
The “It” Crowd Doesn’t Like Me and I Finally Don’t Care - brianvan5155
http://juliefredrickson.tumblr.com/post/43321974630/the-it-crowd-doesnt-like-me-and-i-finally-dont-care
======
tptacek
You can curse us all you want. I curse things at random all the time. But then
get back to work. The challenge you've briefly engaged with isn't a problem;
it's a market opportunity. While the "it" crowd is repeatedly failing to
achieve any lasting success with their completely pointless photo-sharing
applications running on their 4th successive new storage backend (was mysql,
then mongo, then homebrew, now postgres; really, was database-of-the-week
really the social scene you wanted an entry pass into?), pick out offerings
specifically based on what the "it" crowd would find unfashionable.

See if they're not begging you for jobs a few years from now.

The valley clique isn't a privilege for 20-something men; it's a trap for
them. It eats their time, and, at least where it intersects with Hacker News,
serves to out people you'll know never to work with professionally.

~~~
Redoubtable
Could not agree with you more. Part of the reason I wrote this was so I could
mentally reset myself to get back to work. Frankly I'm embarrassed I got
caught in the trap and spent valuable emotional energy on it caring about it
in the first place. - Julie

~~~
michaelwww
It might help to think of the Hollywood model. The pretty young men they put
out front are the actors and you are the writer. It's been noted before many
times that writers don't get much respect, but they are the geniuses who come
up with the narrative, the dialog, and the ideas that make up a successful
production. Writers usually don't show off well to investors or at parties.
That's where the pretty faces come in. I'm usually dismissive of the next
young genius on the cover, because I'm more interested in the real brains
behind the outfit, who may or may not be marginally social-able introvert
living in an eco-bunker somewhere who definitely does not want the attention.

~~~
smackay
Michael Lewis' book, The New New Thing, probably offers a good insight to
this. Jim Clark is probably the character that all the choreographers of
pretty faces seek to emulate.

------
pud
Generally, being profitable precludes a company from getting "silly [high]
valuations" & buzz in Silicon Valley. Unless they're really, really
profitable.

Big valuations usually stem from _not knowing_ how much a company will make
once they start charging for stuff. So the "it" crowd works itself into a
frenzy and VCs take a big gamble.

But once you make a dollar, all the mystery is gone. You're judged & valued
pretty much on your revenue alone. Which is usually low (startups are hard)
and unsexy (so not a ton of buzz).

Not saying a agree with it. But that's how it is.

~~~
FrojoS
Interesting. So "Lets not risk growth my premature monetization, like ads,
which could repel early adopters." is often just an excuse to avoid income and
thereby improve valuations?

~~~
pyre
Not necessarily. The issue is that usually there is no roadmap beyond:

1\. Explosive Growth

2\. ???

3\. Profit!

------
Skoofoo
I've never had much regard for Silicon Valley business types. I am convinced
that the only thing that truly matters to succeed in tech is to create
something that people want but don't necessarily know it yet. Everything else
is just fluff.

------
rosenjon
Nice post. I'll take revenue and profitability over media hype and "it" status
any day of the week. It's kind of shocking how many early stage companies have
absolutely no plan for revenue/profit, and point to outliers like Facebook and
Twitter as their playbook for success. There are meaningless debates about 10
millions users being the new 1 million
([http://www.businessinsider.com/10-million-users-is-not-
the-n...](http://www.businessinsider.com/10-million-users-is-not-the-
new-1-million-2012-8)). To me, it is just indicative of a pervasive sickness
in early stage tech. Remember, it doesn't matter how many users you have
unless you can monetize them.

~~~
larrys
"I'll take revenue and profitability over media hype and "it" status any day
of the week."

All that is fine of course and true. But there are side benefits to "it"
status. For one thing it can help you attract talent and get the type of
attention that can lead to success.

Let me give you an example. I've helped both high profile people and people
who are nobodies with advice. In general the nobodies are much more thankful
for the advice (and have even sent me gifts as thank you's). The high profile
people say "thank you".

