
Dangerous pieces of startup advice - adityar
http://venturevillage.eu/worst-startup-advice
======
calinet6
This is one of the most downright realistic, insightful, and well-balanced
articles on startups I've read in a long time.

Don't overthink it folks: it's not like he's saying that every bit of critique
he throws out is correct. I mean, look at him, he's basically saying "take all
that constantly regurgitated advice with a grain of salt." If you don't think
it's a little tongue-in-cheek then you're missing the point.

And the point is: have some perspective. Don't take any of this advice as
dogma, and don't take any of this stuff too seriously. Take your work
seriously instead.

------
DoubleMalt
I think the author misunderstood "Fake it till you make it".

The point of this (as I understand it) is, that very often the most efficient
method for small numbers is different from the method you need to scale up.

For example it might be easier to manually provision servers for your first
100 customers if you have a aaS business than starting out with a bullet proof
automatic provisioning system before you even know that more than 3 people
will want to use it.

Or it might initially be easier to manually check registrations for a market
place before moving over to a more streamlined process.

So you "fake" scalability. Of course you should never fake services.

~~~
mgkimsal
As the other poster said, I've never heard your interpretation, and you're
being too diplomatic/optimistic in your interpretation (or perhaps too
geek/tech focused).

I first heard "fake it till you make it" 20+ years ago in MLM/Amway circles.
Never joined, but had known some people involved, and that was part of the
schtick in motivational presentations (much like "you gotta be in it to win
it" is used for lottery ticket sales). The gist in MLM was you need to present
an image of success to your downline, whether you're actually successful (yet)
or not. Drive a bigger car, get fancier clothes, talk about your vacations,
etc., to give the impression that 'the business' is already providing those
things. In turn, people will be impressed, join up, and _then_ you'll 'make
it'.

Sick and twisted.

Perhaps there are legitimate other uses of the phrase, but many people have
heard it used in that context, and it's the primary one I associate it with.

That doesn't mean you can't do what you're suggesting, but I agree with the
other poster, I think you're being too generous. I think the 'fake it' crowd
know who they are, and sometimes it's easy to spot them - going to too many
conferences, talking/blogging about how great everything is, vs just _doing_
stuff to progress a business.

~~~
yajoe
For those who aren't aware or understand the reference, Amway is commonly
understood and used as a metonym for pyramid schemes in the US.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amway#Controversy>

(Thanks for your post)

~~~
mgkimsal
Thanks for that - I should have linked to what amway was/is (quixtar? no -
amway again!) :)

------
danso
Some of this advice is appallingly facile: for instance:

> _7\. “Turn your passion into a business”_

 _If, like me, your passion is laying around on the couch in your underwear
and eating chocolate then I wouldn’t assume there’s anything profitable in
that. Problems are profitable. Passions, not so much_

Hello, if your main passions in life are laying around on the couch in your
underwear, then maybe you shouldn't launch a startup.

Second, it's hard to think of a successful startup that isn't rooted in at
least one of its cowfounder's passions. The founders of Google and Facebook,
respectively, really did want to organize the world's information and get
laid.

The OP links to this article, also by the OP: <http://venturevillage.eu/sweet-
poison-of-the-internet>

In it, the OP slams the stupidity of music startups, including such, I guess,
loser startups as Spotify and SoundCloud...seems like the OP has a standard
for immediate return on investment that most startups would never meet.
Certainly, we wouldn't have Google or Facebook if their founders followed this
advice.

~~~
calinet6
> Hello, if your main passions in life are laying around on the couch in your
> underwear, then maybe you shouldn't launch a startup.

This is appallingly haughty. There are dozens of reasons to lay around on the
couch in your underwear, the important thing is that you find a reason not to
_also._

~~~
danso
I thought about expounding on this but figured the main OP's error of
conflation was so obvious that it wasn't worth it. "Lying on the couch" is not
really a passion, it's a way to rest/recuperate/replenish your emotional
reserve, insert-something-from-Daniel-Kahneman-here, etc.

So when the OP uses it as an example of a passion to argue that making
businesses from passions is a stupid, dangerous idea...sorry, isn't the
logical fallacy here pretty obvious?

~~~
calinet6
Of course it is, but apparently the joke isn't very obvious.

Yeah he's making fun of passion; he's using a hyperbole to illustrate the
anti-passion he's talking about. He's not using a perfect logical argument to
say that having passion is a bad thing; he's making a joke about people who
are _overtly_ passionate about their startup to the point where it blinds them
to the forces outside themselves to which they should _also_ be paying
attention.

