

No Social Life in the Startup Phase? - hooande
http://blogs.wsj.com/independentstreet/2008/05/08/why-venture-capitalists-dont-want-you-to-have-a-sex-life/?mod=rss_WSJBlog

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maxklein
Yes, the article is correct, but it is talking about a side effect, and not
the main point. Having no social life is common among the successful ones
simply because they are focused. The neglect of a social life is a side effect
of the extreme focus these men have put into their businesses.

To be successful, focus is the main requirement. Sometimes I hear it described
as 'passion', but I'm not sure that that word is very accurate.

What happens is that a man is caught up with an idea and he obsesses about it,
he thinks about it, he works on it, he changes it, fixes it, till at long
last, he sits back and thinks - this thing bloody works.

Along the way, he's not going out and partying for two days, waking up with a
hangover, deciding to take a week off from his business. He does not socialise
because he has not solved the problem yet.

The failures are those who are thinking about money or how to get into yc or
the big payout. Those ones are focused on the money, but instead of actually
understanding that what they are interested in is the money, they pretend like
their product is their interest. It's not.

Look at every successful entepreneur. They were driven by an idea on something
in particular. They have an idea and they obsess till they get it perfect.

The companies who say 'We did not understand our consumers' were bound to fail
from the start. This is because if you are not your own consumer, you cannot
create a successful product. You won't have the focus, energy or drive.

When you choose your product, you have to choose one that you would choose to
stay at home working on instead of going to a party with hot willing chicks.
Even if you knew the product would never bring you any money. Does your
current product fulfill this?

~~~
menloparkbum
Binge drinking rarely helps anyone's case, even when picking up women.
However, the rest of this describes the traits necessary to solve the Poincare
conjecture, not be an entrepreneur. If you're choosing to stay at home working
on a product that you know will never bring you any money, you're not going to
be very successful from an entrepreneurial standpoint.

Also, the article is not talking about a side effect. It is doubtful the
successes of Google and Yahoo and Amazon were ever in danger of being derailed
by parties with "hot willing chicks."

~~~
maxklein
You're wrong. The people who are successful are those who focus on solving the
problem. If you are a marketer and you stay at home, you will fail because the
problem the marketer faces is outside. If you are a business guy and you spend
all day at the computer, you will fail too, because business is about
networking and contacts. Each of those people, were they focused, would be
doing the activities that are most beneficial for their line of business, and
those activities are outside.

If however, you are a software developer, and you are outside trying to act
like a businessman, then you will fail because you are not focusing on solving
the core problem you set out to solve.

It's NOT possible to play all the roles. There is no super hacker who is also
a super business man. There is no basketball star who is also an extremely
successful musician. Those things require focus and dedication, and you cannot
do both and be equally successful at both.

If you stay at home working on a "PROBLEM", not "PRODUCT" and the solution you
come up with is better than every solution out there, and people want to use
it, you will be successful because the guys focused on business will search
you out.

If the problem you are solving involves search, you need to focus on that.
Studying algorithms, AI, all that stuff. If you are spending half your time
doing that and the other half looking for venture capital, you are setting
yourself up for failure.

If however, you are creating a website for musicians and you are not going to
music venues and taking notes, you are also losing.

Understand where your focus should be for the line of business you are in, and
... focus! If you find it hard or boring to spend so much time focusing on it,
then that business was never meant for you.

Thinking about your product should be like playing a video game - challenging
and fun. If it's not and you prefer to think about money or funding, then you
have picked the wrong product.

~~~
menloparkbum
It is indeed true that there is no basketball star who is an extremely
successful musician. However these pursuits are very different than being an
entrepreneur. If you're 100% focused on software engineering and 0% focused on
the other things needed to be successful in the software business, you are a
software engineer, not an entrepreneur.

~~~
maxklein
Why do you insist on misunderstanding me? I am talking about solving a
PROBLEM, and not creating an algorithm. Let's say you were the google guys at
the start of their career. The problem they intended to solve involved getting
the best result for search. This is a problem that requires 95% of your time
spent at a PC. You are no enterpreneur if before you solve that problem, you
are going out trying to mingle in startup school or so.

Contrast that with the Amazon guy trying to solve the problem of how to retail
books successfully online. This problem cannot be solved by sitting at a
computer - one needs to talk to the logistics industry, publishers and so on.

Focusing on the problem will lead to different social behaviour for both
teams.

If a person focuses on the problem and solves the problem, the difficulty in
selling the solution becomes trivial. If a fellow creates a digg clone, he has
not solved any problem. If a fellow creates a tool to monitor the health of
students in boarding schools, he has solved a problem, and will have no
difficulty in selling, because boarding schools know they need what he is
offering, but never had it before.

It's common sense, but people still don't seem to get it: Focusing on the
problem is the only way of solving it.

~~~
swombat
I think the problem with your argument is you buy the "just build something
you love and people will give you money" argument. My experience, at least,
has shown that not to be the case.

Money needs to be balanced in the problem-solving equation along with all the
other issues. Build something you love, focus on it, do everything for it -
and also make sure it puts bread on the table. If you fail to do that last
one, you won't be able to spend the time to really focus on the problem.

Daniel

~~~
maxklein
Build something that solves a problem is what I said.

