
Things I’ve never heard a successful startup founder say - jagira
http://blog.asmartbear.com/quotes-startup-founders.html
======
edw519
Great list! A few more:

We're so successful because we're smarter than everyone else.

We learned everything we needed to know in college.

Our technology was so good, it was only a matter of time before everyone found
us.

Most of our unit tests were successful on the first run.

We were usually able to knock off at 5 p.m.

Customer service issues went pretty much as we expected.

We always knew better than our customers. Eventually, they realized that.

We always had plenty of time to spend with our family and friends.

We outsourced all of the technical work.

I'm so glad I spent so much time on Hacker News.

~~~
benjoffe
> We always knew better than our customers. Eventually, they realized that.

Pretty sure I've read quotes from Steve Jobs that follow that line of thinking
actually.

~~~
mgkimsal
Sadly, I know a few entrepreneurs that also think this way. They're not having
much success, but cling to the notion that the world will 'wake up' and see
things their way, eventually, some day, if they could just talk to enough
people (and they usually cite Apple as their inspiration for this approach).

The Steve Jobs / Apple approach is more the exception that proves the rule,
and even then, they've had their Newton moments too. What _that_ proves is
that with a successful enough company you can have a few failures. When you've
only got the one product, you can't afford the luxury of your own Newton.

~~~
sjwright
The first thing Steve Jobs did when he returned to Apple was kill off the
Newton. There's been the occasional slip, but nothing too ghastly (except the
flower power iMacs).

~~~
gcb
why did he return to apple? everyone forget this, because he couldn't have the
same luck at his second company.

also apple would have forwarded the osx success a couple years if the acquired
beos instead of next. so that was steves luck acting again

~~~
eropple
I'm no huge fan of the NeXT underpinnings of OS X, but the idea that using
BeOS as an underlying operating system "would have forwarded the osx success a
couple years" is silly.

Aside from the still-continuing claims of Be adherents and their Haiku
descendants, BeOS was so very much Nothing Special and I find it highly
unlikely the Magic BeOS Fairy Powder would have materially improved OS X.

~~~
gcb
it had an amazing multimedia framework. it had even patents for hardware stuff
that put the later firewire to shame. and it had the best os api I've ever had
to deal with.

it had everything that os8 lacked, and that later was added on osx only.
except objectivec... but there were even compilers for that later on.

but thats not even my point. to downvote me above, first answer: how many
clients next had?

~~~
sjwright
BeOS was interesting on the surface and had a couple of neat ideas, but wasn't
a substantial system underneath. Heck, it didn't even have the concept of user
accounts and file ownership!

Anyone who laments the outcome of the Be/NeXT decision clearly knows little
about _just how much rock solid foundation_ came along with NeXT -- most
notably the development tools and developer ecosystem.

The Mac ecosystem has experienced a consumer renaissance through iDevices/iOS,
but also a _geek_ renaissance through Mac OS X's UNIX underpinnings.

Classic Mac OS was derided as a toy (and in many technical respects it was),
and BeOS would have done nothing _long term_ to shed the Mac's toy image.
Today, few people call OS X a toy.

~~~
gcb
I find file permissions just an annoyance on my debian desktop that I share
only with my wife. And I deal with unix security since the early 90's. OSX has
file permissions and about 30% of them are setuid. Great improvement!

Also, BeOS had an Xwindow port months after it's death. OSX had it when?

IOS is a completely different beast. I don't even imagine why you are
mentioning this. But the beos hybrid kernel would be good for that as well.
heck it was even bought by palm for that purpose. sadly politics never moved
it. even Next took a lot of time to be absorbed in apple ...and they had the
ceo at their side.

About the tech that matter... there was nothing super new about objective C.
ever heard of smalltalk? anyways, GNU implemented all that 3 years after NEXT,
and they were not even being paid. Meanwhile Next were licensing PS from adobe
for the interface just like SGI was doing for what? 10 years?

No matter how many buttons had your rock solid development tools. it was just
like programming in VB. and if you wanted to do anything just a little
different, you had to deal with awful apis and post script. heck, there's one
layer of hell with the same name.

now, on the other hand, I invite you to read the BeOS book that is now
opensourced... from oreilley if i'm not mistaken. Even the OS being dead now,
it's the best read if you ever want to learn anything about elegant APIs
design.

