
  From Nothing To Something. How To Get There.  - jmorin007
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/20/from-nothing-to-something-how-to-get-there/
======
kyro
A good read, but the article makes it sound like Seth was some kid who hadn't
the slightest idea of anything business, kept trying, and finally hit jackpot
with Meebo, when in fact, his CrunchBase profile says he "worked in IBM’s
mergers and acquisitions department, while also working on corporate strategy
and venture capital initiatives prior to starting Meebo." That's not to
invalidate his advice, but that seems like a hell of a lot of advantage to
have, on top of a great founding team, when heading into a startup.

~~~
byoung2
Being the assistant manager at Olive Garden does not mean you can open your
own restaurant. I think that experience at IBM might help in some instances,
but it probably didn't translate well to the startup mentality.

~~~
skolor
No, it doesn't mean you can open your own restaurant, but it means you have at
least an idea of how a successful restaurant is run, rather than just starting
a business because you're a good cook.

Its not my path (Go out, get job, learn how to do things there, start own
business), but it definitely brings some advantages with it.

------
sanj
"I think I just really feared working for the Man."

vs.

"worked in IBM’s mergers and acquisitions department..."

How much more of _the man_ can you work for?

~~~
elai
The federal government.

~~~
Derrek
And more specifically, the defense industry. Ugh....

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sachinag
"When I point out that they’re all business people, and wonder who’s going to
build the product, they almost always fall back on “we’ll get a couple of
undergrads to do it,” or, “we’ll outsource it.” If I hear either one of those,
I know the startup’s already dead."

God, ain't that the truth. It's an unrecoverable error. Learned that one the
hard way.

------
old-gregg
From _nothing_ to something? Are you kidding me?

His entire product is just an HTML front-end to libpurple, which is 99% of his
codebase. And that is FAR from "nothing"

And libpurple isn't even mentioned in the article, yet a ton of space is
wasted on how he kept thinking about a "next great thing". What an asshole.

At least Pidgin folks openly say "we are GTK+ front-end to libpurple". Will it
kill these SV types to admit building HTML front-ends to open source products?

There was something very right about Zed Shaw's rant regarding open source
licenses.

------
vaksel
its easier to preach than actually do, you ALWAYS start thinking, "man I need
more content" or "this one extra feature will REALLY make us take off."

same thing goes for the servers, everyone starts out thinking that they need
some server farm, just in case they hit some success. Here is a dirty little
secret, don't expect overnight success, you'll have plenty of time to grow
into needing that big server, but there is no point in wasting money on
something you don't need.

~~~
lucumo
_> Here is a dirty little secret, don't expect overnight success, you'll have
plenty of time to grow into needing that big server, but there is no point in
wasting money on something you don't need._

Definitely true. One remark though: "plenty of time" won't be entirely true.
When you first need to scale up you probably don't have any kind of server
monitoring set up. There's more important stuff to be done. This means that
you will notice far too late that you're out of capacity. It will be hard work
and it will be painful for you and your start-up.

~~~
drusenko
There are many things you don't need to be focused on at the start, but
monitoring is something you should set up from the very, very beginning.
Knowing when you're open for business and when you're not is absolutely
crucial. Plus, it's cheap -- $5/month or less.

~~~
lucumo
I wasn't talking about up-or-down monitoring. That's just last resort. But
once you're down, you're too late.

------
vijayr
One of the better posts at TC

~~~
rokhayakebe
At the risk of being downvoted, I disagree. Maybe this is just a good
introduction to the series of posts, but for now he simply regurgitated what
we already know, ie "Build something, put it out there, then iterate". What it
fails to tell you is how to get that initial traction.

For every 50 consumer startups that email Techcrunch/Venturebeat/Gigaom etc...
one will be covered. If this does not happen, then getting that first set of
beta users will be extremely time consuming (unless you resolve to less-than-
ethical methods aka SPAM).

Products like Meebo took off from the start. I am sure most issues they had
were around hiring, scaling, and monetizing. Most startups' problem is not
what to do with the traffic or how to afford more servers, larger teams. The
biggest problem we have is not even building a prototype or convincing someone
to partner with us. The issue is how to get users.

Maybe in his next posts he will touch this subject.

~~~
sachinag
I don't get this. Let me say this as succinctly as possible: it's not 2005 any
more. TechCrunch, VentureBeat, Mashable, and GigaOm will not help you get
users.

We've been in those publications multiple times, and since I run Google
Analytics with goals, I know how many new users and transactions they send.
It's de minimus. The links might be good for PageRank, but you'd rather be in
Lifehacker anyway.

If you think users will come because you get into these pubs, please try
harder.

~~~
rokhayakebe
Everyone knows major blogs will send a bunch of visitors to your site and most
will bounce back immediately. Webmasters usually follow up with "Techcrunch
traffic does not convert...". Well, in all fairness that is not the bloggers'
duty to figure your conversion method. At any rate for most consumer startups
a bunch of visitors from leading tech blogs is better than no visitors.

