
Startups in 13 Sentences - mqt
http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html
======
cperciva
I have check marks next to 8 of these, and I'm working on a 9th (ironically,
#9 -- "Get ramen profitable"); but I've broken 4 of these rules, and I don't
regret it in the slightest.

Rule #1 -- Pick good cofounders. I picked no cofounders, based largely on the
fact that that I couldn't think of anyone who would be interested in joining
me who wouldn't dramatically lower the average founder quality. (Ok, that's
being a bit facetious -- but I'm working in an area where domain knowledge is
extremely important, so there are lots of wonderfully talented people who
would be utterly useless to me as cofounders.)

Rule #2 -- Launch fast; and Rule #3 -- Let your idea evolve. I started working
on tarsnap in September 2006, and I didn't open tarsnap to the public until
November 2008. Over that time I ironed out some technical details behind the
scenes, but the largest change in my idea was going from planning to charge
$0.25/GB to actually charging $0.30/GB. Since then, I've listened to my users
and occasionally added an unplanned-for feature because of a request (or more
often, several requests for the same thing from different people); but most of
the ways that tarsnap has deviated from my original plan have simply been in
the ordering of when I implemented which features. The vision behind tarsnap,
from 2.5 years ago -- an online snapshotted backup service with a tar front-
end, a heavy emphasis on security, and a linear pricing model -- hasn't
changed at all.

Rule #10 -- Avoid distractions. I've remained as FreeBSD Security Officer
while working on tarsnap, and I don't regret it in the slightest. Yes, it has
taken time away from tarsnap on occasion; however, it has also allowed me to
further enhance my domain knowledge, and has brought many people to tarsnap
(one person recently described tarsnap as being a backup system with "a good
pedigree", which I'm presuming refers to my open source security background).

Now, for all that I've broken these rules without regrets, I still think that
they're good rules -- in most cases. But I think there should be a Rule #0:
Realize that there are always exceptions, and understand why these rules are
usually correct instead of applying them blindly.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_I couldn't think of anyone who would be interested in joining me who wouldn't
dramatically lower the average founder quality._

Quality is a vector, not a scalar. What's the average of Steve Jobs and Steve
Wozniak? I don't think that's a meaningful question. But the _vector sum_ of
their skills was a startup with amazing technical and artistic skill, product
focus, business aspirations, charisma, and salesmanship.

And I'd like to help you become ramen profitable, so let me demonstrate what I
mean by putting on my Steve Jobs hat [1] and telling you a story.

I'm in the market for something like tarsnap, so i was very excited to hear
about it, for the first time, in this random HN comment 23 days ago:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=458793>

...because the product sounds great. I may sign up any day now. But I
distinctly remember that, after reading this enthusiastic blurb, I spent
several minutes trying to figure out if tarsnap had any kind of decent
security model. I remember this because I literally _laughed out loud_ when I
finally managed to figure out the answer, after clicking through _more than
one_ link and reading a few blog posts -- tarsnap was designed by a
_cryptographer_! Indeed, now (but _only_ now) I learn that it's even better
than that: You're the _FreeBSD Security Officer_ , which presumably involves a
great deal of practical expertise in reviewing and fixing insecure software.

Why isn't this information on the tarsnap homepage, next to a "buy it now"
button?

\---

[1] It's not nice to go all Steve Jobs on someone without being asked, so I'm
deliberately toning down my Jobs impression. This is like a 2 on the Steve
Jobs bluntness scale.

~~~
cperciva
_Why isn't this information on the tarsnap homepage_

Because the tarsnap web site sucks. (Hey, you did ask!)

Until very recently the vast majority of people interested in tarsnap were
people who knew who I was, had seen my work on FreeBSD, and read my blog -- so
putting information about tarsnap onto my blog was only natural. Now tarsnap
is starting to gain recognition as something beyond "that thing which Colin is
doing", it's probably time to revisit where and how information about tarsnap
is presented.

~~~
prakash
maybe you don't need a co-founder but at least a contractor/employee to take
care of this and all the other things you might not have had the time to take
care of?

~~~
cperciva
Quite possibly. If I was going to hire one person to do some contract work,
I'm pretty sure that it would be a web designer.

Most likely I'll do this myself, though -- even aside from the issue of money,
I find that doing tedious things like web design myself (a) is a useful
learning experience, and (b) allows me to think about issues a bit more
clearly.

~~~
trapper
You need a cofounder who can take care of the ramen goal so you can focus on
what you love best. The point of your business isn't to do it all yourself, it
is to do something you love. If you find founders with complementing skill
sets, it's win win win.

