
What I'd tell myself about startups if I could go back 5 years - vinnyglennon
http://www.talkingquickly.co.uk/2015/04/what-id-tell-myself-about-startups/
======
makeitsuckless
> A good developer can pick up any language or platform in a few weeks

Yes and no. There's a major difference between "picking up" and actually being
good at something. If you have nobody on the team that is either already
intimately familiar with the language/platform, or has experience with various
languages/platforms, you're going to be spending a lot of time figuring out
how to do stuff properly instead of just building stuff. And if you are a
startup with a limited runway, that difference is crucial.

~~~
emodendroket
The famous Norvig piece "Teach Yourself Programming In Ten Years" touches on
this:

> In 24 hours you might be able to learn some of the syntax of C++ (if you
> already know another language), but you couldn't learn much about how to use
> the language. In short, if you were, say, a Basic programmer, you could
> learn to write programs in the style of Basic using C++ syntax, but you
> couldn't learn what C++ is actually good (and bad) for. So what's the point?
> Alan Perlis once said: "A language that doesn't affect the way you think
> about programming, is not worth knowing". One possible point is that you
> have to learn a tiny bit of C++ (or more likely, something like JavaScript
> or Processing) because you need to interface with an existing tool to
> accomplish a specific task. But then you're not learning how to program;
> you're learning to accomplish that task.

~~~
kamaal
>>you're learning to accomplish that task.

If you are learning anything other than that, you should be in academia not
building real world applications. Out there in the industry you don't have 10
years to give towards a specific cause. Given the overall pace of our
industry, the rate at which tools are changing, and age related
discrimination.

In two ten year sprints you will be due for retirement.

~~~
jblow
No offense, but you are living in a kind of unfortunate corner of "industry".

Where I am sitting, you absolutely have 10 years (or more) to give toward a
specific cause, and the path of the software developer is one of lifelong
improvement.

Stuff like "the rate at which tools are changing" doesn't matter too much,
because that stuff is just surface-level knowledge, not deep knowledge.

I am 43, and have much to do yet; if you are telling me I am due for
retirement, I suggest you have a very warped view of the world.

~~~
bjwbell
This is why I got out of areas of webdev etc that don't value deeper
knowledge. I can't say how much more satisfying it is to be learning stuff
that is useful for 10 years instead of the webdev framework of the
day/month/year.

~~~
jshen
webdev requires deep knowledge, it just may be a kind of knowledge you aren't
interested in. Placing more value in your own pet interests is more than a
little condescending.

~~~
hueving
Deep knowledge of what? The way different browsers render things?

All of the Web dev I've been involved in is pretty straight forward stuff to
manage records in a database or make it easier to interact with the records on
a browser.

The only thing remotely complex was 3d rendering. Perhaps I have a narrow view
of what is considered web dev now.

~~~
joepie91_
"Webdev" is not fundamentally any different from any other kind of development
that involves a client and server component. It just happens to be served in a
web browser. You need the same underlying knowledge as for other (common)
types of software development.

------
rottyguy
Going through this now after a few false starts. I initially picked a problem
that everyone's been complaining about forever --HR/Recruiting/Resumes. Seems
riped for solving but...

1) Getting engagement is tough in any idea. Extra tough here b/c
writing/submitting resumes is not an everyday thing and really a pain point!

2) I knew very few people in the Recruiting industry (see #1) which made
getting spun up that much harder.

3) While I agree HR/Recruiting has lots of problems, I really wasn't
passionate about the space. What this means is that during the down times, and
you'll have plenty of those when you think to yourself if all this work is
really worth it, you really need to draw deep. And if you can't convince
yourself to keep moving forward, it eventually spirals from there.

I'm now playing in the local space and much happier (even though getting
engagement is still a b _tch!) :-)

_ I do have a question to the community

1) When is it time to "start the company"? (eg through IRS)

2) If you have an existing company entity (from another failed startup
attempt) that didn't have a lot of entanglements, is it better to change the
name of that company to your new startup (after passing #1 test) or better to
shutdown and restart? Just trying to understand if there are any (longterm)
downside to a simple rename.