I've struggled with this as well. My passions first and foremost are science,
art, design, photography, literature, philosophy. I am not passionate about
sitting behind a computer screen for 12 hours a day. I do it anyway because I
want to build something of value and use my full potential to do so. Following
my passion is not what I'm always doing with my time; sometimes I have to put
my passions aside and get down to digging. <http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/to-
be-of-use/>

It is fun and illogical to joke about this: if I had my way I might be a
nature photographer, following in the footsteps of David Muench, Galen Rowell,
and Ansel Adams. I could make a modest living maybe, but it would be a hard
path and it wouldn't scale—basically it wouldn't have the large impact I
believe I have the potential to contribute using technology.

Could I integrate all of this into my work? Of course. And I do. But if I was
to follow that passion alone like a Ahab's whale, I may not reach something of
true value: there's not a big problem to solve in the nature photography
space. Or heck maybe there is, but probably not a good one, or maybe the
market is already too crowded, or maybe that's too much of a niche. The point
being: simply going after my passion isn't going to net me something of real
value to the world. I have to widen my perspective a bit. In other words, I
have to get off the couch and get dressed.

 _That's_ the sarcastic joke. In fact, he linked to an article about the
subject: <http://venturevillage.eu/sweet-poison-of-the-internet> \-- It's
pretty good. He's not saying "passion is always bad"—he's saying that passion
is an inward pulling force, it blinds you to an outside perspective, and that
you should be aware of that and balance your passion with the world at large.
Excellent advice.

~~~
danso
Your post contains worthwile discussion and well thought out points...but I'm
reluctant to address it because you've seemed to miss the part in my post
where I actually clicked through to the OP's underlying elaboration and found
it to be as poorly supported as the statement of the OP's that you consider
just to be a rhetorical technique.

~~~
calinet6
Fair enough, I did get off on a tangent. Sorry for the rant, and have a good
day.

------
glurgh
_Social is not a feature, nor is it a differentiator and it‘s not a topping
that can be added like salami for a pizza. We‘re humans so pretty much
everything we do is social._

But it is a feature, it might be an important feature, a popular feature, a
feature with a currently eager and responsive market/investment climate. Then
again plenty of useful software has been written in the last few decades that
is not 'social'. Neither Unix nor Photoshop are social. Going to the bathroom
or balancing your checkbook is not social.

Meta-advice might be any advice that rationalizes itself by using the word
'humans' is probably wrong.

~~~
marcosdumay
Unix is social. Where do you think the Internet comes from?

It started as a social network of people sharing data in tapes.

------
usaar333
> 8\. “If we build it, they will come”

> " For every minute you spend building it, for every dollar you spend
> building it, you need to do the same marketing it."

I'd love to see a discussion on this tip. I certainly agree that they might
not come if you build it, but I tend to think that is mainly because they (the
customers) don't exist - that is, the market the early stage start-up's
product serves is not large enough.

Other materials I've read actually argue that early stage start-ups (pre-
product/market fit) often spend too much time and money on marketing. e.g.
this post by Andreesen:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the-
pmarca-gu-2.html).

~~~
rpedela
Link doesn't work for me?

~~~
usaar333
Sorry, fixed

------
struppi
A very nice article, although I do not agree with everything in there. I guess
you just can not be successful just by copying what others did. Especially not
when you do not understand why you should do it or how it contributed to their
success.

Somewhat offtopic: I do not work in the startup scene, but I have experience
something similar a couple of times when traditional companies try to do
agile. They see something that works very well for somebody, bring in a
consultant (hopefully!) and start doing everything she says. Without really
understanding it. But it's just rituals then, and the rituals alone don't
work. That's called "cargo cult" or "scrum but" sometimes, though I have my
problems with those words too (<http://davidtanzer.net/scrum_but>)...

------
skizm
> Passion is no longer a differentiator, it’s a prerequisite. It’s why you’re
> at the race, but it’s not the reason you’ll win.

This is just great life advice. If you want to be the best (or even really
good) at something, you can't just want it the most. Everyone wants it.

------
ArekDymalski
Actually "Build it and they'll come" used to be a good motto,when technical
side was the biggest challenge. I guess it was pretty motivating then. Today
when it's much easier thanks to many frameworks,APIs and generally available
technologies it's a myth indeed. It was replaced by "Hack the growth and
they'll come" which soon will also turn in deceptive myth I believe.

