
Our idea of success is all messed up - danw
http://www.carsonified.com/web-apps/our-idea-of-success-is-all-messed-up
======
joao
But for one successful project that he mentions (Dropsend) there are 2
projects of his that have 'failed': \- the webapp Amigo --
<https://myaccount.heyamigo.net/serviceDown.html> \-- that he even marketed
starting a blog about its build and there was even a quote of O'Reilly talking
about an untaped market.. and it's gone \- a few years back Ryan also built a
subscription based online project manager, before 37Signals launched their
Basecamp, and it's no longer around.

Bottom line: he says you can do it to, and he's right, but you have to really
know your target market at the start (which he did with targeting Dropsend to
the designer/agency market, that he knew well due to his work on BD4D) and
have contacts in it to spread the word (at the start, eventually your client
demographic expands)... but it isn't as easy as he makes it seem on a blog
post based on one of his successes, when that formula didn't work out well for
his other projects.

~~~
wallflower
Check out <http://barenakedapp.com> for Carson's from day zero to launch to
sale intimate story of DropSend

------
pg
Redefining success to have a lower threshold seems a huge (though common)
mistake for groups that are currently behind.

There are plenty of people in Silicon Valley working on mundane, income-
producing businesses. _In addition_ it has Googles.

~~~
Alex3917
The problem with this meme is that it ignores the fact that success =
log(quality). To build a business that has 2,000 paying customers is probably
85% as hard as building the next Google. To the extent that becoming the next
Google is more unlikely than that, I'd say it's because once you max out the
quality the rest is basically flip-a-coin.

~~~
aswanson
_success = log(quality). To build a business that has 2,000 paying customers
is probably 85% as hard as building the next Google._

Not to say that you are wrong, but what data do you have to justify that
statement?

~~~
Alex3917
There was actually a blog post making this argument a while back. I think it
may have been submitted here, but I can't find it because news.yc only lets me
see my last 180 saved stories. It goes through the numbers though and makes a
pretty good case that getting "only" 2,000 subscribers is actually extremely
difficult. (There was something vaguely similar submitted only a month or so
ago, but the one I'm thinking of is from much longer back.)

~~~
aswanson
Fair enough.

------
alex_c
"Imagine ... seeing a deposit of $10 million - right after you’ve been
acquired or sold all your shares. [...] OK, now imagine you’ve done the things
on your list. How do you feel. Any happier? ... I’d be willing to bet that you
won’t actually feel much happier than you do now. You might feel nice for
about two months, and then you’ll be itching to do something else. Happiness
isn’t found in being the next company to sell for $100 million. So that’s the
whole point - you can have a small web app business and still enjoy the good
life."

I don't think I'll ever be able to see eye to eye with the people who put
forward this kind of argument. Maybe we're talking about different things, or
maybe we just see life differently. Maybe it's a lack of imagination, I don't
know.

The $100 million, or 10, or even 1, isn't about the number of zeroes in your
bank account, it's about freedom. Freedom to scratch my "itch to do something
else". With the money, that can be bumming around and travelling, or it can be
creating something I enjoy but which is very unlikely to ever pay the rent, or
it can be trying to start a second $100 million company, or it can be "a small
web app business". Without the money and with a small web app business, it can
be... a small web app business.

In other words, running a small web app business is all you need to be happy,
as long as what you need to be happy is running a small web app business.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
that kind of comment also shows you just how little people understand the
value of a dollar. If people truly appreciated the range of creative potential
that 10 million dollars represented they wouldn't be nearly as dismissive
about it.

bottom line: if you're going to be doing the same exact thing whether you have
10 million or not, just give me the 10 mill. I guarantee I won't be doing the
same thing.

~~~
nostrademons
I'd do the same thing I'm doing now whether I have 10 million or not. The
difference is that with 10 million, I'd be sure that I could _keep_ doing the
same thing, forever. (Or at least until I got bored with it. ;-))

------
dusklight
I think it's fundamentally messed up to measure your success based on how much
money you make. It reminds me of <http://xkcd.com/59/> .

The work should be the reward itself. You shouldn't be creating a product
because you think it will make you $$$. You should be creating a product
because you think it will have a true and substantial positive impact on the
world.

I remember when I visited France, one of the things that really struck me, was
the number of shopkeepers I met, who owned their shop, often selling stuff
they had a hand in manufacturing, and had decided that this was what they
wanted to do with the rest of their lives -- to create something beautiful and
share it with others who could appreciate them.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
the american people are a fearful people. they don't want lifestyle jobs, they
want jobs that they will be able to get rich at so they'll have financial
security.

