

You'll be dead soon - Carpe Diem - Maro
http://steveblank.com/2011/11/30/youll-be-dead-soon-carpe-diem/

======
mechanical_fish
I wonder if professional coaches have a vocabulary word for that feeling. The
one you get when you watch a student creep right up to the edge of success and
then stop dead and start flailing around in apparent desperation.

I guess the term for the actual failure is _choking_ , but what's the word for
having to sit there and watch a student choke? Either because it's the only
way for them to learn, or because it's impossible for you to help?

Whatever it should be called, it's painful. My best teachers seem to have been
pretty good at it, though.

~~~
Herring
My hunch is it's not really possible to choke like this unless something
important in his life has gone seriously wrong.

~~~
jbigelow76
I blame the B- engineer. How could Bob have been expected to succeed when
saddled with what was probably a glorified oDesk coder? You just can't do
Insight-as-a-Service unless you have a ninja that dreams in Scala, craps Redis
and eats node.js for breakfast.

~~~
bad_user
The most successful founders in this industry are/were people that could do
the job themselves, with very few exceptions.

Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Steve Wozniak, Steven
Jobs, Paul Graham, John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Michael Cowpland, Michael
Morhaime and the list can go on.

These people also found awesome help, that's true, but you can't be a leader
unless you have the capability of fixing other people's screwups.

    
    
         unless you have a ninja that dreams in Scala,
         craps Redis and eats node.js for breakfast
    

Personally, I am ambivalent about people like that. Curiosity and
experimentation defines a smart individual, however crapping Scala, Redis and
Node.js all over a project that doesn't need these newer technologies is
simply bad engineering that can sink a product faster than a " _glorified
oDesk coder_ " could.

~~~
chrisngonzales
Actually the contrary is true. Each of those successful technical founders you
just named did not "do the job themselves". In fact, you just named 3 pairs of
co-founders(Google, Apple, Adobe) but for some reason excluded other key co-
founders such as Allen(Microsoft) and the FB
guys(<https://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?founderbios>).

Three variables that determine a start-up's success are its 1)product 2)market
and 3)the team. Of these, the team is the most important. With a talented
team, you can build, get feedback, and reiterate faster on your product. A
team that can reiterate every week has a competitive advantage over the team
can only reiterate every month because it can push a product out 52 times/year
as opposed to only 12 times/year. A team with multiple A-players is always
better than a team with just 1 A-player, and their products will be too.

~~~
bad_user
You missed my point - you cannot blame the B-engineers if the founder cannot
recognize B-grade work and/or doesn't do anything about it - like firing the
B-grade engineers, hiring at least one A-player, fixing it by themselves,
etc...

Blame is easy to pass like that, but it seems to me like this startup is bound
to die because of a lack of action, more than anything else.

And regarding your opinion, there have been many individuals able to move
mountains by themselves when starting out. And there have been many teams of
A-players that failed because of irreconcilable differences between them (i.e.
too much testosterone, lack of leadership, lack of vision, etc...) - a book I
loved reading on this subject is "Dreaming in Code":
<http://www.dreamingincode.com/>

------
Mc_Big_G
This is where failing a few times gives you the insight to know when you have
a winner on your hands. Those of us with a lot of attempts but no winners
would kill to have users waiting to pay.

~~~
viscanti
I think that's a big part of it. The more "science" starting a company
becomes, the more we'll see "analytical" people drawn to it. When starting a
company, you'll never have perfect information. You can make more informed
decisions, but at the end of the day, there's still risk. Not everyone is cut
out for that. Some people would prefer a safe routine to the risk of a
startup. It sounds like this gentleman bought too much into the "science" and
process of startups, and wasn't ready to deal with the challenges.

------
gallerytungsten
re: "Bob was in the wrong business, not the wrong market. He wanted certainty,
comfort and security."

This is a key point of difference between those who are cut out for startup
life and those who are not.

~~~
michaelbarton
I think comfort can be provided in some measure by having savings or at least
being dept-free. Also being relatively employable, should things go bad, may
also provide a degree of security. Perhaps certainty is the only thing that
can't be hedged?

~~~
alexro
Been debt-free, employable I have gone through the painful experience of
failing. It isn't about your mechanical abilities being challenged, i.e.
skills and ability to pay the bills, it's more about the astounding
realization that "I cannot make it" thing. To be disappointed with yourself is
much more painful than slavery IMO and is usually the cause of depression.

~~~
beachgeek
Me too, all of the above. How did you get over it?

