
The right way to start a company - bootload
https://medium.com/@gerstenzang/the-right-way-to-start-a-company-8fe4932b59d0#.1gogp5oyi
======
brianstorms
Hmm. My takeaway from this article is that the author simply doesn't have a
burning passion to change something in the world or build something that
should be in the world, and so a startup has not come to mind. Which is the
right course of action: do nothing. Just starting a startup for startup's sake
is the worst possible reason. And sometimes the startups that are started are
flukes, even obnoxious flukes like Harvard's TheFacebook, and the true
business emerges because the founder(s) were smart enough to quickly figure
out what was going (and catching) on, how the market was reacting, and they
pursued that vigorously and executed brilliantly. I consider all the big
widely covered stories, WhatsApp, Facebook, Airbnb, etc., random flukes that
executed well with grit and a determination not to give up. But I don't find
them very inspiring.

All the startups I founded or co-founded (none located in Silicon Valley) were
based on a burning desire to build something that wasn't available to the
public but SHOULD be, and I was determined to make it available. Once I
decided to go forward, nothing could stop me. Made a thousand mistakes, some
in the end costing the respective company. But figuring out what to do as a
startup was not typically the hard part. Not having enough good people or
funding was. I hope to do another startup but right now I don't have any
burning passion to build something that's not yet in the world except for
stuff related to improving the way the voting public is informed by media (aka
stopping how the public is misinformed by media), sustainable energy,
improving health, and making people happier. We'll see if something emerges.

~~~
samg
author here– agree with many of your points, except two: 1) I think great
ideas are surprisingly rare, and are very difficult to recognize. It's
especially hard because of how important execution is for 'uncovering' a great
idea. Great idea, badly executed = looks like a bad idea

2) I think "burning passion" oversimplifies things. Many great businesses are
built without 'passion' for the solution...just a passion for some part of the
business...and sometimes that's just recognition of a great financial
opportunity.

~~~
jacquesm
> I think great ideas are surprisingly rare, and are very difficult to
> recognize.

Great ideas are super common. What is exceptional is great execution of those
ideas. For every 'great idea' that you see around you go back to the root.
Then you'll find many still born or eventually dead companies around that
exact same 'great idea' but executed in a half-hearted or wrong way.

~~~
vinceguidry
> Great ideas are super common. What is exceptional is great execution of
> those ideas.

I'd like to see this unpacked. What is it about an idea that makes it great?
What's the difference between those and the bad ideas? How do you figure out
whether your idea is great or whether it sucks?

Is it really that the idea just doesn't matter? That's where I'm leaning. The
idea itself as something that's iterated on until you get to some intermediate
state between problem-solution fit and finding traction.

~~~
jacquesm
Let's just take a few examples:

AltaVista -> Google

Idea: search engine. Execution: AltaVista soso, Google: excellent

Geocities -> MySpace -> FaceBook

Idea: A place where people anchor themselves on the web

Execution: geocities: hobbled by the tech available at that point in time,
MySpace: a bit better but still missed the boat, FaceBook: excellent
execution, _more_ limited in presentation than the previous two and that
became their strength.

And so on. For every one of these the names I've listed there were already
relatively successful companies validating the idea. But then a party came
along that was excellent in their execution of the idea and they wiped the
established competition off the map.

If you go back further you'll find that the search engine was already a
concept pioneered by many other companies, ditto the 'social network' or
'personal homepage'.

An example from the physical world:

Car companies, when the car was invented there were 100's of car companies all
trying their hardest to get a share of the cake. But the majority of them
absolutely sucked at execution. Take the UK brands, super nice to look at,
occasionally brilliant ideas but absolutely horrible in quality _in spite_ of
having a head start post WW II they still had to have a bunch of guys with
hammers at the end the production line to make the doors fit the chassis. In
the end they simply could not compete. All the exact same idea: personal
transportation.

That's what competition is all about, excellence in execution, if you mess
that one up in the long run you will not survive. This is one of the reasons
why in spite of the network effects I see Ebay and LinkedIn eventually being
replaced.

~~~
vinceguidry
OK, that doesn't answer my question. You're taking different executions of the
same idea. Obviously anybody that's been paying attention during the last
twenty years or so knows that execution is more important.

But how do you vet the idea itself _against other ideas_? How do you know
whether spending your time reinventing search is going to be better than
building a new productivity app?

You're going to execute the best you can, assuming, again, that you're aware
that execution is the biggest factor. How much, if any, effort and validation
should go into choosing your idea?

~~~
jacquesm
> But how do you vet the idea itself against other ideas?

Apologies for missing the essence of your question (4 am here...)

I don't have a foolproof algorithm for evaluating single ideas but when I look
at a number of ideas side-by-side I go through a number of exercises to figure
out which one I'll devote my time to. Some of these are formalized, SWOT
analysis for instance:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis)
which can be useful if not taken religiously, trying to sell others on the
idea, simply trying the idea in a limited setting to see if it gains momentum
or if I have to push it forward all the time. The better ones tend to stand
out.