...i know all that is pointless... <http://xkcd.com/386/#Duty_Calls> ...but i
just can't stand to see apple taking any underserved merit for being cool

~~~
sjwright
> I find file permissions just an annoyance

Maybe for you. However Mac OS X does manage them well for you, which means
that you can set up limited access and guest accounts on your computer without
worrying about someone fucking it up or looking at your shit.

> IOS is a completely different beast. I don't even imagine why you are
> mentioning this.

I mentioned it because the products sparked a revival of the Apple brand in
consumer's minds. But yeah, now you mention it, the technology did do a great
job of scaling down to the phone. BeOS might have been fine too, but hey, Palm
chose a Linux kernel instead.

We're discussing could-have-beens, which is pointless.

> there was nothing super new about objective C. ever heard of smalltalk?

With that line of argument, there's been nothing new in computer languages for
thirty years.

I'm sure you love your BeBox and spend your life porting stuff like Firefox to
Haiku, but as cool as BeOS was _on the surface_ , the world has past it by.
Stop lamenting what could have been, there's no interesting arguments to be
had there.

> i just can't stand to see apple taking any underserved merit

Whereas giving too much credit to experimental failed projects like BeOS
isn't?

------
pclark
"Reading pithy superficial quotes about startups changed my companies
trajectory."

------
onan_barbarian
Some more still:

"May I mambo dogface on the banana patch?"

"My hovercraft is full of eels"

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously"

 _It turns out_ that this - "things I've never heard _class of person X_ say"
rhetorical device is a fine way to lend credence to what would otherwise be a
simple collection of one-line assertions about how to do startups.

Not saying that I agree or disagree with many of the sentiments here, just
that this is a very back-door way of adding authority to a bunch of
statements. In the case of Jason Cohen, I'd pay attention if he just made the
statements flat based on his own experience.

~~~
j_baker
_It turns out that this - "things I've never heard class of person X say"
rhetorical device is a fine way to lend credence to what would otherwise be a
simple collection of one-line assertions about how to do startups._

So? What's wrong with rhetorical devices? You can't win people over with logic
alone. Believe me, I've tried.

~~~
on4n1st
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism>

------
Alex3917
"My lack of an MBA degree made building a company from scratch harder for me
than for others."

Are all the entrepreneurs you've talked with the kind of people who made
something like Wufoo or HARO? Because if you were trying to do a rollup or
start a wireless company then I think having an MBA would make a pretty big
difference.

~~~
jonnathanson
At the risk of saying something heretical on HN, I wish we'd all stop the
mindless MBA bashing. For every clueless MBA "idea guy" leaping headfirst into
the tech world and flailing around like an idiot, there are plenty of newly
minted MBAs entering the field and doing just fine for the companies that hire
them. The old stereotype is largely a relic of the late-90s Dotcom Bubble, and
I submit that it's not as representative as it once was.

There are plenty of folks out there who benefit from the business training and
fundamentals an MBA curriculum provides. Obviously there are just as many
people who _don't_ need MBAs, or who succeeded without the degree. That's
cool. Different strokes for different folks. Let's stop thinking in such
Manichean terms about the degree.

~~~
burgerbrain
_"The old stereotype is largely a relic of the late-90s Dotcom Bubble"_

That is why the "mindless bashing" is so important. It is a defence mechanism.
It is vitally important that we remember from our past mistakes and codifying
that knowledge into stereotypes is a great way of making sure that knowledge
sticks around an is remembered.

Besides, I don't think many MBAs are losing sleep over a few techies on HN
thinking that they're full of shit.

~~~
damoncali
It's a defense mechanism for sure - but not for that reason. The real reason,
in my view, is that techies are terrible at recognizing intelligence/skill if
it does not somehow relate to math, logic, or, more concretely, code. I have
no idea why, but the shoe fits.

When presented with the numerous and obvious counter-examples to "MBA's are
full of shit", they clam up and resort to "yeah, but they're assholes,
immoral, and basically stole their way to the top".