~~~
stevenmays
[http://hired.com](http://hired.com) already does this, and they seem to be
doing it pretty well. I don't want to dissuade you, as they have not upended
the industry yet, but check them out.

~~~
rottyguy
Oh that's the other thing. There are lots of players in this space! But,
that's not a bad thing... Someone just pointed me to nsphire (tinder for
recruiting?) which seemed interesting too.

Here was what I was trying to do:
[http://www.palere.com/blog](http://www.palere.com/blog)

I also tried to crowdsource the interview process...

------
uuilly
Brilliant post. Most of these points hit home for me. One of the things I've
been honing in on recently - which you do as well - is effectiveness.
Brilliant developers who don't ship aren't effective. People who don't distill
a product down to just what's necessary aren't effective. You hit on this
concept - and many others - in a number of spots. Thanks for sharing.

~~~
obastani
I didn't really understand this one -- what does it mean to be a brilliant
developer who doesn't ship?

~~~
fudged71
This is closely related to the "Raw Technology Persona"[1]

A developer who can talk you through an entire stack and why specific
tradeoffs were made on specific pieces of the architecture... yet hoards code
on their box without committing, works on stuff without telling other people,
and claims that things are progressed much further than they actually are.
It's an ego and accountability problem.

Someone like this might prefer to refactor your entire stack multiple times,
partly due to shiny-new-framework, and partly due to the lack of understanding
that from a business perspective you often have to work with what you've got.
I think it's less about perfectionism and more about inexperience with
balancing business tradeoffs with technology.

There's a great series in Forbes specific to CTOs undergoing this "meltdown"
[2]. In it, they mention a few warning signs including: never saying no,
missing deadlines, low morale, and poor estimation of timelines.

[1] [http://www.citoresearch.com/it-management/why-cios-and-
ctos-...](http://www.citoresearch.com/it-management/why-cios-and-ctos-suffer-
raw-technology-persona)

[2] [http://www.forbes.com/sites/danwoods/2013/08/26/avoiding-
a-c...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/danwoods/2013/08/26/avoiding-a-cto-
meltdown-part-2-warning-signs/)

------
mootothemax
_The people who are really getting somewhere aren 't the people who are always
out for drinks_

Too true.

As a side note, there are an awful lot of people who seem to go to a different
startup event every night of the week, and then some hackathon over the
weekend.

I generally find it's the other people who are getting stuff done.

~~~
mpeg
I'm always up for a coffee though and I've found that to work well for most
people.

Lots of people at evening startup events just want to have a drink after work.
Get their card and pitch them on office hours.

~~~
mootothemax
_I 'm always up for a coffee though and I've found that to work well for most
people._

Agreed. I can even be tempted by the occasional lunch as well!

------
robotnoises
Nice list! Good balance of humor and practicality. I especially enjoyed this
one:

"If you end up pitching to someone over coffee, ask to hear their pitch
afterwards."

A nice thought, as a lot of people view networking only through the lens of
"what can I gain?"

~~~
davemel37
Ironically. The best way to gain from networking is to forget about what you
can gain and focus on the other persons interests.

Excellent point about an excellent list in an excellent post.

~~~
robotnoises
Excellent reply!

~~~
joepie91_
Chef Excellence would be proud.

------
JonFish85
"It's really easy to become hyper-critical and respond to every idea with
"yeah but that won't work because of x". This is lazy, don't do it."

I'd say that while this is true, there's an important "other side" to this,
that not everything is a world-changing, ground-shaking idea that's going to
revolutionize the way the world works. Sometimes ideas are indeed stupid, and
one of the things I don't love about HN is the echo chamber effect. If
everyone is telling you how great things are, coupled with 17 ("Constantly
exaggerating how well you're doing can be very tiring.") things can disconnect
from reality quickly.

~~~
minimaxir
> _Sometimes ideas are indeed stupid, and one of the things I don 't love
> about HN is the echo chamber effect._

However, Hacker News is one of the surprisingly few communities that will tell
you if your idea is terrible, which is one of the reasons for the recent
"gratuitous negativity" controversies.

------
AndrewKemendo
_I 'd always rather work with someone who ships over someone who's technically
brilliant_

Lets define what ships means then. Does that mean that they are just really
good at debugging so that the limited features you do have don't break? Does
it mean they know how to distill exactly the use cases needed so that you
don't develop more than necessary?

I can think of many ways to ship something that is incomplete, but that
doesn't mean it's worth anything so I am curious about this statement.

