
Reconsider (2015) - activatedgeek
https://m.signalvnoise.com/reconsider-41adf356857f
======
logicallee
He wrote a lot about how he didn't play the raising money game. Okay, I said
to myself: this will be interesting. He'll write about what he knows. I'll get
a glimpse into this life and what it's like to live it. Maybe he has more time
for oil painting and reading fiction than any Musk or Zuckerberg I've ever
read anything by. Maybe I'll decide to do things the same way he did.

But then for some reason, after he began by stating he did not try to make a
dent in the Universe or raise $100m - he proceeds to write about what it's
like to do so.

How would he know? This irrelevant stuff about stuff he doesn't know about is
just noise. Because he doesn't know.

If he wants me to pay attention to him (and the post is titled "reconsider")
he needs to write why. Not piss on someone else's corn flakes.

It _sounds_ like sour grapes to me. I mean, why even write about something you
don't know? Write what you do know...

>So first you take a lot of money from angels desperate to not miss out on the
next big unicorn. Then you take an obscene amount of money from VCs to inflate
your top-line growth, to entice the investment bankers that you might be
worthy of foisting upon the public markets, eventually, or a suitable tech
behemoth.

If you say so...

~~~
sytse
> He'll write about what he knows. I'll get a glimpse into this life and what
> it's like to live it. Maybe he has more time for oil painting and reading
> fiction than any Musk or Zuckerberg I've ever read anything by. Maybe I'll
> decide to do things the same way he did.

He made and maintains Ruby on Rails and in 2014 won his class in the 82nd
running of the 24 hours of Le Mans. Other things he has more time for are
listed at the top of
[http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/](http://david.heinemeierhansson.com/)

~~~
logicallee
But this whole article doesn't even mention any of that, even in passing.

------
rebelidealist
Take their advice but be warned that bootstrapping and mimicking their success
is also hard.

We are a huge fan of Basecamp (customer for 5+ year), DHH, Jason, and Rails.
However, please also consider the unique talents that they had.

Both Jason and DHH have exceptional skills. Jason is a great writer, designer,
and speaker. DHH, the creator of Ruby on Rails is a renowned programmer. Some
of the advantages that they had

1\. They were the one of the first company to put project management on the
"cloud" (early mover advantage)

2\. The 37signal team are great writers. Their main advice they had for
marketing is blogging. Some of us, especially foreign born founders, can't
write as well.

3\. 37signals had one of the most famous programmer at that time. (expertise
and marketing advantage).

4\. They have been honing basecamp for 15 years.

For the rest of us who aren't exceptional ourselves or don't have a brilliant
partner we might need some outside funding so we can hire the best talent.
Some of us want to do more than having one exceptional products for 15 years.

~~~
activatedgeek
I agree that taking their advice is fatal. Or, for that matter any advice. We
must account for the external market factors as well.

------
andrewl-hn
Past discussion, when the post was on dhh's own Medium page
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506422](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10506422)

------
cixin
Ok, I agree. We shouldn't all really want to be unicorns, it doesn't make
sense.

However, many startups need outside invest. It's certainly a lot easier if you
have it. It's not just that founders want to unicorns, it's that this is what
VCs what to hear (at least that there's a chance).

Many founders I've met had an initial vision that was they modified, most
likely for the "worse" after talking to investors and trying to figure out
what they wanted to hear.

It's quite sad, but what are the alternatives for startups that need some
financing?

~~~
jot
Here's one alternative: [http://v1.indie.vc/](http://v1.indie.vc/)