A _really_ good idea tends to have the 'I can't believe this doesn't exist
yet' feel to it, coupled with a word-of-mouth element once it does get
implemented, even in the most basic version.

~~~
96701
Just in case you haven't seen this show yet:

(1/2)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfB0g_JDIds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfB0g_JDIds)
(2/2)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXA4sab1eKE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXA4sab1eKE)

------
rmason
I've kept a list of company ideas for close to probably twenty years. What
works best is to not think of it as a startup but a project. Doing a project
is less stressful, easier to commit and easier to quit than a startup.
Projects have a way of becoming startups pretty quickly when you get customer
demand.

------
blizkreeg
IMHO, and I'm just about starting on this journey myself, there is one way to
test the importance or 'bigness' of the idea and whether you should commit to
spending time working on it - does the problem affect a large swath of people
(at least a 1M+ people?) and are the incumbent players missing out on an
angle/aspect of it that you think you can do (significantly) better? The rest
is your execution.

~~~
kdevrou
I agree that an idea needs to be big enough to be viable but 1M+ is arbitrary.
If overall margins are very thin it may take a huge customer base to support a
business.

It also depends on the amount of operating income required. One guy in his
basement should be trying to solve a simpler problem than a well funded, VC
backed startup.

------
rdlecler1
Being unemployable also helps. When your back is against the wall there is no
turning back.

------
untilHellbanned
The namedropping at the beginning of the article is annoying. What's it about?
"Hey look, I'm awesome and even I am confused!" ???

~~~
samg
hey, author here! certainly didn't mean it that way at all– was telling a
personal story and used specific examples from my experience to illustrate

------
seethamy
This medium post is great! It touches on a lot of points and thoughts that I
feel all founders go through at various stages in startup life.

------
alaskamiller
Not quite feeling it, eh?

Stanford's abundance and enabling of ambitions and optimism not enough?

Watching from inside a sand hill money machine didn't work out?

Does it sometimes feel like it has to be Steve Jobs or nothing? And anything
less just doesn't stir that inner light and soul?

Just meh?

Yeah, I feel you. I used to get that often.

Maybe this will help, once I asked Steve Jobs how do I earn my own Apple.

He looked at me, sized me up, then said: "either you do or you don't."

I didn't know what to do with that, just took it and mangled it about in my
head the past eight years, flipping it every which way to find meaning in
every nook and cranny.

Oh, wait, one more thing.

He caveated his statement by finishing with: "the trick is to accept, accept,
accept."

Maybe that'll be helpful.

I spent the last sixteen years in the backwaters of Cupertino wanting,
dreaming, yearning to start my own company.

I have no money, we ate from the bagged groceries the church handed out on
Sundays growing up, my mom doesn't speak english and only three years ago I
was able to teach her to drive herself to Marina, I didn't go to college,
couldn't afford it, had problem reading books sometimes too.

Worst sin of all, here in silicon valley, I'm pretty dumb.

Give me a calculus problem and I wouldn't know how to solve it. Don't know how
to pump out regressions on a spreadsheet. Still don't know how term sheets
work. I'm pretty sure every room I have ever been in I was the dumbest one
there. Most days I can't even grammar. Or even muster up courage to talk to
someone without my right foot involuntarily stomps.

Don't tell me about my limits, I know my limits and replay failures better
than anyone else. I've had a whole life time of people telling me about my
limits but all I know is this: I want a better life. I want to give better
things to those near me. I want to help those around me. I want better, better
things, better ways, better options, better choices, better solutions. I want
it so bad I'm willing to kill myself to try.

I want to earn my own apple, I want to be a founder, a CEO, and lead so I went
everywhere I could, that would have me, and soaked up everything.

Rejected five times from YC, oh well, keep going. Don't know anyone in the
valley, be a tech writer, still failed to make any lasting connections, oh
well, keep going. Don't know marketing or sales so work for tech startup in SF
to learn and try my best, get fired, they then go and get acquired the day
after I get asked to sign away my options, oh well, keep going. Taught myself
hiding in conference rooms at nights and weekends after work in Mountain View,
still get fired, oh well, keep going. Grinded out in Berkeley sixteen hour
days, six days weeks, fifteen months in, gave it my absolute all to build,
launch, promote, sell, support, maintain a creation and still watched it burn
and fail. Oh well, keep going.

One step at a time, right foot, left foot, one at a time.

The tao isn't about being focused on the far distant peaks so much it hurts,
nor is it to sit, ponder too long and waste. It's merely just walk the path.

Yesterday you said tomorrow. Tomorrow may never come. Someday is better than
one day but any day isn't any better than today.

Either you do make it or you don't.

Maybe you get lucky, maybe you don't.

No one can promise you everything will be okay. My friends have long gone, in
the dark of night I'm the only reassuring myself.

After sixteen years things fades away. The stories, the names, the after
actions, everything fades away. I learned now it's not that knowing everything
will be okay if you have all the cards lined up, advantages stacked in your
favor, or have a killer idea, you just have to be okay with whatever happen.

Don't stop helping others. Others will help you.

Build a home for the misfits and the misfits will find ways to fix the
fittings.

Don't give up, give in, give out. Then very last thing you see before dying is
success.

~~~
meesterdude
Thanks for sharing this