Is this attitude because they know that if you get old and have no money in
america there will be no one to look after you? I don't know.

------
rantfoil
This is a "me too" blog post echoing DHH's sentiments, but it is always useful
to see the model work for more people.

Their example re: dropsend and how they're turning a $200k profit with no
additional time or effort is impressive.

~~~
jamescoops
One question i have is how the accounting is done for the $200k profit,
bearing in mind the app benefits from the wider business (Carsonified events
etc). As a standalone app it might be paying more for marketing, legal/
accounting, management overhead etc

------
yariv
The problem when entrepreneurs who created companies like DropSend and
37signals tell us to follow their "stay small/independent" model because it
worked for them is that they represent the small pool of entrepreneurs who
succeeded doing it. The is a classic selection bias. Although the argument you
should stay small and independent and avoid VC money "feels" right, looking at
just a few companies who succeeded isn't enough to prove it. I would like to
see a real study comparing the success rate of VC funded startups vs.
independent ones. It would research the success distributions for both models
and highlight which model (small and independent vs. big and VC-funded) has
the best risk/reward ratios for the founders. Until such a study is made, I
will take the "avoid VC money" advice from those who made it work with a grain
of salt.

~~~
nostrademons
There are studies out there for success rates of VC-funded companies. I read
one that had a success rate of 18% for first-time founders, 20% for founders
that had previously failed, and 33% for founders that had previously
succeeded. Don't have time to dig it up now, unfortunately - it was about the
gains from serial entrepreneurship, and I think it was posted on news.YC.

It's much harder - possibly impossible - to measure the success rate of
bootstrapped ventures, because the boundaries are much fuzzier. For example,
my current venture started with 5 founders (none of whom are still with it)
and is now just me. We've launched 3 websites, all failures, and have one
still under development. If the new website succeeds, should this count as 5
failures, one per founder that left? 1 failure, treating the original founding
team as a failure and me as a success? 0 failures, since none of the other 5
founders quit their day jobs, and so it was just a hobby for them? 1 failure,
since one of the other founders committed significantly to this and did a lot
of work for it (even while still holding his day job), yet the other 4 didn't
really care? 3 failures, one per failed idea? 1 failure, since two of the
failures were launched while we were all still at our day jobs? 0 failures,
since it all worked out in the end? 2 failures, since the hypothetical success
builds upon one of the failures? 5 failures, since there were a couple other
hobby projects that weren't intended as startups but might've become so had
there been interest?

With VC, there's a clear delineating line between startups. You just go by the
corporate entity, which must exist for them to take investment. But
bootstrapped startups frequently don't incorporate until it looks like they'll
be successful, and often success comes from accidents.

And by many of the definitions of bootstrap failure, the big VC-funded
startups are failures too. My first employer (VC-backed) went through 4
business plans in the year I was there. Paypal did too, as did Flickr. Should
those be counted as 3 failures and 1 success?

I'm skeptical about any sort of statistical data anyway, because (as with any
economic data) the act of publishing that data changes the data itself. If a
study comes out showing that you should _not_ take VC money, there will be a
flood of entrepreneurs into those markets that can be serviced without VC
funds. That'll necessarily drive down success rates, as the market becomes
oversaturated, competition drives down margins, and bootstrappers find it
unprofitable to continue. Similarly, if a study comes out showing that you
_should_ take VC money, there'll be a flood of entrepreneurs into the markets
that are considered "hot" by VCs, like what happened in social-
networking/bookmarking in 04/05. That'll drive down success rates, companies
will fold or be acquired for peanuts, and the next study will say you
_shouldn't_ take VC money.

~~~
mechanical_fish
_We've launched 3 websites, all failures, and have one still under
development. If the new website succeeds..._

If the new site succeeds the whole thing is a _success_. Who cares about the
failures? Certainly not you.

Once you succeed the narrative will immediately fall into place. Your earlier
"failures" will turn out to have just been stumbling blocks, correctable
mistakes, and/or learning experiences along the road to success.

Which just makes your main point stronger: You can't rationally measure the
"success" or "failure" rate of "ideas" until you define "success", "failure",
and "idea" -- all of which are _arbitrary_ and vary from company to company,
from founder to founder, and from time to time.

~~~
bdr
I think nostrademons was talking about gathering statistics, not the narrative
of their life.

