
Startcraps - brainshave
http://www.brainshave.com/blog/startcraps
======
Permit
-> Work on a medical startup; "Why don't any of the founders have a background in medicine, I don't trust these guys".

-> Work on AI; "These guys are peddling vaporware".

-> Work on connecting people your own age (something you might have domain expertise in); "What a vapid, crappy startup. Work on real problems!".

-> Work in Finance, at Google or Facebook; "I saw the brightest minds of my generation moving money and selling ads".

I truly hope no one is discouraged by articles like this one. (Also, where are
all the much-alluded-to apps for sharing pictures of cats? They're so often
referenced as evidence of crappy startups that I'd assume they'd be more
present.)

~~~
cjjrjd
Perhaps the real problem is that there is an overabundance of people in
software looking for easy money.

It may not be a popular thing to say on HN, but in my experience it seems to
fit the data.

~~~
andyfleming
There is definitely a get-rich-quick mindset that a lot of people enter the
startup world with.

Thankfully, I think that segment is starting to dwindle as they realize they
aren't getting rich quick.

~~~
superuser2
That is the definition of the startup world.

No, seriously. The defining characteristic of a startup is that it's designed
to grew its revenues many orders of magnitude faster than its expenses in
anticipation of a very large exit. That is, quite literally, "get rich quick."

------
lostcolony
"Now"

Ha ha ha.

Maybe he meant "After you have looked around, interviewed a few places, done
your due diligence, are sure working for X is a better option, and have an
offer in hand".

To do otherwise is grossly unwise; at best you're cutting your earnings and
weakening your bargaining position for the next job, and any additional time
taken to look for something you especially are interested further weakens it
("I see here you worked with Y until two months ago. What have you been doing
since?" "Job hunting" \- not a good position to be in). A worse case, you end
up feeling the pinch of a lack of paycheck and jumping into the first thing
that seems tolerable, rather than something that seems ideal. And a worst case
is not being able to find anything -at all-. Unlikely in our industry, at this
time, admittedly, but I've seen it happen to those in other technical
industries.

In short, by all means, leave a bad startup. But not just for anything; find
something that seems more promising, else you're just making things worse for
yourself.

~~~
djb_hackernews
Meh, that's what the MBAs want you to think. In reality it actually shows
backbone and the personal beneficial psychological effects are probably
measurable as well.

Now, it's probably not such a great idea to up and quit if you are the sole
income for your family but if you are in your late 20's going through the
"awakening" phase of technology work it's not such a bad idea, and I speak
from experience.

I'd say in your hypothetical scenario an answer of "Job hunting" is probably
the worst response, and ideally you'd come up with something better like
traveling, building up a simulation framework for hobby X, presenting at
conferences on topic Y, etc.

~~~
jonnathanson
_" Meh, that's what the MBAs want you to think. In reality it actually shows
backbone and the personal beneficial psychological effects are probably
measurable as well."_

Except, as a job hunter on the market, you're not going to be dealing with
"MBAs." You're going to be dealing with recruiters, HR employees, and their
various filters. Gaps in your resume don't agree with these filters. At the
very least, they need to be explained -- and the first two or three times
anyone at any company looks at your resume, you won't be there to explain it.

It's never a great idea to quit a job without another one lined up. I realize
the job market for developers right now is white hot, and sure, you can always
land another job without too much difficulty. But landing a _good_ job is
another matter altogether.

(At this point, someone usually chimes in with a comment to this effect: "Any
company worth working for / any job that's truly good / doesn't have some
crappy HR filter and process guarding the way!" That's naive. Wishful
thinking. Engage with the world as it actually is, not as you'd like it to
be.)

~~~
djb_hackernews
> It's never a great idea to quit a job without another one lined up. I
> realize the job market for developers right now is white hot, and sure, you
> can always land another job without too much difficulty. But landing a good
> job is another matter altogether.

That's like... your opinion man.

But really lets take it easy on saying never. I hope my post didn't come
across as saying you should always quit your job with nothing lined up, but I
hope we can see that the attitude of never quitting unless you have a job
lined up is... unhealthy.

I suppose "MBAs" was a confusing catch all I was using to capture such
departments as recruiting and HR, however my point stands, that is a narrative
pushed by our keepers that doesn't bear out.