"Name dropping". But the fact that I do the work for high profile people,
well, I use that in my marketing to attract paid customers that actually put
money in my pocket. And it works.

~~~
rosenjon
If name dropping high profile people is an important part of your businesses
marketing strategy, then it seems reasonable to pursue that <i>if it leads to
more revenue/profit</i>

I think OP's issue relates to the weird, self-referential culture of Silicon
Valley, where success is measured in buzz and money raised. It goes something
like:

Build free software product -> ? -> profit

where ? = Get lots of buzz/hype, grow userbase quickly, raise VC money

Or course, this is similar to another business plan:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO5sxLapAts>

------
nswanberg
This interview with Girl Talk [1] posted on the thread about Wanz [2] shows,
to an outsider, a lot of parallels between the music and startup scenes.

This is likely to have been raised before, but the two are similar in many
ways: vast and fragmented with many paths to and definitions of success, prone
to fads, full of both hard workers and poseurs, controlled near the top by
gatekeepers who pride themselves, correctly or not, on evaluating potential
success, jealousy of success, rules that apply to the majority of aspirants
and smaller players but not the minority of the very successful, people who
look with disdain at others' choices, seeing those choices as more important
than they really are, etc.

So it is good to realize that, just as in music, success is context-dependent,
and one's popularity with the current stars and hangers-on is a weak indicator
of success, and it's good to act on that realization in a useful way,
including planting a stake in the ground saying "I'm done with that."

That said, once one's self-confidence and happiness are restored it's also
good to not completely reject all aspects of whatever and whoever are popular.
Unless someone is a close competitor (in which case they must be crushed or
scared off to other pastures ;) ), why not wish for their success and
celebrate it? Similarly, conferences are a great way to learn, to teach, and
to meet those with the same interests, and so long as attending the conference
is not only about being seen by others as attending a conference (or, say,
being invited to a panel), and going does not interfere with work, why
shouldn't one go?

[1] <http://pitchfork.com/features/interviews/6415-girl-talk/> [2]
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5235168>

~~~
te_chris
I live in both worlds and it's funny, bar the obvious differences in technical
skills, there are far more similarities, especially with regard to your second
paragraph.

------
knieveltech
Lost it at "Liked by the kind of men that determine who is or is not “one of
us” in tech.". Silicon valley culture is almost, but not quite, entirely
irrelevant to the overwhelming majority of "techs". The number of people
active in that scene represent a rounding error compared to the rest of the
people working in industry in technical roles outside of the valley. Get out
of the echo chamber.

------
radio4fan
What is this mysterious drivel?

Who is brianvan5155 and why hasn't he made any comments?

How has this made it to the front page?

What can it all mean?

~~~
brianvan5155
I'm a web producer and developer. I'm an early commenter from Slashdot, Ars
Technica, and Gawker. I've been using online communities for 22 years, longer
than some people around here have been alive. I've read quite a few threads on
HN and respect this as a news source, and I haven't felt fit to contribute
until now.

I've been talking with Julie about her experiences as a like-minded
professional and I also remain baffled why her extremely sensible business
plan continues to //receive tepid interest// (EDIT: originally wrote "go
unfunded" here but I'm speaking inaccurately and out-of-line) despite an
aggressive half-year VC campaign while the most harebrained ideas in the world
(founded by prep school dudes) seem to effortlessly accumulate resources
provided by others... including free press from many of the news sources that
get shared here frequently. I believe business leaders in our industry play
favorites and manipulate us into believing their partners are somehow better
and more deserving than the rest of us... and that it fattens their bottom
line and increases their domination of the culture of this industry. I think
more of us need to take a stand against this... if not just on principle, but
because it's good business and certainly a better plan than the lengthy
boom/bust cycles this VC ruling class keeps leading the rest of us through
like lemmings, leading to capital shortages and employment drop-offs that
starve families and stifle innovation.

So, let's use this as a forum to discuss what may or may not be wrong about
this view of things.

~~~
rdouble
_remain baffled why her extremely sensible business plan continues to go
unfunded despite an aggressive half-year VC campaign while the most
harebrained ideas in the world_