~~~
ing33k
getting the product out is one of the hardest things for a early stage
startup. people who can ship will increase the possibility of the product
being released .

small example :

Business guy : guys we need to send a welcome email after a user registers.

coder1: adds code in the registration controller . ( 10 mins ) done.

coder2 : I think its better to use a event system to create an event for user
registration and use a spool to send the email.

coder2's "idea" might be technically better than coder1's implementation but
its waste as Coder2 doesn't actually take the initiative to code ..he knows
just about everything in CS and for some reason prefers not to code . And
still argues that coder1's solution is not correct.

~~~
greenyoda
_" coder1: adds code in the registration controller . ( 10 mins ) done."_

And once your code accumulates enough of these 10-minute hack jobs, it becomes
incomprehensible and unmaintainable, and every little change will break
something. At that point, progress grinds to a halt. You'll then need someone
like coder2, who has a talent for system architecture, to refactor them back
to a sane state again. (I've been both coder1 and coder2, under different
circumstances.)

------
robbyking
> Linear growth can be worse than no growth.

This one is huge. I had a manger once who confused linear growth with vertical
growth, and as a result our entire engineering staff was spread thin trying to
make progress on a large variety of mediocre products.

~~~
zerooneinfinity
Can you explain this in more detail? Why is linear growth worse than no
growth?

~~~
kstenerud
Because it has a tendency to lull you into wasting time on a product that's
not going to make any real money.

------
CheckHook
_People don 't steal ideas. Tell as many people as possible. Never ask someone
to sign an NDA before hearing your idea, you'll instantly lose all
credibility_

I find this hard to believe and can see why experienced people would keep
startup ideas close to their chest.

~~~
billmalarky
Ideas are mostly worthless. It's the execution that is valuable. I mean I
wouldn't share my idea with Rocket Internet, but you get my point.

~~~
smcl
Context: Rocket Internet is the name of the German company operated by the
Samwer brothers, who have a reputation of cloning silicon valley's latest and
greatest ideas for the German\EU market. Not technically doing anything
illegal but certainly not held in the highest regard.

~~~
getsat
They clone successfully executed ideas, not any old idea someone has.

~~~
billmalarky
However they also consider their strength to be execution not innovation. That
doesn't rule out ideas that seem like "obvious wins" but have yet to be
tested.

Edit: Apparently in their mission statement they claim to only use proven
ideas, but I still wouldn't do business with them regardless.

------
cletus
What a great list. My favourite:

> Facebook is the Facebook for X

The one point I would elaborate on is listening to customers. This deserves
more attention because listening to what customers _say_ can be a disaster.
People will tell you all sorts of things about what they think they want and
need. A lot of the time they're wrong. This can be worse than just building
things you want or think are important.

Listening to customers really means measuring what they respond to. Or, to put
it another way, ignore what they say, see what they do.

~~~
kifler
Ditto. Every time I end up at a networking event, someone without fail always
ends up pitching that they have either Facebook for X or Groupon for Y.

No matter how you approach it, feigning interest, dismissing them, or talking
about your reserverations, they never seem to get it.

------
gdubs
A lot of great items here, but number one resonates the most. One of the most
common problems I've seen on any project I've ever worked on (my own side-
projects included) is a difficulty in saying 'No' to things.

The list itself would benefit from the same advice -- cutting it down to half
as many items would have upped the overall quality IMO.

------
ljoshua
Great list that made me smile. My two favorites from it include:

\- Falling in love with a product (rather than the problem) is really
dangerous

\- It's really hard to build a product if you don't have a big personal
investment in the problem it solves

~~~
beat
On the other hand, there are a lot of problems that are highly valuable
because they _aren 't_ sexy and you _can 't_ fall in love with them.

~~~
tdaltonc
Do you have an unlovable problem in mind? I guarantee I can recast it as the
sexiest most important problem there is.

