

Ask PG: we don't have an idea, should we leave the yc application mostly blank? - jotto

how should we fill out YC application if we don't have an idea that we are really into? how can we solicit PG's ideas, and still prove we are hungry animals?
======
SwellJoe
OK, I think you're missing the point of the "the idea doesn't matter much at
this stage" assertion by pg.

I'm not the keeper of pg's mind on this stuff, of course, but I'm pretty
certain that pg and Co. would like to know that you are capable of having good
ideas--even if it later proves to be unworkable, unmarketable, or otherwise
wrong. Having no ideas at all is probably a danger sign.

You have to be able to recognize problems in order to solve them...so if you
can't think of a single problem in the world today that needs solving that the
skill set of your team would be uniquely qualified to solve, then you're
probably not quite ready to do a startup. You clearly haven't seen enough of
the real work world, if you can't think back on a hundred and one things that
you or coworkers did in inefficient ways because there was no good
alternative.

The note about the idea being fungible is just that--it's early, and you may
end up changing your idea through the program, or YC might say, "This is
stupid, but you seem pretty smart, anyway...how about we sit down and come up
with something else?"

YC wants you to be hungry _and_ smart.

In short: If you want into YC, I'm pretty certain you should find some kind of
idea.

~~~
dfranke
PG announced at SS07 that they would start considering applicants with no
idea. I still imagine it's better to have one, though.

~~~
pg
He's right, Joe, we did. So if people want to leave the idea parts blank,
that's ok.

~~~
florianb
Interesting, so what if I have no team but a very good idea ? Should I apply
so you can match teams with ideas ?

~~~
pg
We did once try introducing a group with good programmers and a bad idea to
one with a good idea and no programmers in the hope they'd merge. They didn't,
and in retrospect it was stupid even to try. The people are the foundation of
a startup.

~~~
NSX2
With all due respect, WTF?!? You maintain that people are the foundation.
Seems like in this case the people were not up to it. Either the "idea guys"
had an idea which was not compelling enough to motivate the programmers to
overcome their personal conflicts, or the "programmer guys" were acting like a
bunch of immature, childish, egotistical amateurs and let their personal
opinions and the emotional sparks inherent in any high-pressure environment
cloud their professional judgement.

Honestly even if your name was David Heinemeier Hansson and you were in my
startup and I found you sitting on your rear end and doing nothing because you
had a personal conflict with somebody in the company ... well maybe if you
were David I'd toss the other guy out. But anything short of that I'd have to
have a serious pow-wow with both sides and lay the smack-down; too much money
at stake these days and too much much-needed world changing to let shyness and
immaturity get in the way.

So it seems like the idea was not THAT great, or the programmers not too
mature, or the leadership completely lacking the ability to establish a vision
strong enough and roadmap clear enough to get people to redirect their focus
from the obstacles to the opportunity at hand.

So idea guys, programmers, lack of leadership - clearly all "people problems"
.... how then do you make the leap in logic that the general idea itself was
"stupid even to try."

That's like saying, "Should architects get together with masons to figure out
how to build houses more efficiently? Well, we tried that once and the foreman
and the architect got into an arguement, so it was stupid even to try."

No, it wasn't stupid to try. The outcome was stupid and that was because the
trial components were stupid. Doesn't mean the experiment design was stupid.

On the other hand, what is the implication of your argument, that only
programmers can have ideas worth executing and that the rest of the world just
sits on its collective rear end and wait until some programmer somewhere
thinks up solutions to all the world's ills?

I think not.

~~~
nostrademons
"Honestly even if your name was David Heinemeier Hansson and you were in my
startup and I found you sitting on your rear end and doing nothing because you
had a personal conflict with somebody in the company ... well maybe if you
were David I'd toss the other guy out."

That's what they did, it's just that they "tossed the other guy out" by not
getting together in the first place. That's much less messy than a nasty
breakup/firing later on.

