
Startup Genome Project Considered Harmful - pchristensen
http://blog.asmartbear.com/startup-genome-project.html
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asknemo
General statistics are more helpful when the target group is homogeneous.
Intuitively speaking, when a group has similar resources, goals and problems,
what happens to others is more applicable to the individual. Whereas if a
group is composed of highly differentiated members, general statistics is
likely a result of a mixture of many distinct models, which in this case would
be far less useful for the individual.

In case of start-ups, it would seem to me that the founders' motivations,
goals, environments and backgrounds all have high degree of variations.
General statistics like those in the Project should thus indeed be used with
caution.

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JacobAldridge
I wasn't familiar with the Project prior to this, so will look into it some
more. The analysis Jason puts forward here reminds me a lot about the business
owners I meet in the real world - they want an answer to questions like "If I
do X what will happen?" and "Should I do Y or Z?"

The good part about my approach to those clients (broadly, 'coaching' vs
'consulting' but that's way broad) is that I can answer a question with
another question like "What are YOU trying to achieve?"

Startups that pivot several times get more funding. "Do you need to pivot? Do
you want funding?"

Solo founders take longer to scale. "Do you know any potential good co-
founders? Of the potential bad co-founders you know, which ones do you think
will help you scale vs break your vision for the company?" etc etc

Oh, and yes, I'm that really annoying guy when you just want a damn answer.
But life isn't that simple, and certainly isn't as universal as you or I would
like.

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nbashaw
Haha I just found out about this:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Considered_harmful>

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jdp23
On the one hand I agree with the criticisms on survivorship bias and the risks
of hypothesis testing. There's also presumably a selection bias. And while Ron
Berman's post on methodology [1] talks about how the goals of this stage of
the project were to formulate a model that could then be verified, the results
are certainly being reported as conclusions.

On the other hand, despite its limitations, it's very interesting data. So the
title seems very much an overstatement. "Blindly Believing in Startup Genome
Project's Data Considered Harmful" would be a better description -- although
far less effective link bait :-)

[1] [http://www.systemmalfunction.com/2011/05/deciphering-
genome-...](http://www.systemmalfunction.com/2011/05/deciphering-genome-of-
startups.html)

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smartbear
Actually I was just playing on the infamous "Goto's Considered Harmful" title.

(See nbashaw's comment)

~~~
jdp23
Sure, but Djikstra's point in that letter was that the goto statement really
was harmful. Do you really think the Startup Genome Project's report was
harmful? If so, I respectfully disagree. If not, then a different title would
be more accurate.

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kevinpet
Survivor bias favors the bold.

Fortune, not so much.

