
Survive and Thrive - tzier
http://justinkan.com/survive-and-thrive
======
staunch
> _What each of the companies had in common was that they built something that
> was useful, created a feedback loop of getting user feedback and iterating
> on the product, and kept at their startups long enough for the market they
> were in to mature._

> _I deeply believe that if three recent college grads (and one dropout) could
> turn an online reality tv show into a billion dollar company then literally
> anyone can be successful online._

Not anyone, but far more people than currently are. The only problem is that
very few people get the opportunity required.

How many teams get help from YC followed by millions of funding from other
investors? How many can spend 5 years working on a project that isn't
profitable? As a percentage of people, it's far below 0.1%.

When there's a scalable YC alternative (like equity crowdfunding, maybe) we'll
see just how many good technology businesses are possible. It seems nearly
unlimited, if you're aiming for Star Trek.

I think there are tens of thousands of 2-10 person teams that are waiting for
an opportunity to show us what they have.

~~~
nostrademons
If it's impossible, it's only because few people have the psychological makeup
to delay gratification for years.

The most surefire way to be able to spend 5 years working on a project that
isn't profitable is to spend 5 years saving 50% of your salary. How do you
save 50% of your income for 5 years? Get a job paying double the median income
(~80th percentile [1]) and live like the median person. Or get a job paying at
about the 60th percentile ($65K) and live like someone making half that (~30th
percentile). Both of them are eminently achievable for many Americans - by the
numbers, 20% for the former and 40% for the latter.

Most people don't do this because they feel like they must be better than the
people who make half of what they do, and so blow the excess income on a
lifestyle that doesn't really make them happier but certainly makes them look
better. If you don't give a shit about others thinking that you're a pauper,
you can amass a good amount of freedom, power, and yes, money without anyone
knowing.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States#Distribution_of_household_income_in_2010_according_to_US_Census_data)

~~~
siberianbear
And if you keep that up long enough, you can just retire. I retired at the age
of 40 by saving about 70% of my take-home salary as a manager of a group of
engineers in Silicon Valley.

I will never go back to a cubicle in Silicon Valley. Never.

------
dk8996
In before "survivorship bias". In any case, it's amazing that so many
successful companies were in that building.

~~~
gkoberger
"Survive" is the one bit of advice that, by definition, is immune to
survivorship bias.

Basically, Justin is saying "the ones that survived are the ones that
survived". It's stating the painfully obvious, however it's a simple contrast
to the normal "strategic" advice.

Paul Graham writes about this a lot:

[http://paulgraham.com/aord.html](http://paulgraham.com/aord.html)

[http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html)

[http://paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html](http://paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html)

~~~
ak39
Thanks for this. That PG article was sobering for me. All the while reading
it, I had Shawshank's "Get busy living or get busy dying" playing in my head.
:-(

------
philfrasty
If you ever have the chance to attend a talk of Justin you should. Rad guy.
Hope he still wears his giant golden watch!

------
svisser
"I deeply believe that if three recent college grads (and one dropout) could
turn an online reality tv show into a billion dollar company then literally
anyone can be successful online."

There are so many things wrong with drawing that conclusion.

~~~
lquist
No there really isn't. Justin is getting at a truth about startups: "If you
can just avoid dying, you get rich." Paul Graham wrote that 8 years ago
([http://paulgraham.com/die.html](http://paulgraham.com/die.html)), and I
wonder if it was (subconsciously?) an inspiration to this post by Justin? My
guess is that it's actually more likely that Justin feels this truth
intuitively. I believe that this is a truth that is so fundamental to startups
that if I could ask founders only one question when investing, it would be,
"When will you give up?"

~~~
sytelus
Not dieing is ofcourse the key which is where the luck must kick in big time.
I think most startup don't die because founders give up but rather because
there are no real options left, just strong desire for not dieing is not
enough. One key thing Justin mentions is being in growth market. What if you
realize after 5 years that your user base for purple coat wearing alternate
movie lovers _isn 't_ a growth market? The next logical step would be pivot
which is technically a death followed by another cycle - if you have funding
leftover. Justin.TV itself was on the verge of folding up because of inability
to pay for bandwidth and if Twitch idea hadn't occurred at right moment (aka
huge luck) then no one would have known them now. Luck has played huge part in
probably every startup Justin has mentioned. For example, Reddit would have
perhaps never taken off if Digg didn't screwed up with its redesign. Also all
of those startups were immensely blessed by social network of Y and pg which
average joe founder would not have and that itself reduces dependency on being
lucky.

Having said all that, I think Justin has put the simple success receipe quite
succinctly in this article: Produce, get feedback and iterate. Doing this
enough number of times in growth market can produce very likely success.
That's beautiful, powerful, compact advice.

~~~
justin
Justin.tv was not on the verge of folding when we pivoted to Twitch, in fact,
we achieved profitability the year before.