Edit: On second though, if you can show that there is big money in solving
[unlovable problem], I wont have to recast it. 1000 bay entrepreneurs will be
stumbling over one another to recast it on their "Join The Team" page.

~~~
adventured
Farming would have fallen into this category until recently.

Pitching anything farm tech / data related in the bay area between 1994 - 2012
or so, would have mostly fallen on deaf ears.

Under no circumstances would you have run into a scenario of 1,000 bay area
entrepreneurs stumbling over themselves to copy your farm tech startup ten
years ago. You can be sure there are blind spots of opportunity today in the
same way.

------
S4M
> Linear growth can be worse than no growth

Not sure I get this one right. For me, _some_ growth is better than nothing.
If your growth is linear, it means that you have something like _n_ new users
every week, which is probably because they found it through ads or something,
but they don't recommend it to their friends - otherwise, you would have every
week _n+k_ number_of_users[previous week]* and the growth would be
exponential. I suppose that's why OP is saying this, but I think the real
metric is not growth, but retention. Better to have a few users who stick with
your product.

Is that what the OP means?

~~~
talkingquickly
Yeah you're totally right, it's a huge over simplification. I was specifically
thinking of the scenario where you add roughly the same number of users each
period, where that number isn't really enough for it to be a viable business
but because there are some users, it becomes really hard to say "this isn't
working" and either radically change something or quit. Agree that retention
is often a much better metric.

~~~
jim-greer
Yes.

Kongregate always had decent-but-linear growth and very good retention (of
registered users, not so good for guests). Worked for us: here's a graph of
web sessions per day with the units taken off.

[http://i.imgur.com/715wGwX.png](http://i.imgur.com/715wGwX.png)

It flattened out as mobile took all the growth out of browser-based games. It
took us a while to figure mobile out but now we're doing well as a
publisher/marketer/funder of indie free-to-play games.

[https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/publisher/kongregate/](https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/publisher/kongregate/)

------
TravisLS
Wow, I don't have anything useful to add, but I have to compliment the author.
Every single one of these is spot on, and almost perfectly mirrors my
experience. Great post.

------
timbowhite
These are some great points, yet this one made me scratch my head:

> 44\. No-one has ever used a Bitcoin ATM for practical reasons

I've used one because it was more convenient and anonymous than giving a scan
of my ID to an online exchange, or meeting a stranger in-person to do a trade.

~~~
rongenre
There's one in San Francisco at 180 Montgomery. I've never used it.

[http://sfist.com/2014/09/15/sf_gets_its_first_bitcoin_atm_at...](http://sfist.com/2014/09/15/sf_gets_its_first_bitcoin_atm_at_fi.php)

~~~
winnopeg
It was moved from Workshop Cafe, it's now at 2415 Mission St. housed within
"Nakamoto's", a Bitcoin-only store. They actually have two there now.
[http://nakamotos.io/](http://nakamotos.io/)

------
kendallpark
> Tech news (and news is general) has a very low return on time invested.
> Prefer books and conversations

So true. Should probably block HN.

~~~
gedrap
Personally, I found that my ROI for time on HN is a decaying function.

During my first year here, it was extremely valuable. I've read about many
things that I didn't it exists, read comments written by far more experienced
people. However, a few years later, there is a lot of repetition and normally
I stick to HN newsletters and filters by points.

------
afarrell
> 4\. Like it or not, most networking in London is focused around drinking.
> Find a way to deal with that without having a constant hangover.

One of my classes at uni taught me that doing drugs (especially alcohol) is
sometimes necessary for getting things done, but I still wish this wasn't the
case.

~~~
jgroszko
I think Europe is more beer-centric than the US, but here you can always ask
the bartender to put a lime in your club soda to make it look like a
cocktail... Bartenders are usually pretty friendly to people that aren't
actually drinking, whether you're the DD, recovering, or just don't want to
actually drink.

~~~
tashoecraft
This is my strategy at any networking event. Usually have one drink then
switch to club soda and lime. While many others are pounding back drinks
because "free bar", I'm slightly loose and able to hold intelligent
conversations still.

------
tdaltonc
> It's really easy to become hyper-critical and respond to every idea with
> "yeah but that won't work because of x". This is lazy, don't do it.

