

Ask HN: Startup advice for my friend who does not read HN - adelevie

My friend is discussing starting a startup with a few other co-founders. He doesn't read HN, TC, or any of the other standard reading we all know and love.<p>How best can I help him learn the breadth of what he doesn't know?
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mindcrime
As much as I love HN, do you really think it's _necessary_ for an entrepreneur
to be part of this site, in order to be successful? Actually, considering what
a time sink this can be, the best advice you can give him might be "don't join
HN, whatever you do." :-)

I get that one shouldn't operate in a bubble, and I assume that's what you're
getting at here... but does he do anything to gain exposure to outside ideas
and thoughts on the tech startup scene? If so, maybe what he's doing is
enough?

Has he read any books, or anything, related to this subject? If not, there's a
fairly recent thread on "Good books for startups" maybe hand him a copy of one
or two of the titles off one of those lists?

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us
1\. Hear his pitch and reasoning for what he does, then objectively break any
fallacy he may have that doesn't fit the norm of solid advice (which is
subjective since even weird things can happen in wonderful ways). Link him to
proof by people who have been successful and why his thinking might be wrong.

2\. Tell him to get more involved with the startup community and in some
sense, read up on things he doesn't understand. Few other cofounders sound
like a bit more than necessary but since I don't know the background on this,
I won't comment.

3\. If he won't listen and continues doing what he wants to do, let him. He
has to learn on his own. The biggest thing about any entrepreneur (the
successful ones) is they must be teachable, adaptable, and constantly
changing. If he is fixated in his ways, nothing you do will help.

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staunch
Get him to at least read a few of PG's articles on startups.

<http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html>

<http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html>

<http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html>

<http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html>

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JonathanWCurd
Read HN, or more appropriately just read about what your doing / getting into.
But most importantly do. Failure and Success are a result of continuing to
try.

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robwgibbons
...Show him HN?