I would say you could easily get a web/design/biz cofounder who could
dramatically change your ramen and also enjoy a few of those tasks you have
been putting off for a while :).

~~~
omnivore
Not. easy.

~~~
run4yourlives
Just because something isn't easy doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. In fact,
it often means the exact opposite.

------
petercooper
The words "sales" or "sell" aren't mentioned once. The ideas of launching fast
to learn what to really build is a great suggestion but really one of sales.
You need to launch fast to know what will sell (and what won't) so you can
develop something that _will_ sell.

So.. 14. Sell as soon as possible. Find out what people will buy for. Never
stop selling.

------
staunch
> _And understanding your users will even ensure your morale, because when
> everything else is collapsing around you, having just ten users who love you
> will keep you going._

I feel guilty that this just doesn't do all that much for me. I do get some
satisfaction from making a user happy, but about as much as I get from eating
quality ice cream. I get far more enjoyment out of solving a difficult
technical problem.

~~~
ciscoriordan
Well then get a co-founder / hire people who really enjoy customer service.

~~~
staunch
I have exactly that. Just pointing out that for me personally it's not
particularly motivating.

------
mad44
Great sentence: As in science, the hard part is not answering questions but
asking them: the hard part is seeing something new that users lack.

------
Mistone
maybe the best PG ever? So short and sweet. Follow these simple rules and you
can succeed, don't and your startup will die. The customer service one was a
surprise for some reason, not that it does not make complete sense but not
something I would immediately associate with HN/YC. Its just so important to
be above and beyond with early customers, helping customers is the best way
for founders to stay connected with what matters and learn what they should be
doing. its a godsend of insight for making something people want.

------
omnivore
The problem with these posts -- and I liked it -- is that it always simplifies
the path to all of this. I think a lot of folks are always missing something.
Either they're decent hackers, but don't have partners. Or they're bad hackers
and can't find a hacker to work with the build what they're gonna sell. Or
they have a team and don't have a good enough idea to sell something.

I just think there are a lot of barriers to entry for folks who didn't go to
Top 25 schools (or drop out of one) and as a result, they read stuff like
this, get excited and think "I can make it!" without realizing the folly of
their poor pursuits.

------
dmh2000
>10\. Avoid distractions.

hacker news, reddit etc

------
djahng
Rule #1 could read along the lines of: "Is the [potential] cofounder an
animal?"

I think this is one of the most difficult rules to abide by because a lot of
very talented people say they would like to start a company, but never will.
When it comes down to it, they'd rather be unhappy at their job and receive a
steady paycheck than take a risk and start their own company. Do you lower
your standards and start a company with someone who may be talented, but may
jump ship at the first job offer elsewhere?

It takes time to find out what people are really made of. From my experience,
people who say they want to start their own business or be their own boss
really just want to be a mid-level manager. Other people have the
"Entrepreneurial ADD" and will never be able to stick to one idea from
beginning to end. Others get scared of the prospects of late-night coding and
early mornings, and decide to go to grad school instead (how does that make
any sense????).

What's the solution for finding good cofounders? I think at some point
everyone comes across someone who would be a perfect business partner, but has
different ideas. Start working to form a business with that person regardless.
It's likely that the business will evolve into something that neither
cofounder originally anticipated. So getting everyone on board with the same
idea may not be all that important, you just need to be able to work together.

~~~
continuestory
This is what happened with me. Has been working fine since. 'Start working
together regardless, just be able to work together'!

------
wensing
_Once you know what to make, it's mere effort to make it, and most decent
hackers are capable of that._

This explains why someone like myself can start a startup and not feel
embarrassed when they meet real wunderkinds (specifically CS gurus) along the
way. On the other hand, maybe this means that good hackers aren't necessarily
CS geniuses? <http://www.paulgraham.com/gh.html>

------
user
I have a great admiration for PG. But PG sometimes creates a false reality for
those young kids of becoming millionaires some day with their startup. But the
truth is most of them would be heartbroken when they realize that is not
always possible. I hope some of you realize this and don't waste precious life
and be happy. I hope I made sense.

~~~
gstar
Why do you need to be a millionaire though? I think working for yourself, on
(mostly) your own terms on your own product that you're passionate about is
more meaningful than the box you might one day tick next to millionaire.

There's no risk in failure either, you can always go and work for someone
else, and personal bankruptcy isn't _THAT_ bad.