This should be one of the HN guidelines.

~~~
gopher2
Good idea, I think that it already might be. They just had that highly
commented post about avoiding "gratuitous negativity"

------
gmarx
I disagree with the generally accepted one- build something you want. This is
a fine thing to do but the overwhelming majority of good software business
ideas aren't for consumers or developers. The overwhelming majority of workers
who have problems that could be fixed by software are not developers. Lots of
opportunities out there...

~~~
gedrap
You have a point :)

Building something you want usually means that you have a deeper understanding
of the problem. Also, chances are, that you are familiar with the market,
alternative tools, etc. Which is a must for creating a good product. Actually
wanting to use it adds a little bit of passion which definitely counts in the
early stage.

~~~
gmarx
clearly there are advantages if such an opportunity presents itself. Of course
if you are a programming by trade, chances are it will present to a lot of
your peers as well

------
mindfulgeek
Thanks for sharing! I learned too many of these the hard way... I think I
could say that about most things I've learned though :)

------
dmritard96
Advice is a good one on here. I would phrase as: "The vector sum of startup
advice is 0 - choose carefully and quickly"

------
soci
Great piece of advice.

> 5\. The people who are really getting somewhere aren't the people who are
> always out for drinks

I would add that networking is ok (specially with your customers). But being
always networking with the entrepreneurs in your area won't drive you anywhere
near success.

Someone once told me this advice that I try to remember myself every once and
then:

"Less networking and more working"

Also, although the list of advices nails it at mirroring my own experience, I
know that I would not follow most of them. For an unexperienced entrepreneur
it's difficult to discern good from bad advice.

------
DenisM
Any first-person accounts to support "Linear growth can be worse than no
growth"? Seems like something important, but not quite clear; a couple of real
world examples would really help.

~~~
simonswords82
I guess the underlying message here is that a product can limp on with linear
growth, sucking the team's time and energy that they could be investing
elsewhere.

Conversely no growth is a clear call to action that the product sucks, and
needs to be abandoned!

------
peshkira
Very interesting points. I agree with many of them as they reflect my own
experiences.

Assuming you are the author :) Could you elaborate on 3 "Always refuse if
someone asks you to sign an NDA before hearing their idea".

This is something I always find frustrating, but I usually end up signing the
NDA as it seems irrelevant to me anyway. I'd be interested to know how people
react when you tell them that you don't want to hear their idea. Do they
change their attitude towards it, or you don't follow up?

~~~
talkingquickly
Hey, author here. My logic is usually that an NDA is a restriction on me, so I
won't usually sign one unless I'm getting something in return. E.g. I'm happy
to sign one in the context of a piece of paid work.

Most people are quite receptive when I explain the above and that in practice
I don't believe that ideas really get stolen. Well not (web/app)tech startup
ideas anyway. I've never had what you'd call a "bad" reaction to it and in
about 75% of cases, people have then gone on to explain their idea.

~~~
ckluis
I just say I have a $2,000 NDA fee as it places liability on me.

------
henryaj
> It's really easy to become hyper-critical and respond to every idea with
> "yeah but that won't work because of x". This is lazy, don't do it.

I've a close friend who does this -- I wouldn't even call it being 'hyper-
critical'; I call it snark. It's a really negative personality trait and one I
take pains to avoid.

As Sam Altman said in his How To Start A Startup lectures: usually the best
ideas are a little bit weird.

------
timdaub
There is a similar talk on this topic called "If Only I Knew This Shit In
College" by Zach Holman.

You can watch it here:
[http://developertalks.tumblr.com/post/115528336319/zach-
holm...](http://developertalks.tumblr.com/post/115528336319/zach-holman-if-
only-i-knew-this-shit-in-college)

------
dj-wonk
There are some gems in here, mixed with some highly-specific and perhaps
contingent observations. I wish _everything_ on the web, especially this,
could be split apart and commented on it a sane way.

~~~
kodr
A few years ago, I used Diigo [1], it's an extension that let you share a
website and comment on it, anywhere. It's been a long time since I used it, I
don't really if it's still active.

[1]: [https://www.diigo.com/](https://www.diigo.com/)

------
euphemize
A bit uneven as a post. Some really, really great advice, some more
questionable I find.

>The logo doesn't matter at the start, find a simple text based logo you can
re-use for different projects

Not convinced. Your logo will follow you around for a long time, regardless of
what you tell yourself. People will see it and associate you and your startup
with it. Doing a large rebrand is difficult, costly and time-consuming.

