
The Hierarchy of Engagement - topherjaynes
https://medium.com/greylock-perspectives/the-hierarchy-of-engagement-5803bf4e6cfa
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Silhouette
This is one of those pieces where you read it, initially nod along and think
it just seems like common sense, and then realise with a little sadness that
your own businesses could probably be doing better if you spent more
development effort on actually doing those common sense things. Well worth a
read for would-be unicorns and smaller businesses alike, IMHO.

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stavel
Thank you for posting!

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paulpauper
Not to brag, but I could have predicted the rise of those examples given. Had
I been able to invest, I would have done so. Evernote, on the other hand, I
would have stayed away from..

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zepto
How is that not just bragging?

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galistoca
It's not bragging because he hasn't actually done it and just talking about in
on HN in retrospect. You and I could say the same thing too for example, and
that wouldn't make us a bragger. It would however make us braggers if we
actually did invest and made tons of money out of it.

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zepto
It sounded like he was bragging that he could have done it.

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darawk
This article has a bit of a 'just-so' vibe to me. What about a company like
Uber? Uber doesn't have any virtuous loops, mounting loss, or cumulative
benefits of use.

Now, I don't mean to argue against a straw man, I know that this article isn't
claiming that _only_ businesses with these features can be worth >1b - but
exactly what is the ratio of companies north of 1b that have these properties?
That is what really decides the predictive and analytic value of this model,
not some cherry-picked stories that happen to adhere to it.

And also don't get me wrong, these things make intuitive sense to me as well.
But i'd just like to see a more careful, rigorous analysis of these commonly
accepted articles of faith in the startup world.

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Silhouette
The original author does say in the introduction that this is a framework for
evaluating "non-transactional consumer companies". Presumably in this context
Uber is transactional.

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darawk
Ah, you're right. Should have caught that.