And I'm not sure why landing a good job is another matter altogether.
Typically the best places to work have a respect for sabbaticals, leaving
toxic work environments, focusing on personal growth etc and that certainly
has been the case in my experience, and I'm nobody special.

~~~
jonnathanson
_" That's like... your opinion man."_

I appreciate a good Lebowski quote, so props on that one. :)

Is my use of "never" a bit much? Ok, fine. Let's dial that back to "rarely."
It's rarely a good idea to quit a job without another one lined up. That is
true for precisely the reasons you articulate here:

 _" a narrative pushed by our keepers that doesn't bear out."_

So you admit the presence of "keepers," i.e., HR folks and their processes.
These keepers exercise a lot of power in the job market, and they stand guard
over many (most?) jobs out there. Bad ones and good ones. Most job-seekers
will have to deal with their processes when looking for jobs.

 _" Typically the best places to work have a respect for sabbaticals, leaving
toxic work environments, focusing on personal growth etc and that certainly
has been the case in my experience, and I'm nobody special."_

Sure, but getting into those companies _in the first place_ often involves a
resume screen by an HR type. Companies can be amazing, progressive,
intellectually stimulating places to work, and still be guarded by a
gatekeeper who either isn't equipped for, doesn't care to, or doesn't have the
time to mentally process any abnormalities on a resume.

My point isn't so much that gaps on a resume are absolutely and necessarily
career-killing. Far from it. Rather, my point is that it's _generally_ a good
idea to minimize them. Such as lining up something else before leaving one's
current job. Again, this is because the world works a certain way. It's not a
"narrative" being "pushed" by anyone. It's the unfortunate reality of the job
market. (The effect is magnified at least tenfold for non-developers, too. But
that's a different story.)

I realize there are exceptions here. Developers are in incredible demand right
now, and can thus afford to do things (such as quitting without a gig lined
up) that non-developers usually can't. And then there are the folks who are
connected enough to land a job whenever, wherever. I would advise anyone at a
job he hates, thinking about quitting, to consider where he falls on these
dimensions. Are you the kind of job-seeker who draws a lot of water in this
town? If so, great. If not, stay sharp. Look before you leap; that's all I'm
saying.

------
AndrewKemendo
I have given this topic a lot of thought and I sincerely believe that we get
what we do in the marketplace because that is where investment has gone and
because that is what consumers have responded to. There is no shortage of
ambitious startups trying to do hard things. The problem is, the consumer
marketplace isn't there for it and investors, broadly speaking, aren't willing
to put the money into ventures which have 5-10 year tails. VC's all want 3
year exits. You can't do basic science in that time, and real research takes
much longer than that.

With a few notable exceptions these big investments don't exist for "startups"
and really never have, they have largely relied on government funding in some
form or fashion for the big breakthroughs - PARC and the beginnings of SV all
come immediately to mind.

Unless investors start looking long term as the standard, rather than the
exception, this isn't going to change. That or government needs to get back
into the game, but that seems like it's gone as a viable option.

~~~
FD3SA
Exactly. I've written about this at length because people who don't have much
experiences in the hard science/engineering fields have a vast disconnect
between what's possible in software vs. what's possible in the physical world.
Startups are great for pure software and very simple and constrained
science/engineering experiments. These, by definition, won't be
groundbreaking.

Big science/engineering is very expensive, very long term and very risky. No
one wants to foot the bill. Not corporations, not investors, and recently not
even governments (NIH/NSF funding cuts, etc.).

I discuss this further here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337837](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8337837)

~~~
AnonJ
By "physical world" we don't necessarily have to do some groundbreaking
theoretical physics discovery. Software like online collaboration tools,
marketplace apps and search engines have already greatly transformed the way
people interact and work. Isn't that change "physical"? Way too many people
who study "hard science" end up being able to contribute nothing and just drop
out of the field, or just passing their time on pointless researches supported
by funds. The field was already overpopulated and what makes it worse is that
its hard problems are few to come by and solving them requires luck. If you
are out of luck then you're wasting your life. This is different from the
world of software where you are almost always doing things that have an
immediate positive effect on the lives around you.

------
angersock
I think the only way to fix this is to produce _even more_ startcraps, and
blow up this bubble until it collapses and takes all of the consumers and
investors with it. Good riddance.

Let's bleed those fuckers dry.

EDIT:

Sorry for the harsh language, but it's kind of earned.

I'm upset because I see a bunch of good medical startups--who actually _help_
people, developing devices, ignoring billing, doing other good stuff--and
energy startups and whatnot trying to solve hard problems and getting
completely ignored and shafted by the market.

The investors by and large don't give a shit about helping consumers--their
goal is ROI, however that happens. Consumers continue to act as helpless as
possible and self-optimize for glitzy kitsch. Even if we wanted to, it is damn
near _not economically viable_ to work on a startup outside of what the author
here rails against.