~~~
at-fates-hands
While on the flip side of that, investing a lot of time and money to get a
logo done when there's a 50/50 chance the company might not make it another
six months seems a waste of both.

This is the problem with startups, you just never know. Should I work on
growing my brand and banking sales, or stop and spend a bunch of time deciding
on a logo? The branding will come if the product and the business model are
there. Also, some of the most famous brands have the simplest logos:

The Red Cross

Apple

Subway

Ralph Lauren

Zippo

Adidas

Nike

Google

Ikea

Dyson

Coca-Cola

Pixar

~~~
jkestner
Agreed, but simple doesn't mean they didn't spend a lot of time/money on it.
(NeXT paying Paul Rand $100K comes to mind.) Many logos are an evolution over
years.
[http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Subway](http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Subway)
[http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Adidas](http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Adidas)
[http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo](http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo)

Since we're talking about startups, can't forget Facebook's original
name/logo:
[http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Facebook](http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Facebook)

------
fragglesmock
A few years ago I took a run at this whole " startup " thing and I would not
exactly call the endeavor a ragging success .

I sunk into this hole of building that it is time to come out of and your
message from the future makes me feel a lot less crazy .

Thank you for the time you took to write it .

------
dnevogt12
Awesome writing style, and great examples of what it's like to build a startup
in the trenches.

~~~
carlesfe
Yes, I thought the same. I enjoy pg's essays and, while not comparing both
styles, it's refreshing to see a bullet-point blogpost with well thought
content, unlike the usual "You won't believe these 10 tricks all successful
startups have in common"

------
_RPM
> The people who are really getting somewhere aren't the people who are always
> out for drinks

I've found that true in a lot of contexts.

> Everyone has a hidden stash of domains they've never used

Very true for me. I have about 7 domains not being used.

------
ttty
64\. Read this again. (Until i < 10, so you don't hang in a loop)

~~~
MoOmer

        while !comprehension

------
vjvj
> 6\. Linear growth can be worse than no growth

Can you elaborate on this please?

~~~
eli
I'm not the author, but I think it's related to the following point about
failing fast. It's not a good situation to be pouring yourself into a business
that just plods along, never really in danger of going bankrupt but also never
in danger of great success. A clear failure would be preferable because it
would be a lot easier to walk away, pivot, start over, etc.

~~~
mattbee
Putting 40hrs/week into a stable, increasingly-profitable business is hardly a
slow death, though.

~~~
eli
Neither is putting in 40hrs/week at a stable job at BigCo

~~~
infinite8s
You missed the part about "increasingly profitable" which leverages each
additional hour to generate more income (which no job will give you).

------
drcode
> Think hard about a pivot which makes good business sense but leads to a
> product you no longer care about

I was just about to do this... hmmm... maybe I need to think harder.

------
fixxer
Really great list. #61 can not be overemphasized and includes blogging. I got
one of my blog posts in a phd thesis last year (tried so hard to hire that
kid!).

------
Kiro
Regarding 46 I can't help to think "why don't you just learn to program and
build it yourself?". Most ideas are simple CRUD apps anyway.

~~~
josu
Because comparative advantage. Do what you are good at, and pay for what you
are not good at. Spending time on learning has an opportunity cost. If your
opportunity cost is low i.e.: your current income is low, then maybe learning
to program is a good idea. But if you make 200$/hour, you are better off
finding a technical cofounder or outsourcing it. besides, having a technical
cofounder lets you focus on other areas of the business. At least this is how
I see it. The Woz/Jobs tandem would be a paradigmatic example of this.

------
giis
Its a very good list. Completely agree with 53 and 54. Thanks for sharing it.
Sometime ago I listed out my experience here giis.co.in/do.html

------
yzh
This is a great list, the only missing part here is: WHY? It would be nice to
have a short description of the reason attached to each item.

------
tieTYT
> Always refuse if someone asks you to sign an NDA before hearing their idea

I hear this a lot. What's the reasoning?

~~~
Retra
1\. They are probably extremely selfish. 2\. If they think they need an NDA in
a conversation, then they probably don't know how to think well enough to have
an idea worth hearing.

------
rywalker
Great post Ben, curious if you collected that list over time or just got on an
inspired roll :)

------
plongeur
> 16\. I still don't know any real investors

What is this supposed to mean?