I don't think PG is giving anyone false hope that they'll hit the lottery -
he's just offering an alternative. And as everyone has said tons of times
before, your chances of making a million by starting your own business are
orders of magnitude higher than winning the lottery.

~~~
mannicken
It's not that the chances are bigger. Consumers want you to win but lottery
companies don't. You can apply more work to enhance the result in consumers'
world than in lotteries' world because you will work together with consumers
unlike loterry companies.

------
guglanisam
I believe this list can be brought down to just two basic (not just one):

\- Customers: Understand them, improve their lives, get them to pay regularly,
get them to spread the word \- Costs: Keep them as near to zero as possible.
That will enable you to be profitable even with minimum number of customers

During the first year of your startup don;t worry about anything other than
the above two. Special warning: Dont spend anytime on external fund raising,
fund raising is the most distracting thing for startups and something where
you have least control and very low odds, unless you accomplish something "of
value".

If you can get thru the first year with a complete focus on Customers & Costs
and hit break even by the end of first year. I can guarantee that you on the
way to build a successful company (not just a good startup)

------
vaksel
seems like we've heard all of this before

~~~
pg
That wouldn't be surprising. This is kind of like an experimental result: if
you optimally compress the advice for starting a startup down to around 10
sentences, what are they? It's the nature of compression that everything in
the compressed version is in the original.

Even so there were several things that seemed new to me. Let me check.

I never quite realized till now that a version 1.0 was (or could be) nothing
more than a pretext.

The rectangle metaphor and the point about one side being easier to change is
new; I only thought of that a couple weeks ago.

The greater difficulty of lying to yourself when expanding userwise is
something I don't think I've written about.

I don't think I've mentioned that founders' own standards for customer service
are artificially low, or that customer service is mostly a way of studying
users.

I don't think I realized before that being cheap was interchangeable with
iterating, or mentioned that a culture of cheapness keeps companies young.

I don't think I've written about how paying distractions are so much worse
than other kinds, or that it's specifically because they work like interrupts.

I didn't realize till recently that the right metaphor for a deal was a
background process.

And I definitely didn't realize till I'd actually written out the list which
would be the most important one, or that it was involved in half the others.

Not _that_ bad for an essay only 2.5 pages long.

~~~
wheels
The 1.0 being a pretext really rang true for us. It was interesting noting
comparing how what we thought was important with what people were actually the
critical things in making a purchase decision were, but nobody tells you those
things seriously until they can look at your product and see what it's not.

~~~
alain94040
Paul is probably exaggerating a bit on that rule, to make his point across.
You _can_ have a version 1.0 that actually solves a real problem! But you know
what he means...

~~~
wheels
You can, but I'm tempted to say that if you're a first-time founder that it's
probably luck. Having something out there was what changed our thinking from
"this is the software we're making" to "this is the market we're addressing".
It still took a while to really sink in and figure out what the implications
of that were, and it's no doubt a process that we'll see continue once we push
the next bits out.

------
jayp
This list is deceptively compact.. so many experiences summarized in so little
space. Yes, I agree: nothing really unheard of...but all presented succinctly
in one place by one cogent voice.

Absolutely superfluous comment: I heart pg.

------
DenisM
I like this taxonomy, almost "the startup testaments". :) To turn this into a
work of classics one needs to add a bit of detail to each of 13 sentences
(from all the material that is already out there):

a short essay

three anecdotes illustrating the point

one anecdote providing a counter-example (to provide context and also remind
readers about fallability of generic rules)

a short list of literature (e.g. pointers to specific chapter of
"founder@work", "4 steps to the epiphany etc")

For each aspiring hacker this could easily replace days worth of reading of
assorted stuff out there, just trying to get up to speed. In turn, more
hackers will jump in.

------
pbachmann
Thanks to Paul Graham for his encouragement and instruction - without it I
might not have even got this far. (I've just launched a startup at
<http://www.straighttointerview.com>).

While I have done my best to abide by PG's rules there are some habits I just
can't give up. I could easily ruin whatever prospects my startup has by my
pig-headed determination to give people what I feel they need rather than what
they say they want.

------
Jaggu
I agree with checklist. This list is perfect for most startups but launch
quick is not good enough. We need to launch and need to get good feedback so
we can fix those issues. Sometime it is hard to get feedback. In that case we
need someone who can market our product or who has good contacts to get the
word out. Technical people like me has hard time to sell the product or idea.
So for me (14) Hire or find co-founder with marketing skills.

------
martinzwilling
This is a great post! To amplify the first point, the question I often hear is
"What are the right attributes for co-founders or CEOs?" I think you will find
my summary [http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/2009/02/ideal-
credentia...](http://blog.startupprofessionals.com/2009/02/ideal-credentials-
to-be-startup-ceo.html) helpful for picking co-founders.

------
psugar
As always great post. On footnote 4 where you say being cheap and iterating
are almost the same but the reason why they are not is markets move.

I would point out that sometimes they move away from you (competitors come in,
new ideas, etc)

BUT, sometimes they move towards you, and that is the classic where the media
says "they were an overnight success" but you see they had been working at it
for ten years.