Personality conflicts are not something you can work around by force of will.
Maybe if all parties are disciplined, you can make the situation tolerable.
But in a startup, it has to be more than tolerable. If you don't like the
people you're working with, you're not going to be doing your best work.

~~~
NSX2
Depends.

ONE THE ONE HAND, in my experience drama seems to go hand in hand with lack of
strong leadership and ability to light a fire under people's rear ends by
painting an inspiring "end result of our hard work" mural. It's like that show
on National Geographic Channel, "The Dog Whisperer." Strong presence and
ability to focus the group, no problems. Lack of strong presence and ability
to manage group focus ... dog pack gets nervous and soon all anxiety gets
released by individuals blowing up at each other for the most ridiculous
slights, real or (in most cases) perceived. Same thing in monkeys.

I'm not saying people are dogs or monkeys but we are mammals and that aspect
of individual/group dynamic behavior seems to have been ingrained in our
genetics as a result of who knows how many years.

Strong leaders with big visions and the ability to communicate clear plans to
people so well that people think it was their own idea can crush petty
squabling instantly; I've seen it too many times to not believe it's a
repeatable skill and obviously one of value (who knows where that startup you
mention might have went if the participants learned to grow up and work
together?).

"Personality conflicts are not something you can work around by force of
will."

I think it depends on the individual maturity and the power of the idea and
the money at hand to figure out if you can work around pesonality conflicts at
will.

Don't tell me if you didn't get along with someone but I came and told you,
"If you guys can shutup and work together and finish this feature by the end
of the week, Google will buy us for $10,000,000,000" that you wouldn't
immediately shutup and make friends and get to work.

Of course you would - so it's a question of mental attitude, not operational
impossibility.

What's more important, your ego or the company. I'd hope ALL founders would
say, "The company, because if the company takes off I benefit more than being
right and makign the company flop."

Honestly I'd rather work hard with someone I couldn't stand personality wise
and score and then spend the rest of my life upgrading my "WhySo-And-So-Is-
Stupid" blog than arguing and cancelling the startup.

Anything else is amateurish and childish. I mean if your coworker fed kittens
to Rottweilers or something horrible like that, well that's one thing. But
unless it was something like that,please. Grow up. There are millions of smart
programmers all over the world who'd cut a leg off for an opportunity to work
in a possibly very successful startup where the biggest issue is "I don't like
the guy sitting on the other side of the room."

As for your assertion that "If you don't like the people you're workign with,
you're not going to be doing your best work."

I disagree. Maybe YOU're not going to be doing your best work but I've been in
a startup situation where I loved eveyrbody and I met some unbelievably
talented technical guy who wanted me to jump ship and join him instead. He was
a certified genius but possibly one of the rudest pricks you can imagine.
Every day long after I stopped communicating with him, for like 3 months, he
would send me long emails along the lines of, "Let me tell you why you're
messing up and what you're doing wrong and what opportunities you're missing
and how you can improve this and you should stop that because that feature is
stupid." and so on.

Funny how easy it is to confuse "I like my cofounders and they like me" with
"we're making incredible progress ridiculously fast."

At first I thought it was a no-brainer to pass on working with genius guy
because he was such a jerk I thought it would be impossible to come to work
with him every day, even if he personally wanted to invest the first million
out of his first pocket.

"No thanks, I have VC interest, I have a team that I get along with, stop
emailing me please."

As I've grown older I've come to realize that that guy was like the character
"Mickey" in Rocky: He's nasty, he's mean, he's rude, he's abrasive, he makes
you hate to go to the gym and get in shape for the big fight. But a few months
with him will leave you much better off than hanging out with people who like
you so much that it's all easy breezy.

You might disagree, but I personally respond best to jerks ticking me off and
tend to relax and get a false sense of security when I spend too much time
with yes-people who I get along with really well.

In ANY creative process there has to be a balance between "flow" and "tension"
... too much tension and the venture cracks ... too much flow and not enough
tension and soon you're drifting off in many directions and not getting
anything done.

I don't know if startup situations tend to attract manic-depressive types or
if they make normal people tend to act manic depressive, but I'm sure I don't
have to tell you that many startups have manic-depressive atmospheres.

One day you're going to sneak up like a ninja, crush everyone before they wake
up and run off with all the loot while you're playing Queen's "We are the
Champion" or House of Pain's "Who's the Man?" in your head.

Next day, you realize you've made a HUGE mistake in quitting your job and you
suddenly come to the stark conclusion that you're all doomed, completely
DOOMED and what were you thinking?

Then there's a breakthrough and you renounce your humility and realize you're
"this close" to taking over the world again. Then tomorrow you're at the pit
of despair again. Day after that you're making plans to dynamite your URL on
the moon's surface. And so on.

Until that twilight period gets stabilized, which may take weeks or months or
close to a year or in some case more than a year, you'd be surprised how
useful hostility and anger and resentment can become if you can direct that
properly. Sometimes it's all you have when things are bleakest and you need
_something_ to keep the fire going.

So to synthesise our arguments, you need people to get along well ... but
never too well. All creative acts attract "artist types" and artist types
thrive when they have a "I'll show you, I'll show you all!" attitude, not when
it's like, "Hey, massage my feet? Sure!"

Need breakfast fuel gotta go.

Just my 2c.

------
brianmckenzie
You must be able to think of something.

Just ask yourself "What are the major pains in the ass I deal with on a
regular basis, and can any of them be solved with technology?"

It's probably better to go in with a high-concept, far-fetched idea than no
idea at all. Just see what you can come up with.

~~~
cstejerean
Well, that's one way to come up with ideas. The other is to think "what would
millions of people like to waste their time with".

~~~
brianmckenzie
Touche'.

That's another good strategy.

------
aston
I think last time me and my buddies applied, I left the main idea part blank,
then threw like 15 into the "anything else" section. Didn't get an interview,
but did get a little bit noticed.

