

The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn - DaniFong
http://paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html

======
DaniFong
I submitted this to see the thread of whomever already did. Apparently I'm the
first.

Another weird coincidence is that I'd never seen this before, and it's really
good. Possibly one of the best essays I've read. Or at least one of the most
informative.

"Startup founders are naturally optimistic. They wouldn't do it otherwise. But
you should treat your optimism the way you'd treat the core of a nuclear
reactor: as a source of power that's also very dangerous. You have to build a
shield around it, or it will fry you."

~~~
eb
It looks like it was submitted a long time ago, before this site was even
announced.

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13>

~~~
DaniFong
I guess the prefix www. isn't stemmed for the collision detection algorithm,
then...

------
noahlt
> So I'm going to number these points, and maybe with future startups I'll be
> able to pull off a form of Huffman coding. I'll make them all read this, and
> then instead of nagging them in detail, I'll just be able to say: number
> four!

I am curious as to how well this worked out.

~~~
bstadil
But make sure your "tell it right" and occasionally refer to a number "they
haven't heard before"

~~~
eru
17.