~~~
continuestory
You've said it in a nutshell. Exactly how it really is. PG should include this
some where. Many people are blinded by the ways media portray stories and the
reality behind them!

~~~
psugar
It really is true. Look at the medical "startup" Walmart partnered with.
They've been around for more than ten years.

I'm sure they're cheap. The problem with "going big or going home" is that in
many cases you are going home. The one thing I've learned is that in the vast
majority of cases, the market moves much slower than you expect.

If you find yourself in the case of a market moving faster that's usually the
problem to have....then you hire and spend like a maniac but it doesn't matter
because if the market is truly moving that fast you're making money hand over
fist.

The problem comes when you are spending like that and the market isn't growing
that fast.....then you flame out.

------
liubinskas
Great post Paul.

I'm pushing premium over freemium.

It relates to point 5 heavily and we're getting the startups we work with to
stop trying to be a freemium company and start with premium first. I've
outlined my arguments here;

[http://www.pollenizer.com/content/premiree-more-premium-
less...](http://www.pollenizer.com/content/premiree-more-premium-less-free)

------
tiergarten
My partner and I are launching a new business and have adopted your "13
sentences" as our bible. FWIW, I learned your #1 rule about the choice of
partners many years ago at my first startup. Partnering with a dummy for
short-term benefits (e.g. connections to investors in the case I saw) will be
the death of a startup.

Thanks for posting this.

------
Skeletor
Inspirational advice from Paul Graham yet again! Reading his essays is what
truly inspired me to start my own company. I think this type of essay still
gets me psyched up. I'm definitely trying to follow rule #11 right now and not
get demoralized as we start to hit our first few obstacles as a real company.

------
jasonkester
Self assessing... have:[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,11,12,13],missing[9,10]

9 is a transient, since we only started charging last week. 10 is partially a
result of 9, as we do consulting to fund ourselves.

This is a great list though. I can think of real-world examples from the last
year that reinforced each of those things on the "have" list.

------
bart
Rule #10 -- Avoid distractions.

This is the real startup killer for our last startup. But it goes with other
problems like get ramen profitable. Since you are not profitable and you need
to eat, you will be very easy to be distracted..

Do you know, what are living expenses in SFO? There are about USD 500/month in
Czech Republic :)

------
tokenadult
My favorite: "So being cheap is (almost) interchangeable with iterating
rapidly," followed up in footnote 4 with "They'd be interchangeable if markets
stood still. Since they don't, working twice as fast is better than having
twice as much time."

------
jumpidea
Russian version -- [http://spring.jumpidea.com/post/80938207/paul-
graham-13sente...](http://spring.jumpidea.com/post/80938207/paul-
graham-13sentences)

------
michaelsprague
Great post.

Compliments the article I read just prior to this:

"Working For Somebody Else Never Amounted To Anything - Wayne Huizenga "

<http://tinyurl.com/c6fg47>

------
sambayer
I've been searching for a term to describe our most recent milestone (15
months into our venture). "Ramen profitable" is it! Thanks a bunch for that.

Sam www.b2b2dot0.com

------
jacktang
> 9\. Get ramen profitable. > 10\. Avoid distractions.

Someone I knew they launched startup and the guys also have some part-time
jobs. What's your idea?

------
pramit
#12 Don't give up. That is what I have ticked. If you believe in what you are
doing, that's all you need, especially during the hard times.

------
ashwin
Selecting good co founders is valid however I believe trusting them in tough
times is even more important.

------
wyclif
#2: _"Till you know that you're wasting your time."_

Until you know that...

------
kirubakaran
"Is your StartUp rated PG-13?" :-)

------
mfhughes
> 13\. Deals fall through.

Yeah, sometimes silently, as in the counter-party just stops calling you back
one day. Not unlike the dating scene.

------
c00p3r
Why not write/compile and publish Carnegie-style book about hackers and
startups? =) Like 'How to stop reading websites and start doing things.'

~~~
run4yourlives
If you want to "stop reading websites and start doing things" though, you
should be, you know, doing things, and not reading books. :-)

~~~
c00p3r
books is different - you can feel them.

------
thepanister
hmmmmmm

launch it fast... launch it early. This article is... perfect?