Maybe cuz it's an API for social games. No Silicon Valley VC will fund
anything that has to do with games these days. Untried harebrained ideas at
least don't have dismal track records yet.

~~~
Redoubtable
Heh I'm stoked someone called us an API for social games. Usually people call
us wildly less accurate things. YAY!

We are technically a suite of tools (which you know depending on your
executional ability is an API, or a set of SDKs, or us hand holding you
through using them) for brand managers and marketers to build applications and
games with their own data. Layer up content + actions and out pops your very
own custom THING.

We have found that there is a huge demand for brand creative, as digital
marketing requires more marketing, not less, with newer storylines & media
format being demanded w/ever more frequent turns.The advertising agencies are
struggling to deliver quality, timely results, and brand managers struggle to
afford the associated cost of traditional, all original (or custom) marketing.

We believe that if brands could rapidly create compelling new campaign media
by leveraging a standing (and hopefully ever improving) body of component
elements with their own brand data and concepts this is a powerful

Obviously this approach is well accepted today in software creation and the
good news in we have worked with host of brands to try this theory out in
practice- aka in client paid efforts.

Essentially what we're seeing, is if the tools allow quality brand marketing
results, that reflect the brand’s story telling objective, then the brand
manager is satisfied.

If the creative cost & delivery are both materially lower, this is a winning
path—and the birth of a potentially formidable new cloud based SaaS business

~~~
RyanZAG
I'm in the industry so I get what you're saying here - but I'm pretty sure
most VCs and your customers are going to be mighty confused. You should try
and simplify a 'what we do' message that is easier to understand.

The first 30 seconds of introduction to your concept is the most important -
make sure people can understand it!

~~~
Redoubtable
Indeed! We've rarely had a confused customer thankfully.

~~~
pekk
This is also consistent with confused people not becoming customers.

~~~
Redoubtable
Heh well yes. Logical win :-)

------
iosnoob
Thanks for the blog post and valid point of view. Couple of suggestions on
your business: \- I couldn't find your site by googling play api. I think
that's a pretty bad situation for prospective investors \- your logo is one of
the most unreadable ones I've come across \- your title is very broad and not
sure who its targeted at. How about something simpler like "create
multiplatform branded games in seconds"

Good luck.

~~~
Redoubtable
Thanks!

------
rdouble
It's pretty easy to get "liked" by the "it crowd" in silicon valley - you just
hire a better PR agent.

~~~
niggler
Or just explicitly bribe people with free cash, free services, etc.

~~~
rdouble
That's part of what the PR agent is supposed to be doing.

------
Redoubtable
I will upvote my own ramble!

~~~
jpdoctor
And did it serve its purpose?

~~~
Redoubtable
Unburden myself from otherwise useless and unproductive emo feelings? I sure
hope so.

~~~
olgeni
If only we could unburden ourselves from J2EE in the same way...!

------
cerebrum
Great article but I'm kinda sad that it missed drawing the bigger point: the
dichotomy perceived value vs. actual value goes much beyond products and
companies; it's something that permeates our entire lives as social animals.

------
benzesandbetter
Stop worrying about what other people think, and focus on making a great
product or service. If you make something great, people will want a piece of
it no matter if they like you personally or not.

Also, getting all emo and throwing a public temper tantrum railing against the
people whose help you might need someday isn't doing you any favors.

Get back to work.

~~~
Redoubtable
You got it. :-)

Though I admit I wasn't quite expecting a personal Tumblr post to make it to
Hacker News.

------
niggler
Part of the problem is that the more successful businesses in the traditional
sense (revenue, etc) are run by people who, as a whole, are more humble. There
are plenty of successful business owners here and elsewhere who feel no need
to stroke their ego or fight for mindshare in the glamour of silicon valley.

------
joelmichael
You are right, and thank you for writing this. Our company agreed early on
that tech interest wasn't essential for the success of our business. However,
I do think it can be useful for finding engineering talent.

------
mikecane
>>>Being cool has never been about begging to be liked.

>>>It turns out I’ve got a startup that happens to be a business. You know
what that means? We make money.