~~~
oe
I read it as "don't spend your time trying to find / meet (real) investors",
along the lines of #47 "You're probably either building or fund raising."

Also that meaningful investments don't necessarily come from traditional, real
investors.

------
nicholasdrake
i think there's way too much group think in the Valley. it's carlota perez's
overadaptation, overlearning the lessons of the recent past..

------
chatmasta
> It's really easy to automatically dismiss everyone who starts a conversation
> with "I'm looking for a technical co-founder". Doing this means you miss
> talking to some interesting people. But be upfront that you're not that co-
> founder so no-one feels like their time is wasted.

This is a good point. I suspect many people here have grown tired of hearing
"dude I have this idea for an app..." I just graduated from college and many
of my nontechnical friends who went into finance are realizing they hate it
and want to get into tech startups. During college I was always busy so I
shrugged off these conversations. Now I have time to listen, and it turns out,
many of them actually do have good ideas and business models. They just don't
know how to code them. But these are smart, well connected people who can
raise money. Dismissing their ideas is foolish and could certainly be a waste.

I realized I can monetize all my friends asking me to help with apps. I have a
team of programmers I've worked with overseas, and I know how to manage them
to complete projects. I've started offering a service to my friends where I
take them from idea to MVP (usually a basic CRUD web app). I translate ideas
to technical requirements, write a spec, divide it into milestones, negotiate
payment schedule, and manage the project to completion. I structure the price
per milestone so that my team is rewarded for hitting deadlines, e.g.
Milestone X (some subset of feature requirements) pays $1000 by 4/31, or $1500
by 4/24\. This has worked well for me in the past and is a good way to keep
projects on schedule.

I just started doing this, and I've gotten a new lead or two each week so far.
None have been serious enough about the idea yet to immediately execute, but I
suspect with some pressure applied they will be ready.

I spoke to an alumnus from my school who graduated 3 years ago and did this in
an official capacity. He started a "product development consultancy" wih a
hybrid employee/outsource model, and tapped his alumni network for projects.
His company completed 39 projects in its first year, all sourced from
networking.

If you are an engineer also blessed with a strong network and interpersonal
skills, I suggest you look into this as well. You don't need to code every app
that someone wants help with. Often you can help give direction, or even
charge for your services of managing an overseas team. People who leave
finance are a good match because they can raise funds to the point that you
can offer cheap, quality service from a friend, but also pay your developers
way more than median salary in their country. I think of it like arbitraging
my networks and skillsets.

Regardless of whether you do that, I definitely recommend putting an end to
the habit of ignoring the app ideas of your friends.

------
zxcvvcxz
A lot of these 'problems' and 'lessons' seem to come as a byproduct of being a
part of a 'scene' to do with startups, particularly uninspiring web and mobile
startups. 'Uninspiring', to me, means people doing a startup for the sake of
doing a startup, not because they're passionate about the problem, have found
a good opportunity/market to exploit, etc.

One of the best pieces of advice I got was to not associated with losers. It's
harsh, I know, but if you see people around you not being productive and
successful, chances are you're in the wrong peer group. Better to have a
smaller and higher quality social circle than to let your time be wasted by
'the scene'.

