
Startup School 4: Office Hours - sama
https://www.startupschool.org/videos/4
======
partisan
One of the key takeaways, and one that was really obvious in the last
interview is that you should do things that don't scale. It's hard to
distinguish between actual roadblocks to your business as compared to itches
that you just need to scratch, especially when you are a developer and your
itch can be solved through a technical solution. Developing a solution for
that non-critical problem allows you to feel like you are making progress
when, in fact, you aren't actually moving your business forward at the pace
you should be. Having someone question your roadmap with an external viewpoint
really makes it clear when you are going down a rabbit hole and that is where
the value of these office hours seem to lie.

~~~
jacquesm
> Developing a solution for that non-critical problem allows you to feel like
> you are making progress when, in fact, you aren't actually moving your
> business forward at the pace you should be. Having someone question your
> roadmap with an external viewpoint really makes it clear when you are going
> down a rabbit hole and that is where the value of these office hours seem to
> lie.

It's all about balance. In the first year or so you can afford this but later
on you _definitely_ should make room for non-user visible items on your
roadmap otherwise sooner rather than later you'll find your development
stagnating due to mounting technical debt. And just like real debt there is an
escape velocity element there: too much technical debt and your progress will
slow down to nothing while your competitors are still moving forward (provided
they do a better job).

This is a real risk, one I've witnessed in several start-ups over the last
couple of years. Fortunately, once identified it is relatively easy to get
moving again but it can really creep in unseen.

------
a13n
Hey guys, I'm Andrew from Canny, the team who went first. We help teams keep
track of feedback from their users.

See a live example here: [https://kitsu.canny.io/feature-
requests](https://kitsu.canny.io/feature-requests)

Homepage: [https://canny.io](https://canny.io)

The office hours was a great experience! We got valuable advice, learned where
we were weakest, got experience with public speaking, and it was free
marketing. Would love to hear what y'all think.

~~~
spookyuser
Looks, pretty cool. Kinda reminded me of uservoice [1], how do you think it
compares?

[1]
[https://writt.uservoice.com/forums/260510-general](https://writt.uservoice.com/forums/260510-general)

~~~
a13n
Good question. I actually wrote a pretty detailed answer of this on Product
Hunt:
[https://www.producthunt.com/posts/canny-3#comment-438623](https://www.producthunt.com/posts/canny-3#comment-438623)

~~~
spookyuser
Thanks, I had no idea uservoice was that expensive. yours definitely does look
better as well!

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philip1209
Philip here from MoonlightWork.com (the last team in the video). The advice
from Sam and Yuri was great. In our startup school office hours after this on
Friday, we were also advised to take a more depth-first approach.

So, takeaways:

1) We found an invoicing system that's compatible with Stripe Connect, so
we're working on completing a first project this week.

2) We're focusing just on code for now, rather than design and code at the
same time. We want to partner with some open-source project maintainers with
the goal of helping them earn money and build a job ecosystem. Our first
Moonlight projects have been through my own open-source projects
(github.com/staffjoy). If you maintain an open-source project, we'd love to
talk about how we can help you create jobs around your project - please shoot
me an email philip at moonlightwork.com.

~~~
laktek
As a fellow participant of StartupSchool, I'm curious how you guys were picked
for the office hours?

BTW, all 3 interviews were great. Lot to take in - you guys probably have had
butterflies in your stomachs.

~~~
sandslash
Hey Laktek! I reached out to Philip and Emma because they were Startup School
founders in the Bay Area. That made it a lot easier to have them come by.

~~~
laktek
Nice! Would be great if you can do a similar session but involving the remote
teams - maybe outside of Standford class.

------
pilingual
Several years ago some YC partners noted that the startups that did poorly had
a common attribute: they tend to ignore advice given during office hours.

The interviewers are experts at office hours, but the interviewees are not. I
think it would be interesting to see a) startups ask more questions in their
responses rather than make assertions, regardless of whether they are "sure"
they have the answer b) have a mechanism of action; for example, stop
developing x and start getting revenue -- because otherwise nothing will be
learned. Then follow up in a couple weeks to see results iff they decided to
act on the advice.

------
urs2102
Is it possible to get the URLs to the actual products just to try them out?

As I'm watching it, Canny seems neat, but can't seem to find the product
anywhere.

~~~
philip1209
[https://moonlightwork.com](https://moonlightwork.com)

[http://tuml.co/](http://tuml.co/)

[http://canny.io](http://canny.io)