~~~
pluma
What gave you the idea that investors are driven by ethics? Investment is
about ROI. Investing in startups is no different from investing in stocks. You
gage what will have the highest ROI and invest in that, expecting most of your
investments to fail spectacularly but a small portion of it growing big enough
to make up for the losses.

This is where the distinction between startups and lifestyle businesses comes
in.

Startups operate at a loss and aim to make themselves tasty enough for bigger
companies to swallow them (allowing the founders to cash out and the company
that buys them to use their team or technology, or at least make sure the
competitors can't do the same). They bleed ridiculous amounts of money, but
grow ridiculously fast and are intentionally short-lived.

Lifestyle businesses aim to be profitable as soon as possible. Their growth
rate is unimpressive but they can usually get by with nearly zero investment
-- not that their prospect would be of any interest to investors in the first
place. They may "get lucky" and cash out at some point or just wither and die
if they become unprofitable and can't pivot.

There are some companies that fall in-between and the semantics are fuzzy as
always. A startup may actually grow so big it becomes a direct competitor to
the companies that might otherwise be interested in swallowing it or it might
be so good at funding itself that its income stabilizes (with or without
additional investors).

But at the end of the day, most investors want ROI. They don't fund startups
because they're nice people, they fund startups because they have money and
want to have more money later. The nicer ones may actually have some interest
in the company and help the startup grow (and thus make them more money when
they cash out), but it's unreasonable to expect them to be motivated by
altruistic ideals.

This won't change. Why should it? Sure, it could all blow up like every bubble
does eventually, but at the end of the day you will always have people with a
big disposable income looking for ways to make more money (whether it's
because they actually want more money or just because they see it as a sport
and ROI is a good metric to measure how good they are at it).

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
>This won't change. Why should it?

Because too many 'investors' are losing too much money on stupid non-projects.
And the ROI you claim is the motivation is clearly not there.

But wait! _Maybe losing money is the point._

Maybe, anthropologically speaking, being able to waste money on startups is
some kind of potlach-style social signalling game which 'investors' use to
reinforce their own status.

Think this is far fetched? If so, explain to me why the ROI across the VC
scene as a whole is so wretchedly bad compared to other investment
opportunities, but it keeps getting money thrown at it regardless - even when
this means starving viable but unsexy bootstrapped businesses that don't have
Startup Appeal [tm], but are more likely to be both useful and profitable in
the medium to long term.

~~~
pluma
I guess you could look at it as a sport then. Race cars and speed boats aren't
a sound investment even if you occasionally drive them competitively, but they
can be fun and are social indicators.

There's not much of a point in investing in unsexy bootstrapped businesses
because they're stable. Stability is boring. If you can turn a funded startup
that is bleeding money left and right into a profit, that's a much bigger
thrill to the investor.

But it's not only VCs. "Serial entrepreneurs" pretty much admit they're in it
as a sport.

That said, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of stock market investors weren't
in it as a sport either. The amount you win or loose isn't as important as the
thrill of winning or loosing.

------
wellboy
While it is good that this article tries to shine light on the things that
really matter, discrediting social networks or apps that solve specific
problems doesn't help the cause.

The author is criticising 23 years olds that they are not curing cancer,
fixing water pollution in 3rd world countries and the like. How are they
supposed to do that? They can't start companies like that. This is the job of
entrepreneurs who have built a company before and who could accumulate the
wealth to take on these challenges by working for several years.

However, these young kids can start by building an app for $1,000 that they
would like to see in the world that their 23 year old mind finds interesting.
Sometimes, these apps are fruity, some are crazy, but this stimulates
creativity. Then, once they have sold their company they can take on the
problems that take millions of dollars before they can even be started.

I don't like about this post is critizing really young founders who haven't
even finished college. It should rather look at the second time entrepreneurs
who are still building fruity apps.

------
pdpi
I feel that, at some point in the process, we lost track of the notion that
we're in the business of, well, building businesses. You see a lot of "we're
going to change the world" rhetoric, and half the time it seems to it's there
just to cover up the fact that people don't actually have a clue of how
they're going to turn their idea into a marketable product with an actual
revenue stream.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
I actually find the "change the world" rhetoric to be especially annoying
because it's so broad it is meaningless.

If you have an awesome CRM application, you might make someone's life
significantly easier and for them it really does make a difference, but does
it "change the world?" There is a measurement problem here. Even people in the
military services hardly feel like they are "changing the world."

------
HorizonXP
So here's a question for the HN community.

I'm running a small startup in an unsexy space. I definitely don't think it's
a "startcrap." We have traction, revenue, and it's a great intersection of
hardware, software, and customer service.

I need to build the team. My goal for the next few months is to do exactly
that, and raise funding as well to pay the team.

How do you find folks willing to work on something that isn't immediately fun
or sexy? How do you convince them not to go work for
Google/Facebook/Apple/Twitter, or some "fun" startup?

I have some ideas about how to do this, but I'm interested in hearing the
opinions of others.

