

Putting your life on the line for a 50% chance to fail - grosales
http://drstarcat.com/archives/176

======
idlewords
Summary: dude gives a demo in front of potential investors hoping that the app
won't break.

Except, wrapped in several layers of self-aggrandizing drama. An awful lot of
hat for very little cattle.

~~~
petewarden
Pretty harsh. Every entrepreneur I know is on an emotional roller-coaster, but
that's one aspect of our role that we don't tend to talk about. Often the
toughest issues might seem trivial from an outsider's perspective, or even
from your own perspective after some time has passed.

I recognized a lot in his account, and it was good to see someone being honest
about the internal drama, even at the risk of appearing ridiculous.

~~~
idlewords
Well, you know, we've all got problems. I'm sure some people on this site have
experienced hardship and risk that goes far beyond flubbing a demo.

~~~
potatolicious
So... you're trivializing this guy's experience because somewhere out there,
someone else has it worse?

His experience isn't worth writing about because, somewhere out there, someone
has experienced something more interesting?

I don't see the logic.

I don't get the negativity here - I thought it was a well-written account of
the kind of last minute ninja dance before any launch. The author certainly
had a lot riding on the demo, and I didn't find it self-aggrandizing in any
overt way.

~~~
idlewords
His life is on the line to the extent that he'll have to work a couple more
high-paying computer jobs if he fails to get funding this time around. It's
not exactly Russian roulette with three bullets in the cylinder.

I found the histrionic tone and especially the title of the article to be out
of all proportion with the content. I don't think my description was in any
way unfair. The article does a sufficiently good job of trivializing itself.

~~~
potatolicious
_"It's not exactly Russian roulette with three bullets in the cylinder."_

Nor did he ever claim it to be... I think you're reading far more into that
post than was ever implied. It's clear that he has a large amount of personal
money invested, and that this demo could be the make-or-break moment for his
company - and a culmination of perhaps years of preparation and work. I think
that qualifies as a big deal.

You're still trying to trivialize this man's experiences.

~~~
Moschops
"Nor did he ever claim it to be"

He totally did. He said he put his life on the line. What really got put on
the line was his lifestyle.

------
ct4ul4u
His life is not on the line. He will have the opportunity to take more risks
in the future. When he tries out armed robbery, I'll start to believe he's
putting his life on the line.

------
jseifer
This is why I record screencasts for anything that could possibly go wrong in
a live presentation. This also frees you from having to remember exactly
everything you wanted to do in which order. You only need to remember what
you're narrating.

------
rmason
Boy reading that piece really brought me back to my own struggles. Truth is
you probably have a 75% chance of failure.

It is surprising to me that many years after the fact that you only remember
the highs and not the lows.

~~~
pchristensen
The people that remember only the lows wouldn't become entrepreneurs.

------
jacquesm
Why is everybody falling over the choice of words instead of reading the
intent ? Clearly putting your life on the line is meant metaphorically, and a
50% chance to fail is probably generous.

Give the guy a break, he's gone the distance, put his money where his mouth is
and his future is riding on this, on top of that he's open about it.

Kudos from me, if half the armchair entrepreneur-wannabes in the world would
be doing what he's doing it would be a good thing. You really shouldn't
discount the emotional roller coaster that a start-up is.

Idle words indeed.

------
trapper
Sorry, perhaps I am doing things wrong, but when I give demos to customers or
potential investors it's always with ~1 day old trunk.

Do people really just show screenshots or screencasts?

~~~
tom
Screencasts are just plain smart when you have your demo, your single shot,
your company, on the line. Don't count on the internet working anywhere
(especially not a VC's conference room), or EC2 staying up, or your server on
your laptop staying up. Give a well paced talk over a perfect screencast and
nail it. It's not worth the risk - ever.

~~~
trapper
I've been doing demo's for years, and have performed hundreds and maybe I have
been lucky, but have had no major issues.

Our demos are also usually performed with trunk code or 1-2 days old at most.

How do you handle it when you get a question about a particular aspect and
can't show it?

~~~
tom
You can show it - you should always have access to your app, whether locally
on your pres machine or remotely via the hosts internet, but never, never,
leave the presentation demo up to chance. There are enough risks in this
process, why add one more huge one?

And yes, you've been VERY lucky. :)

------
mattcole
Tough crowd :O I thought it was a really interesting insight into the 'softer'
side of starting up, the stress and personal investment of a founder in his
company. I know how stressful live demos are even to a fairly sympathetic
audience who are going to give you another chance if things go horribly wrong;
I could really identify with his description of it knowing how much was riding
on it going well.

Good luck to him.

------
zackattack
I would be very interested in a data point of a successful startup headed by a
non-technical founder whose principal role is to harangue and berate and exalt
his tech team. Oh, and to make Excel spreadsheets

~~~
theoneill
<http://apple.com>

(Steve was medium-technical, back in the day, though IIRC he never designed
any of Apple's hardware or wrote any of their software.)

------
edw519
This headline is false.

Flipping a coin has a 50% chance to fail, because there's little you can do to
affect that probability.

There's a lot you can do to affect the probability of success in a start-up.
In fact, _everything_ you do affects that probability.

This is like comparing video poker to a slot machine. On one, you have an
opportunity for input. On the other, you don't. So they're not the same thing.