~~~
alexro
Nothing special - got employed, needed to feed the family. Started to plan on
the next action :)

~~~
beachgeek
The very first startup I was in (as an early employee) went IPO in the late
90s. My next startup (where I was a founder) crashed and burned in the tech
bust that followed. The crash was beyond my control, however failure was
incredibly hard to deal with for the reason you mentioned.

I did the obvious thing, got a real job, saved cash etc. Things have obviously
changed dramatically since then in terms of ease of starting one's own
project, so I've been plugging away at mine for a while.

I have to admit though that I do find myself thinking like "Bob" sometimes
because I want desperately to avoid another f-up. I've gotten around it by
having a key team of advisers/mentors that have done startups successfully. I
challenge their opinions sometimes, but generally listen to what they say.

Its also very easy to over-analyze something until you don't know what's up or
down.

------
brd
Sounds like a victim of his own fear of failure. Knowing you're about to start
an endeavor that will truly test you is overwhelmingly scary for someone who
isn't ready to be tested. I've watched a lot of people (myself included) give
up before starting instead of risking a chance of actually failing and facing
their own limitations.

------
herdrick
I wonder what the product / prototype was.

~~~
robfitz
This is now my new failure mantra: "At least I haven't personally disappointed
and been individually called out as a nontrepreneur by Steve Blank"

;)

------
mapster
It is one thing to learn engineering, but one also needs to study leadership
first hand for a while before attempting it themselves. Bob couldn't find it
within him to pull the trigger when he should have. Or he is more risk averse
than he considered himself to be.

------
Herring
Sounds like he was burnt out. It's not that hard to recognize when you have a
good product.

~~~
thesash
It's not hard to recognize when you have a good product when it's feature
complete and selling like hotcakes. Recognizing that you have the _core_ of a
good product with potential to be great if you slog it out and stick to your
vision is hard. Really hard.

~~~
joelhooks
No doubt, but if you have Steve Blank as a mentor telling you that you have a
good product it might be a significant clue.

~~~
grannyg00se
Also, potential customers flat out telling you that they are ready to pay.
That kind of helps.

------
Jach
"Remembering that I’ll live forever is the most important tool I’ve ever
encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything
– all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure –
these things just fall away in face of endless time, leaving only what is
truly important." --The immortal Steve Mobs

We shouldn't need death as a pretty bad excuse to seize the day.

------
mrleinad
Great advice. I find a bit more interesting the "Memento Mori" motto. Same
idea, though.

~~~
davidcollantes
Thanks for the -- new to me -- phrase. It certainly have a stronger meaning
for me than carpe diem.

~~~
corin_
_Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero_

That's where it comes from, and "have little trust in the future" alludes to
death even if it doesn't state it.

"Memento mori" is actually used generally to refer to art, while "carpe diem"
is solely an idea - and I much prefer the latter for, while it has the same
meaning, it is from the positive point of view, not the negative.

Personally I can't think of "carpe diem" (a favourite phrase of mine,
incidentally) without hearing Robin Williams speech that is shown at the end
of this article.

\- _We are food for worms, lads_

\- _Believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is going to stop
breathing, turn cold and die._

\- _Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota
of what they are capable?_

\- _These boys are now fertilising daffodils._

(If you haven't seen Dead Poets Society.. you should. Wonderful film.)

~~~
cantbecool
Thank you, corin_, for the name of the movie, i.e., Dead Poets Society. I was
about to skim Robin William's IMDB and find it.

~~~
hsshah
I got intrigued by the video clip as well. FYI. Used "Into_Now" iphone App to
find out the movie [Didn't see this comment then] Alas, its not available for
streaming on Netflix as of now.

------
dean
I wonder how bad a developer you have to be in order to get someone, who is
only following along in "bits and pieces", really concerned for the startup
that hired you.

~~~
viandante
I find people rating people extremely annoying. Especially when you apply a
rate (B) to the overall performance. I mean, those people must not even be
people, they are monkeys. A monkey can be said to be an overall B compared to
humans (as monkeys don't seem to code to well...).

------
capdiz
You only live once. So make it count.

------
pghimire
I think this is where proper mentorship is extremely valuable. If the student
was consistently coached from the get-go he might have pulled it off.

On that note, is there a community online where one can seek out mentorship.
It doesn;t have to be a community of who's who - just some decent nice people
with common sense and desire to succeed should suffice. I am at a stage where
I could use some advice as well.

~~~
cmos
Bob was taught by and getting advice from one of the best teachers of
entrepreneurship, if such a thing can be taught, and he was still falling
short.

Not only was Bob unable to get away from himself, he wasn't able to take
advice from a seasoned entrepreneur and do a 'leap of faith'. I'm sorry, but
if Steve Blank gave me valuable advice and I was starting my first company you
had better bet I'd do more than stare blankly at him.

Bob will never start his own company.

~~~
ams6110
Some people just have to learn some things the hard way. You can coach,
advise, mentor all you want and they will just stubbornly do what they are
going to do until they figure out for themselves that it's not working.

My 15 year old is like that. It's quite frustrating.

