

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me (about starting a company) - hariis
http://blog.bluyah.net/2009/11/5-things-i-wish-someone-had-told-me/

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DanielStraight

        > You will be forced to choose between work and family - and
        > there’s only one right answer.
    

This guy rocks for having the courage to say this in light of all the advice
out there that says you may have to put your family/personal life on hold to
start a business.

~~~
antonovka
As someone with a mildly neglected (but understanding) wife and and an on-hold
personal life, I couldn't disagree with your comment more -- but it's also not
what the article said. The article said:

 _[Your] business is rarely so fragile that it can not suffer some minor
neglect _now and again_._

Emphasis on _now and again_. You _will_ have to put your personal and family
life on hold, but you'll also need to figure out how to maintain your
relationships while you do it.

Starting a company requires a tremendous amount of work, and I've regularly
had to choose between what I want (a relaxing dinner out with my wife) and
what I need to get done to maximize our chances of scaling to the next stable
plateau (a contract, the next product feature, etc).

If you're not ready to put everything on hold and work your ass off, then
starting a company is probably not the right choice for you.

------
Mongoose
_Never implement a feature for a “potential” customer_

That's a gem. It's common to hear the mantra "avoid feature creep," but this
is a much clearer way of saying it.

I was at the Seattle Tech Startups meeting that the author mentions, and his
dislike of public speaking wasn't apparent at all. Kudos to him.

~~~
j_b_f
Man, this is a killer! I wish I had known that. Wish, wish, wish. Over the
years I've poured hundreds of thousands of dollars down the toilet only to
find that the customer had other objections (price/our size/whatever) rather
than just pure feature objections.

------
rg
Most people choose the wrong time periods for thinking about work/life
balance. The usual discussion is about achieving a balance every day or every
week. That just dilutes and compromises both your work and the remainder of
your life. A startup is a chance to balance out your work and life over many
decades. If you can work, say, five times as effectively as other people
(which is hard), and if you can get paid for that, you have the possibility to
compress your working life into 9 years instead of 45 years--that will give
you an extra 36 years with no work commitments at all, free to travel and
choose your own interests. Balance in this form can make up for a lot of all-
nighters during the startup.

~~~
run4yourlives
You're assuming that the 9 years of work are somehow equal to the 36 years of
enjoyment.

Nobody with a child would ever say this. You won't have 36 years of pleasure
if you are "absent" for the first 9.

~~~
philwelch
The trick is to not have the damn kid until after you're done with your
working years. If it's too late for that then you do have problems.

------
daveungerer
Can I give you something to add to your list?

6\. Every publicly visible action you take intersects with marketing.

There's no easily visible link on your blog that directs to your actual
product. Being a "technically savvy" user, I changed _blog.bluyah.net_ to
_www.bluyah.net_ , and got a "Welcome to Rails" page.

After digging around your blog, I realised that I'm actually supposed to go to
bluyah.COM. Please don't make it so hard for someone who stumbles onto your
blog to learn about your product.

And while I was trying to figure out where to get information about your
product, the subtitle of your blog, "Report Blogging for the Rest of Us",
really confused me. What does that even mean?

Hope that helps, and thanks for the article.

~~~
BerislavLopac
As someone said, no knowledge is often better than some knowledge. If you
weren't so savvy, you'd simply check the "About Us" page and then follow the
link to their site.

------
newsio
This is the best link I've ever seen on Hacker News.

It's honest, it's filled with good advice, it has warnings that people should
be at least aware of (e.g., "mentors" who provide an hour of advice and expect
an equity stake in return), and it's very, very well written and is a pleasure
to read. I knew the author had some serious writing experience when I read the
post, and sure enough, he has background as the founder of an online literary
publication.

Thanks hariis, and thanks Paul.

------
dan_sim
I really like the first one : _No one will ever be as excited about your
[product, service, business] as you are_. That should really be the first
thing to say to a new entrepreneur : "noone cares so you better be prepared to
fight".

~~~
philwelch
Maybe after I start a business I'll understand, but this seems kind of
backwards.

"In reality, it’s been more like being a shepherd trying to herd a flock of
ambivalent geese through an obstacle course."

Maybe that should be a cue to make your product or service more valuable and
exciting, with fewer obstacles. If your customers don't love you yet, you need
to do more for them.

~~~
hariis
yep, find passionate users, if not, redesign your product/service and try
again.

~~~
jerf
Even if you find some passionate users, they will be a tiny minority against
the sea of ambivalent geese. Getting the passionate ones on your side is a
good move, but if you have to choose between the passionate ones and getting
more of the flock through the pay gate, the latter is frequently a good
choice. It depends, of course; you can't ignore your passionate ones either or
they will passionately turn against you, but some balance is called for. And
in fact the article warns you, though not in these exact terms, against
letting that one passionate customer turn you into their personal consulting
service while the rest of your customers get left in the lurch. It's not
_necessarily_ wrong, but it is dangerous.

------
CSunday
"No one will ever be as excited about your [product, service, business] as you
are."

This is so true. It is sometimes very hard for you to transfer the excitement
of your idea or product onto others. That's why it's important to find co-
founders that 'share' your vision, or you might risk loosing interest in own
project yourself.

~~~
chinmi
I like #1 as well. But the hard part about that is the uncertainty.

Am I a visionary or just delirious? :)

------
gfodor
All good advice. This alone doesn't warrant praise though, since good advice
often finds it's way to the homepage.

No, what makes this worth reading are three things, a very rare combination:
the advice is succinct, honest, and non-obvious.

------
takrupp
If you have a new product though, it can be tough if there isn't a market yet.
Its tough coming up with something truly new, but that's when I've been most
excited. After that, listening is very important. Everything we have done with
our new iterations has been customer driven.

I still envy Apple, even though this is mostly good advice. They are very
feature forward, but their nitch asks for it, so maybe that can be seen as the
"customer asking for it".

~~~
forensic
Ever since the beginning, Apple has had to ram their features down the throats
of society.

Today, they have developed sophisticated ways to do this like their slick
marketing videos where soft-spoken people walk you through the scary world of
new features.

------
mattm
"But at the end of the day, understand that you will always pay more (in many
ways) than what you had hoped or planned to pay."

This could have been a point in itself.

------
steve_mobs
you can be an entrepreneur and have a social life if you find an understanding
girlfriend and not some paris hilton wannabe. I tend to find asian women more
understanding about work life.

~~~
ardit33
that depends on what kind of 'asian' they are.

I had a Taiwanese friend joking about this last week: He said a americanized
asian girl will complain why you are not spending enough time and money with
her. A fob-i chinese girl, even is she in maternity giving child birth will
tell you: Oh... Don't woorry about the baby, just go to work and make sure you
make the money/get promotion.... etc.

Sorry, don't downvote this, I know it is a crass overgeneralization but this
is just a view of my chinese/taiwanese friend.

It seems that cultural upbringing has a huge role on how women see what the
role of the man should be. And in some cultures, women demand less attention,
which might make them a better fit for busy type of person.

~~~
newsio
I downvoted it. It is a crass overgeneralization, clearly based on stereotypes
that have been reinforced by the narrow opinions of a couple of your friends.

I lived in Asia for more than six years. Speak Mandarin. Married locally. The
idea that Asian women tend to "demand less attention," or what you refer to a
"Fresh Off the Boat" Chinese girl giving birth will urge her mate to "don't
wory about the baby" and "make sure you get the money" is absolute, utter B.S.

