
Ask HN: How common is it for founders to have no idea what they're doing? - vcwelfare
For obvious reasons, I made a throwaway account for this post.<p>I work at a startup that&#x27;s been running on VC life support for several years, with no real revenue, no working product, and no proven customer base. The company has &quot;pivoted&quot; several times to no great success. We have several big-name funders who seem to have invested on the strength of our founder&#x27;s reputation (he was semi-successful in a related space a decade ago).<p>The founder has neither a technical background nor a traditional business background. Management decisions are based largely on his mood (which he takes out on his underlings when it&#x27;s bad), his ego (easily inflated and easily bruised), or wishful thinking (rampant). He is an inveterate micromanager of nontechnical tasks and simultaneously exhibits 1) limited understanding of technical topics and 2) lack of faith in the abilities of technical staff.<p>I guess what I want to know is how common this all is, and how bad it really is. The idea at the core of our business is not stupid, and I believe it has some chance of success if executed correctly. Our founder is difficult, but I hear stories about difficult&#x2F;crazy founders of successful companies all the time. I am probably on my way out, but I am interested to hear whether this kind of situation is very common.
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api
It's extremely common across all segments of society. Someone who isn't really
that good at anything gets randomly successful, develops a strong case of
narcissism fueled by confirmation and survivorship bias, and then proceeds to
set fire to massive amounts of money as they fail in subsequent ventures.
Analogs exist in politics and military leadership too.

It boils down to a few things: (1) humans (even very savvy ones) are absolute
suckers for charisma, (2) it's very hard to tell who is "for real" unless you
invest a ton of time looking under the hood and have enough domain expertise
to judge yourself, and (3) success itself is determined by so many factors
that investment is perilously close to gambling anyway.

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danieka
I guess that one of the only ways of learning to be a founder is to found a
company, and if it’s the founders first startup that would, by definition,
make him inexperienced.

People react differently to the pressures that come along with being a
founder. From what I’ve seen the ego and lack of faith in employees could stem
from the founder’s insecurity. Some people handle insecurity by asking for
help, others handle it by charging ahead. Insecurity can make it hard for
founders to ask for help or accept input from employees.

All in all, I’d say that what you’re experiencing is extremely common.

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jansan
The only thing I can provide is that I once talked to a girl at a party who
had been working at a startup for about half a year. When I asked what the
startup was doing she could not tell me. She said that she didn't have the
slightest clue, but as long as she kept the job she was playing along.

That was in 2002. I Just checked and that company still exists, albeit as a
branch of another company. They must have pivoted about 10 times in the past,
and their current website is littered with bullshit marketing buzz ("Cognitive
Enablement" being one of them).

And sorry, I have no idea how this business model works.

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blablabla123
I've worked in 4 startups - depending on how one counts - and as you describe
it was in a nutshell how it worked.

Needless to say this influenced my own work style a lot. Sometimes it's good,
I guess I'm able to be very pragmatic even if everyone around me might be
completely clueless, something of what I'm proud of. On the other hand I guess
my ability to team play decreased a lot.

Not sure if you experienced that as well, but for me team play was pretended
but the exact opposite happened. Same goes for rationality.

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willcate
Pretty darn common, at least in my limited experience. Sad thing about your
situation is that it sounds like the founder is both clueless AND a tyrant.
Might be about time to hop over to a clueless-but-nice startup.

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SilasX
Absolutely universal, every last one feels this way, it is in _no way_ a
warning sign that your business is built on sand if you get that sensation.

Wait, are we talking about Meredith Perry or Theranos? If so, obviously they
should have gotten the warning signs earlier when it didn't feel like they
knew what they were doing.

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zygotic12
Anyone else thinking money laundering? Or at least tax... um... planning?

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stuntkite
I’ve been involved in two startups that were funded as pet projects by
billionaires that I swear were designed to fail. I’ve read about tax dodge
record labels from the 70s. It really looked like this was the goal in both
situations. Hemmoraging cash, pivots seemingly designed to avoid success,
strong focus on the appearance of work and numbers on the butts in chairs. I
can’t prove anything and left both operations after 8 months per. I just
focused on using the dental insurance and improving my personal skill set, so
neither was a loss for me.

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itronitron
sounds like a clueless narcissist would be an ideal founder at such a startup

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sunstone
When this is the case they're referred to as 'foundlings'.

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itronitron
is that a subset or superset of 'flounders'?

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sunstone
I believe it's a subset of 'flounderinglings'.