If you can't code, you're not smart. And if you're not smart, how are you more
successful than me? (Success is derived from smarts, right? Dammit, I'm
SMART.) Therefore you must be a cheating douche bag. And man, there are a lot
of you cheating douche bags.

No, the problem is not the MBA. It is the refusal of some to accept a broader
world view in which different people can do great things despite vastly
varying approaches and skills.

~~~
burgerbrain
_"It's a defense mechanism for sure - but not for that reason. The real
reason, in my view, is that techies are terrible at recognizing
intelligence/skill if it does not somehow relate to math, logic, or, more
concretely, code. I have no idea why, but the shoe fits."_

I really don't agree. I have/had nothing against business people (they always
threw _way_ better parties in college after all ;).

Similarly, MBAs are great at _running_ businesses. The trouble arises when we
do what we did in the 90s and let them _drive_ the businesses, _make_ the
businesses, that sort of thing.

The issue can be summed up I think as MBAs squeezing out high status
technologists ([http://www.codebelay.com/blog/2011/08/14/low-status-and-
high...](http://www.codebelay.com/blog/2011/08/14/low-status-and-high-status-
technologists/)). When that happens, the 90s happen. To fight this perceived
threat, we have negative stereotypes that keep people on their toes. They are
essentially antibody memes.

~~~
eazolan
<i>Similarly, MBAs are great at running businesses. </i>

Incorrect. An MBA is only proven to be great at one thing. Getting a Masters
in Business degree.

------
mathattack
A few more:

\- I don't need to worry about the product. I hired someone for that.

\- Hiring is for HR.

\- I will be spending August on an island in the South Pacific.

\- It is ok to miss payroll.

\- Our value add to the customer-centric value chain is based on world class
process excellence principles.

\- That's not my job.

~~~
d0ne
I've heard the 3rd one a few times.

~~~
mathattack
After the startup succeeded or before? :-)

~~~
d0ne
After

------
ScottBurson
The company structure can matter a lot. IANAL, but my understanding is that an
LLC is not an appropriate choice for a company that hopes to be acquired or
issue an IPO.

So don't obsess over it, but be sure you have competent advisers including an
attorney who can help you make the right choice in such matters.

~~~
irahul
I don't know about US, but here in India, you can re-incorporate. I don't see
how that can be an issue - operate as a LLC(if you have reasons to) - re-
incorporate later when you are becoming a potential acquisition target. I
don't think whoever is going to acquire you will decide not to just because
you are going to re-incorporate.

~~~
gk1
In the US, you can form a corporation and then merge your LLC into it, thus
tranforming your LLC into a corp. So yeah, it may lead to extra work down the
road, but it's not a life-or-death decision at the beginning.

------
ericd
I've witnessed the first one...

~~~
sp_
The first one was definitely a mantra of the Google-acquired start-up I used
to work for. My boss was unhappy with existing software in our field of
expertise, so we set out to build something that makes us happy, not other
people. It helped that we (especially my boss) knew more about the field than
nearly all of our customers, so our customers bandwaggoning on our software
was not surprising to me.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Yes, building what you know is right is satisfying, but can be a hard road.
You have to educate at every level.

Ask a farmer in 1900 what he wanted, he would have said "A stronger horse that
eats less oats". Never would he have said "a tractor".

------
arcej
I thought I was going to work less starting my own company than when I had a
corporate job.

------
d0ne
One I've never heard:

We were an overnight success.

------
ChristianMarks
"We owe our success to ITIL certification before launching. Period."

------
revorad
"Changing the world is nice, but I mainly did it for the money."

------
alexro
What about:

After I found my great co-founder(s) we had never had to bother with other
employees.

------
Swizec
In my own personal experience this list seems kind of dubious. I've never said
any of those things and I'm not a successful entrepreneur.

Must be something more to it than a list of Bad Words (tm).

------
ruchi
Spending all that time on finding a great name paid off.

~~~
toumhi
I think the founders of Mint.com could have said that.

------
reemrevnivek
_Our most effective marketing campaigns where the ones filled with buzzwords
and non-specific claims._

s/where/were/

------
jonathansizz
'Actually, we just inadvertently happened to be in the right place at the
right time. We got lucky.'

------
ptn
"I regret having done a startup"