~~~
analog31
Consider recruiting older engineers. Locate somewhere other than SV. In other
words, plug into a more mainstream talent market. There are plenty of people
willing to do "good" work that isn't sexy.

~~~
npsimons
On top of this, consider allowing remote workers - it seems to be working well
for Github and others, and honestly some people _really_ like where they live.

~~~
HorizonXP
I'm trying my best to create a culture that fosters this. Right now, the
team's small enough that I can do this.

~~~
calgaryeng
Contact info?

~~~
HorizonXP
My e-mail should be visible in my profile, right?

xpatel at pulsecode [ca]

If calgaryeng = living in Calgary, e-mail me, I might have work for you in the
near future.

~~~
bricestacey
your profile is empty.

~~~
HorizonXP
Fixed.

------
beatpanda
Just in case you're in the market for a "real problem", I have one for you.
Especially those of you in San Francisco.

Homeless people get absolutely shafted when they go to cash their SSDI and GA
benefits checks. Most of them don't have the requisite documentation to get a
regular bank account, so most end up going to payday lenders, where they pay
crazy fees to get a lump sum of cash that is at __severe __risk of getting
lost or stolen.

Moreover, because of the feast and famine problem of getting a significant
amount of money every month, but not enough to actually pay for stable
housing, a lot of that money gets totally wasted well before the next check
comes.

If somebody could come up with a way for homeless people to deposit benefits
checks without getting huge fees taken out, and then create some kind of
software to help them manage the money coming in, that person would be a hero
to tens of thousands of poor people.

And it sure beats the hell out of calling the SF DPW complaint line and having
homeless people forcibly removed from the sidewalk in front of your office.

~~~
x0x0
The unbanked in general get screwed. Nonetheless, this isn't a job for a
startup. If you care about the unbanked, support postal banking -- they have
the offices and the staff, and are in a position to offer dirt cheap basic
financial services. This is also commonly done in other countries.

The usual suspects (republicans) are of course against it because it cuts into
the most lucrative customers for banks: people they can charge tons of fees.

[http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-
finance/articles/2014...](http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-
finance/articles/2014/08/13/what-happens-if-the-post-office-is-your-bank)

~~~
beatpanda
I feel like problems with known solutions that are blocked by political
intransigence are _perfect_ for startups.

~~~
x0x0
startups are designed to make money

the last thing these people need is another person looking to take a cut out
of them; half the point of the postal service doing it is to provide services
at cost

------
tomasien
I don't know anyone that wants to build photo-sharing networks of any kind.
I've never been pitched that app. Maybe you guys have, but I haven't - that
WAS actually an interesting problem and probably is to a certain kind of
person now (and we shouldn't mock them for it) but everyone I know is
interested in AI, health, new currency or supporting new currency and new ways
to pay, and solving logistical problems for different industries.

The thing is not everyone feels ABLE to solve those problems - we need to stop
mocking people who make photo sharing apps and start encouraging people who
want to tackle bigger problems. Demeaning "smaller" problems does nothing and
showing people what you CAN do will do a lot.

------
vital101
Leave any company you aren't happy with, not just startups. Sometimes you and
the company may not get along. Maybe you were a bad fit and neither of you
knew it. Or maybe it truly is a Startcrap. Either way, find another gig and
move on. Everyone will be better off.

------
jgmmo
I remember back when business was boring. It wasn't that long ago.

Back in high school I went to PFEW (Pennsylvania Free Enterprise Week), it was
a 1-week business camp essentially. You learned about ROA, competition, and
making business decisions. I loved it and recommended it to everyone I knew
but hardly anyone took my advice and participated in PFEW. Business was
boring.

Fast forward ~10 years later, now it's the coolest thing to be in a startup.
All of a sudden business is cool?

Reminds me of the recent South Park, 'go fund yourself'; where Stan tells his
Dad "we don't want to do anything, that's why we are making a startup".

------
myth_buster
Does investing in people as opposed to idea + people contribute to this
situation? As for ones who invest in the idea, since they look for ROI over a
considerable lower risks and hence over shorter period of time, I suppose the
ideas that can mature rapidly are given preference over the hard problem that
may take a decade.

------
bsder
This isn't a bottom-up fixable problem.

There are, for example, a lot of 40-60 year old VLSI designers who could be
doing amazing things with hardware. They aren't.

Why? No funding and no exit. VLSI requires $5-$10 million and 3 years
_MINIMUM_. $50 million and 5 years is more typical.

Why do that when you can throw $100K at software and a half-dozen of
20-somethings and flog them like slaves? If one of them turns out to look like
a socioviroblogo threat, Yahooglezonsoft will pay $50 million+ for one of
them.

Low monetary outlay. Short time horizon. Much lower risk.

Only a fool would do something that requires actual _hardware_.

It's okay. The boomers are dying. Suddenly they are becoming much more
interested in actual medical advances that, funny enough, require hardware.

