a strong release heartbeat to crank out one
solid feature a week, rebranded the company, and built confidence in our org
that people's ideas will be heard.

We've made great progress, and even though there are things that our CEO and
investors still want us to build, I'm damn proud of how far we've come. I'm
still scared shitless about conpetitors and hitting our goals for the year...
And it drives me nuts when I see another company launch something that I'm
excited about, but then I look back to our product 2 years ago, and I can't
help but smile at how far we've come.

The only advice I can give you (apart from saying thst this is totally
normal!) is to continue to focus on what's most important, not most urgent.
Sure, many of the fires you described today sound terrible, but what is the #1
most important thing today? Is it revenue? Is it growth?

Once you've identified that, pick the single most significant thing you can do
to make an impact, and do it. Then re-evaluate.

If you find yourself fixing the most urgent thing constantly (I.e. servers are
slow, investor is calling), you will just run in circles and constantly feel
like you're behind and not making progress.

If you as a company can agree on the most important thing at any time and run
towards it at 200% velocity, that momentum will always make you feel like
you're making forward progress.

Good luck, and feel free to email me (address in my profile) if you have
questions or need a pep talk :P

------
jmstout
I hate to be 'that guy', but is caching really considered 'premature
optimization'?

~~~
redblacktree
This was exactly my thought. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I read
that they'd slowed to a crawl due to a lack of caching.

~~~
rozap
I'm with you on that one. I wouldn't submit a site to Show HN without at least
memcached sitting in front of it. And to run a legitimate service sans cache?
That's just asking for trouble.

~~~
unclebucknasty
I don't know about that when you can simply go horizontal (automatically,
even) _if_ the need arises.

Building with cache: guaranteed added upfront cost, complexity, and time to
ship, without knowing if/where caching will serve you best.

Building without cache: Guaranteed upfront savings, faster time to ship, with
automatic horizontal scaling as a backstop _if_ the need ever arises, while
you work to integrate the cache.

And, remember, databases cache too. Throwing extra RAM and tweaking the DB
cache config can also be a viable backstop short-term.

------
Shorel
Do you want to hire?

Hire remotely. I know right now in CL and BG there are good and not very
expensive developers. And they would love to work for you.

I can't recommend IN developers, as they want to climb the corporate ladder
more than coding.

And, no, I'm not interested, I'm in CO and I don't care about Ruby. The
slowest framework I'm contemplating right now is Node.js, the other two are
written in Lua and C++.

------
chintan
Once you have revenue/cost numbers, things with auto-prioritze themselves.

Quick SEO nitpick (and one more #ToDo item for you ;)

On bottom of home page, you have direct links to City/Neighborhood listings
with relevant anchor text but all target pages (Search results) have just the
title "Office Space Search" I would make them "<City/Neighborhood>+Office
Spaces"

------
nopassrecover
Really enjoy humanising posts like this - reminds me that doubt is normal.

As far as 42Floors, from the outside it certainly seems like they're killing
it. I've been keeping my eye on them for a while, and have been impressed by
both their app (a likeness can be drawn to Lovely in the residential space -
both are awesome) and by how genuine they seem about taking a bunch of awesome
people and having a crack at improving a massive outdated industry. If I
thought I was a good match [I'm a PC-loving C# fan ;-)] I'd definitely
consider working here.

------
dancric
When considering this type of transparency, there is a spectrum of types of
people. Some prefer radical transparency where every possible pitfall and
challenge is openly acknowledged and noted. On the other side of the spectrum,
a lot of people don't want to have any knowledge of the challenges, and in
fact, work most productively in a state of naiveté.

Part of hiring is understanding how different people respond to this sort of
stress. For me, I really prefer this sort of off-the-record honesty. I know a
start-up is challenging, and a failure to acknowledge a reality that I know
exists is a huge turnoff. But I can definitely imagine that some hires would
find this scary and would find a startup that seems much more "perfect." You
attract who you want to attract.

------
andrewljohnson
My chairman once said to me "You feel like you are driving along at 60mph,
while everyone around you is going 90."

I've come to accept that is a perennial feeling if you start a company in the
valley. If you aren't one of the bright shining stars like DropBox or
Facebook, you can't help but wonder how you could be.

I think that feeling might still nag Zuckerberg a little bit too, and it's
even that feeling that helps make decisions like "we need to buy Instagram
right now for a cool bill."

It's not all bad to want a bit more. Greed is good as they say.

------
ameister14
I noticed something on their jobs section.

All the descriptions on the left are about coding, and yet 5/7 open jobs have
nothing to do with programming at all.

I've actually started to notice this a lot; companies focus on engineering to
the exclusion of other sections.

I know, he's having engineering problems. But he's also having physical issues
and clearly problems with the business plan and expansion model.

In this specific case there doesn't seem to be a working triage model. Find
the things that are simplest to fix and do them first. Someone needs to keep
organized and make sure the problems are being worked on in the right order
and keep everyone motivated, without losing any ground in the day to day
operations of the company.

------
noomerikal
Didn't these guys have one of those over-the-top programming challenges about
a year ago?

------
Yhippa
I read the "Jobs" page and ran across something that I have a question about:
what exactly is a "no assholes policy"?

While the page looks great to me there seems to be a lot of unprofessional
text there. For me personally that's a red flag. I have no idea if that's an
indicator of anything but unless I have a close friend who works there who can
tell me otherwise I don't know if I'd trust a part of my career to a company
that comes across the way it is portrayed on that page.

------
slater
A design comment on 42 floors:

\- The grey-on-grey of the overview map is an odd choice - why not use the
green for the markers?

\- Listings without a price should either be removable, or otherwise marked.
Feels kinda scammy, and just introduces unnecessary friction

\- Google is probably a partner for the listings images, but is it also a
requirement for you to show a "y we have no imagery f" image with Google
logos?

------
chris_mahan
Elon Musk said "Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into
the abyss of death." (see [http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/elon-musk-on-the-
best-way-t...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/elon-musk-on-the-best-way-to-
eat-glass-video/) )

So yes, it's supposed to feel like that.

------
grimtrigger
I have no advice, just wanted to say the honesty was appreciated. Its easy for
startups to get into the "fake it till you make it" bs. Thank you.

Not currently looking for a job, but if I do find myself looking in the
future, 42floors will be near the top of my list.

------
padseeker
Why did a perfectly interesting question about startups turn into a
OS/Hardware pissing contest between Macs and Windows?

For the record I develop my startup on a shitty 5 year old Compaq that dual
boots with Vista and Ubuntu 10.4, and Ruby/Rails/Gems all work great!

------
josephfung
The most accurate part of this is that line near the end... "...nor will I
mention the [A], the [Z], and everything else." That feeling of an endless
list of responsibilities is a definitive property of launching a startup.

------
meerita
I personally would look to mount another office outside US. Make it in Spain,
Argentina or elsewhere, put 10 good engineers to work in there with a good
product manager and your engineer problems will be solved.

------
mattmaroon
Yep. Startups are like a shark, they have to keep moving forward or they die.

------
orangethirty
Established company has wrong software architecture problems. Which are making
scaling difficult. Facing problems with recruiting.

Yeah, that's pretty normal. Growth doesn't make things easier. Just harder.

------
billpaydici
Good on you Jason, for an anti-fairy-tale post. It's good to hear we aren't
the only ones! Keep prioritizing well and working with attention. Keep your
cool and most of all: stick with it.

------
alpb
Seems like link is dead, does anybody have a mirror by any chance?

------
31reasons
Hard = Time / Interest.