I run Google analytics with goals too for my website and at my day job. And
let me tell you that in both cases I am pushing products that no one is
jumping to write about. The same is true for (arbitrarily) 9 out 10 companies.
Hence organic traffic is not easy to create, and paid traffic is as good as
throwing money off the windows.

So when giving advises, give advises to this group. Not the one who can built
a product and gain traction easily. I have not done this successfully so I
cannot tell anyone how to but here are a few examples:

\- Don't go to major blogs first, go to smaller ones (TC used to be small when
Meebo launched in their living room) and create a relationship there. Find a
few competitors or a business that is complementary to yours and do a Yahoo
Link Search/Google BlogSearch to figure who is writing about them (call it
regression analysis if you want), and drop them 4, 5 lines and ask them "Can
you please present us to your audience". Email users with an "Invite your
friends" link. SEO is a marathon, not a Sprint. Be steady and set a goal to
email at least 5 new blogs/newpapers everyday. Call a couple local radio
stations, or TV stations, everyone is looking for a story. If people don't
answer after 21 days email again with a polite 2 liner, because sometimes your
emails get overlooked. Email the guys at Startupschwag, and ask if they can
include your startup in their next mailer. Etc....Be HOTDAMN PERSISTENT,
because the "only thing you can control is INPUT".

~~~
stepherm
Could your problem be that you're pushing the wrong product? If people don't
find your product useful/exciting/etc, there's no reason to expect any amount
of coverage to make an impact on your traffic.

------
msort
Good read. When should founders start to incorporate a company? Can founders
just release a Web application without worrying about things like
incorporation?

~~~
learnalist
I believe, the incorporation is a USA thing more than other parts of the
world. Again with no credentials im under the impression outside of America it
is easier to setup a company and just kick off a web app without an
"incorporation".

Maybe a budding lawyer can shed some light on the benefits of incorporating
before you have anything truely worth incorporating.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
Actually, the opposite is probably true. I have yet to hear of any country
where it's easier to start a business than in the USA.

------
juvenn
Motivated, and really pratical. Thanks!

------
edw519
_The best composition is probably one engineer whose passion lies in the
pixels on the screen and another engineer whose passion is making bits fly
really fast through servers._

Best 2 people to do a start-up?

A programmer and a business guy? No.

A programmer and a designer? No.

2 programmers. Yes.

Classic.

~~~
replicatorblog
Why the hate for designers;)

Seriously though, having someone who comes from the aesthetic/UI side is a lot
more useful than the generic "MBA" type who has a big vision and just needs
someone to build the site. For instance, Flickr and Typepad both had a
hacker/designer founding team. One of the recent YC teams had 2 designers and
only one hacker and have been doing really well. The best example is probably
Apple, SJ had some technical skill, but his real art was designing the UX, but
had SW to handle the technical challenges. I'm all for the coder/coder team,
but a great designer is not a bad addition!

~~~
nostrademons
I think what you want is someone who can do both the interaction design and
the front-end coding - they have skills in making things look pretty, but can
also write enough JavaScript/Python/C++/whatever needed to interface with the
backend. Someone like Eric Costello of Flickr or Glen Murphy of Google Chrome.

My ideal founding team would have three members: a frontend engineer/designer,
a backend engineer, and a business/marketing person. I think this is basically
what Seth was saying, and I've also heard the RescueTime founders say that
this is a great combination (it's what they have).

I wouldn't really want to go without the business person entirely, simply
because _somebody_ has to hold the entire product vision in their head, and
the engineers usually have plenty to think about anyway. The tension between
"C'mon guys, we can make this better" and "Okay, let's dive in and make this
better" seems to be necessary for great creative works. That was really Steve
Jobs' role in Apple - as I understand it, he did basically none of the coding.
It also helps to have someone take care of all the interruption-driven tasks
of running a company - following up on leads, talking to the press, drumming
up excitement, getting feedback from potential customers, etc.

~~~
movix
I would say that in the end, it's all about the user experience, and that
unfortunately or not, comes from the design.

The cleverest app, or piece of coding is useless if the user doesn't get what
they want from the experience of using it.

Brilliant design doesn't have to be flashy or clever, and of course, the
simplest interfaces are always the best. There is a huge amount of skill and
intelligence involved in taking what is a potentially complex idea or concept,
and expressing to the user, not only how to use it, but also what the app is
capable of, in a simple, graphical way.

There's been a of of discussion on HN about the new Sequoia site. I think I'm
one of the few who think it's brilliant, because it already assumes a lot
about its users, and that if they're on the site, they probably have a pretty
good idea already of why they're there. The site is tailored to those people,
they don't need to be hand-held with descriptions and explanations. This would
be completely out of place in many other instances, but the designers knew
their users, and what their needs were, so built accordingly. The web is a
graphical interface for information, great design is crucial.

The OP made the point about a team...my point is that this has to a be a
balance of skills, each member understanding their value and importance to the
project, and understanding and valuing the importance of their colleagues.
Teams made up of entirely one skill set will never be as productive as one
with a wide range of skills.