That second part. _That_ is what is cool.

~~~
Redoubtable
Heh. Thanks. Glad someone thinks it is cool!

------
yesimahuman
I've been thinking a lot about this as well. Once you start meeting people and
seeing the reality behind the media, you realize that "great" outcomes in
startups are rarely perfect (acquihire forced by investors, over-dilution,
etc.) and that things aren't always going as well as people say.

In reality, being happy seems to be the hardest thing to achieve, but I'm
starting to think that is what success really is.

------
stcredzero
_> Because as it turns out the market for being an “it” founder and a flavor
of the week startup isn’t the reality market. It is the perception market._

Perception Market. Also known as a "reputation bubble."

(Anyone know where the original "reputation bubble" article went? I've been
trying fancy tricks with Google, but getting nowhere. The fashion industry and
the "it" girl supermodel are prime examples in the article.)

------
coliolio
I really wish the author would even once mention _how_ she was warping
herself/her company to impress the tech crowd. It's hard for me to understand
what she's complaining about without a single example of the type of "how to
be popular" advice that people were giving her that she found so poisonous...

------
calinet6
Get out of the hellacious Silicon Valley and move to Boston. You'll like it
better.

------
dreadsword
Any second wasted to popularity, either seeking it, or decrying it, is a
wasted second. Enough navel gazing, create some lasting value and reap the
rewards.

------
davemel37
I found the old maxim to be true, "Chase after honor, and honor runs away from
you. Run away from honor, and honor chases after you."

------
bluekeybox
"It is better to be feared than loved, if you cannot be both." -- Machieavelli

------
justin_vanw
Apparently she doesn't care about 5000 words.

------
michaelochurch
VC-istan isn't "technology". It's cutting-edge _marketing_ , and only as
technological as it needs to be in order to not look foolish in 2013. It took
me a few years to understand that, if only because the disinvestment of our
society in R&D, academia, and anything with a focus longer than one quarter
has reached such completion as to leave our society too imbecilic to have a
square sense of what technology even is.

That doesn't mean a company can't be technological _and_ VC-funded, but the
"cool kids" sideshow isn't about true technology. It can't be. The VPs and
Product Managers are all imbeciles and the engineers, while smart in an IQ-
sense, are too steeped in bad practices to know anything. (The Founders are
talented marketers but 80% are sociopaths.)

The VC-istan "It" crowd is not comprised of technologists, but of people
who've found it advantageous to incorporate technological fetishism into their
vapid marketing. The jokers in the in-crowd don't know anything, and the best
technologists only tag along to their projects if they can get something out
of it... and those sorts of managerial conditions (hands-off management, high
autonomy, interesting projects and self-direction) don't tend to last for
long.

------
ahoyhere
Believe it or not, what follows is meant to be a SUPPORTIVE comment.

> I wanted to be one of those founders, you know, the type that gets silly
> valuations and love from the name brand ventures firms, the type that gets
> written up by the tech press, the sort that powerful angels vouch for and
> send around glowing intros for as being “the next big thing,” and the sort
> that jets around to conferences.

I truly hope you've come away from all this and understood that _the problem
isn't 'them,' it's you._

Once you focus on identity — worse yet, _how others perceive your identity_ —
then it's just a hop, skip and jump to narcissism, when 90% of your effort and
emotions is about projecting and protecting your identity at the sacrifice of
making things happen, or worse yet, forming relationships.

It SOUNDS like you figured that out.

On the other hand, since you've already found yourself vulnerable to _identity
focus_ , you should watch yourself and make sure this "I Don't Care!" thing
isn't a new way to form a (fragile) identity in need of propagation and
defense.

Focusing on other people, and your work, is the way to avoid this trap.

~~~
Redoubtable
Thanks for this! The fact that I got wrapped up in constructing the identity
of a company (thank god not the actual product or how we related to our
clients) to be appealing to someone that wasn't its core client was definitely
my problem and not theirs!

While I can't deny that I was responding to a certain kind of risk/reward
perception that has a certain value it wasn't right for what we ultimately
wanted to build as a company.

And I think this happens in so many areas of life. How we date, how we pick
our hobbies, how we choose our education. Because forming a core identity and
a core business is actually tremendously hard. Picking up one that is already
socially validated seems easier. It just isn't a recipe for long term
happiness or success.

~~~
subsystem
Fiona Apple said it best :)

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSLwYrPbuts>

------
LispIsForLosers
I've been reading Hacker News since 2007. This is the single most worthless
post to ever grace the frontpage.

Everyone here should think long and hard about what can be done to prevent a
community from degenerating to the point where it is colonized by trivial
attention whoring.

In fact, whoever thinks hardest might just make the next billion dollars.

~~~
unimpressive
What was second?

------
superflit
Someone has PMS...

~~~
cududa
Was that you trying to make an ironically chauvinistic joke, or are you just a
sexist ass?

~~~
Redoubtable
Heh well you know actually I do have PMS! I'm due to start maybe tomorrow or
Tuesday. Wow and to think my epiphany was just hormones. Man those things are
useful!

~~~
superflit
Nothing to be ashamed, everyone has bad days. But please DO NOT downplay
hormones effect on behaviour. People with Thyroid or other hormones misbalance
will disagree.