There's a good heuristic - anytime someone calls something a 'scene', it's
time to leave. It means the people are interested more in the idea of what
they're doing than the real thing.

~~~
brc
It's also one of the hardest things to avoid - associating with losers. That
is because the losers tend to look for company and make it easy to join their
groups, while the achievers and doers jealously guard their time and
acquaintances - which is why they are achievers and doers.

A neat way around this can be to start doing recreational activities that
achievers do. Taking time to develop skills in whatever that is will help to
make friendships and relationships that matter. This doesn't have to be as
obvious as joining an expensive golf club - in fact, that club might be
populated by losers in the 'golf scene' \- golf is horrendously time-soaking.
It could be an early morning cycling group, could be anything. It's most
likely not a pub-visiting binge drinking group.

------
gaius
Nothing in there about not giving up half a market salary for "options" on
0.001% of the company. Rule #1 in my book.

------
paulhauggis
This is a great article.

Here is my experience with startups:

-1 co-founder was a designer and after I finished the product (I'm a developer), took 6 months to make changes that could have taken a week or two. Without a boss telling him what to do, he had no motivation to finish anything in a timely fashion. This failed before it got off the ground, but I built lots of nice libraries that I still use today.

-1 co-founder (a developer) gave up after he had to work on the boring parts. A few years later I gave him another chance. We were going to start a consulting business together and I figured, because he already had clients, that things would be different from our previous experience. Well, he took me to his lawyer and wanted me to sign these completely 1-sided contracts where everything I built in my off-time was owned by both of us (he knows I had other companies). He also wouldn't take any risk and give me ownership in his current contracts, but I had to give up mine. Before I even had a chance to tell him no, he changed his mind once again and wanted to "wait a month". 3 months later, I politely told him I wasn't interested and he now works a 9-5.

-The last time in my poor decision making was partnering up with someone that had no tech (besides checking email, etc) or business experience. I was to do all of the development and I figured he could learn the business and marketing skills along the way. His job in the beginning was to do all of the content-creation (which is not easy).

Well, after alpha 1 I built the entire site and he created 5 articles (which
was enough to get some people testing it). He was unwilling to learn anything
about marketing (because I was better at it as he said) and wanted to farm out
all of the content creation to other people (which is a good idea, but not at
this stage in the business..especially when we are strapped for cash).

So now we are in a situation where he has nothing to do and my job is to: get
customers, design the website, fix bugs, and make business decisions. I'm
basically running the entire business myself and he, as an equal partner, is
sitting around waiting for things to happen.

So what does he decide to do? Comes up with un-realistic ideas for future
business plans that of course only involve things that I will be working on
and not him (since he has no tech experience). I also had to fight against his
ideas and continue to convince him that we shouldn't be working on the next
"Facebook for X" and on the task at hand that had a real chance at making
money. This involved hours and hours of phone calls and meetings that took me
away from the site that was in alpha. That was another issue: nothing could be
explained by email to him, only by phone or in-person.

Everything eventually fell apart and it was a very frustrating experience. He
was also a good friend, which made it even more difficult.

I feel like some people like the idea of running a business, but have these
un-realistic expectations when it actually comes down to doing the work. I've
learned some hard lessons, but I think it will help me in the future when it
comes time to find another co-founder.

~~~
rgbrgb
Maybe try going it alone. I know it's counterintuitive but sometimes building
something by yourself is the best way to find a co-founder who's actually any
good. I never would have joined the current project I'm on (which is going
really well) had the designer not come to me with these amazingly beautiful
mocks. Before working on programming projects I had similar experience with
music projects -- I'd be trying to put a band together to write songs. I
learned that it's a lot easier to get people to work on your projects if
you've already started them. Incidentally, it seems to be the same with
investors, employees, whatever -- they have the pick of the litter and they'd
rather not be first money in. Everyone wants to feel like they're getting a
deal and everyone responds to FOMO.

------
shinamee
#18 ... hmm

------
aestetix
Too bad Clinkle didn't have this.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
That's a blast from the past. Only 6 mentions of Clinkle on HN over the past 6
months. Seems like that failure got swept under the rug.

------
chaosfactor
P(you create a successful company|you read this guys post) ~= 0

~~~
chrisshroba
Please avoid gratuitous negativity.

[http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-
guideline](http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline)

~~~
chaosfactor
It's not gratiutously negative - or even negative at all. It's a matter of
fact. The advice in that column will not lead you to create a successful
company, so take it with a healthy dose of humility and with a grain of salt.

Indeed, while your post can be considered harmful, mine cannot.

------
hectorperez
Great points! I added some of them to AgreeList [1].

For example on [2] you can see that Richard Branson also agrees on the advice
"trust your gut".

[1]
[http://www.agreelist.com/talkingquickly](http://www.agreelist.com/talkingquickly)

[2] [http://www.agreelist.com/s/listen-to-others-but-go-with-
your...](http://www.agreelist.com/s/listen-to-others-but-go-with-your-gut-
rx54xxorby6y)