~~~
fleitz
Just wait til the millenials figure out that if they don't build the medical
hardware they get to inherit the wealth to make more cat sharing apps.

Actually, instead of cat picture sharing, imagine cat sharing, UberCats?
CatBNB? ZipCat?

~~~
bsder
Just wait until the boomers figure out that when they start cashing out their
retirements the value of their assets is going to crash.

And, Cat Cafes already exist:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_caf%C3%A9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat_caf%C3%A9)

~~~
fleitz
Yes, I've been wondering how to hedge against that for a while now...

I was thinking more in home cat sharing. I can see the t-shirts now: Home cat
sharing is killing the cat cafe industry.

------
fleitz
The people want bread and circuses, if you want to make money you sell them
bread and circuses.

No one really gives a shit about important projects. Look at Musk almost go
bankrupt twice between SpaceX and Tesla. Solving real problems requires
spectacular amounts of capital, however with $1500 in gear you can make cat
sharing apps, which beats stacking boxes. (My previous career). Solving an
important problem is generally dismissed as a science project.

Just look at the ratings difference between CSPAN and TMZ, that's all you
really need to know about what society wants.

------
jakozaur
Though I somewhat agree with sentiment: "too many companies focus on wrong
problems" the article sounds a bit too pessimistic. Facebook/Twitter is
important, party b/c a lot of ppl find it useful...

However, the cure is a bit more complex. IMO either follow lean startup "Steve
Blank style" or do do bold ambitious "Peter Thiel style" startup. Saying don't
work on made-up problem is harder too follow, a lot of good ideas looks like
bad one (e.g. AirBnB).

------
radmuzom
Liked the article, but one important thing the author missed - the startcrap
can provide you the financial freedom and necessary capital for what you might
really want to do (and assuming that you don't want to use existing capital
from other people to do the same). Not that everyone wants to do something
"meaningful" after the startcrap, but it might be a good way.

------
waylandsmithers
I don't think you can act so surprised or outraged when people respond
predictably to incentives. People will be motivated by money and security and
power.

If you really want to be cynical about it, most of workers of the world are
ultimately working to make some rich dude(s) just a little bit richer.

------
javajosh
We don't always know what will be important. You could have said Twitter was a
useless blogging derivative. Yet it has proven itself a powerful tool for
social change, evidenced by the virulence with which _governments_ turn off
access.

~~~
lmm
I'm not convinced it's actually that important. There's this feedback loop
where the media treats Twitter as important and so celebrities and politicians
(but I repeat myself) treat it as important and so on. But do real people
actually care?

~~~
javajosh
I think it is important because it's an imperfect but easy-to-use tool to get
a quick-and-dirty sense public sentiment. (When governments realize that
they'd do better to perform a MITM attack on twitter rather than shut it down,
allowing them to craft whatever public perception they like, then Twitter's
usefulness will drop.)

------
Animats
It may be about time for the "app" industry to crash. This is an industry that
relies on being "cool". Cool is temporary. Myspace, disco, and CB radio were
once cool.

------
tempodox
Great article, not your usual Koolade echo chamber.

    
    
      Founders, CEOs and startups are recyclable commodities.
    

I wonder how that message goes down with YC and friends...

------
bgdnpn
This reminds me of
[http://www.introducingcarrot.com/](http://www.introducingcarrot.com/). I
think it makes the same (valid) point.

------
ianstallings
Don't talk about it, be about it. What have you built to change the world?
Thumbs up, keep at it, and save the speeches.

------
jonsterling
This is actually great.

~~~
kelvin0
Yes, that's an understatement. When I look at the 'Electric' race between
Tesla/Edison of last century and the extraordinary achievements of these old-
school Tech entrepreneurs, I am in awe ... the only thing that comes close
right now is SpaceX/Tesla (and others which are in minority)

------
S4M
The name is misleading, I expected the article to be about a _Starcraft_
parody.

~~~
v64
That would be Starcraps.

