
Joel Spolsky: A new business is like a shortwave radio. - wyday
http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090301/how-hard-could-it-be-start-up-static.html
======
mhartl
This is excellent advice, but be careful about following it too literally: you
could end up iterating on Artix or FamSpam.

You can draw a straight line from the abandonment of Artix (pg's first
startup, making online art galleries), through Viaweb (startup #2, acquired by
Yahoo!), to the founding of Y Combinator and the creation of Hacker News. And,
as his recent keynote (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=487686>) reminded
us, Chris Wanstrath's decision to abandon FamSpam helped bring GitHub to the
world.

It's hard to imagine any amount of 'tuning' leading Artix or FamSpam to fame
and glory; in both cases, the way forward was to start anew. In startups,
rapid iteration is a key to success---and sometimes you have to iterate at a
higher level of abstraction than a single startup.

~~~
hwijaya
Totally agree with your last bit. "sometimes you have to iterate at a higher
level of abstraction".

I think, anyone who wants to start a business should look at things on higher
level. They shouldn't limit themselves on idea-level. Instead, they should
look at business and life as one. That way, probably the advice of "never give
up" sounds more relevant.

If having your own business is one of the goals in life, then, probably the
only time you are pronounced failed (and should give up) is when you die (end
of your runway). Otherwise, running out of cash, work on failed idea and
things like that, for me, is just a temporary obstacles and you still have
chances to keep playing with the knobs. Probably this link below illustrate
the point better. <http://tinyurl.com/bjh8wd>

When we start looking at things in this high-level, i think the case of
FamSpam to GitHub sounds more like another dial on the knob.

Just my 2c. :)

------
spolsky
(inspired by <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=424043>)

~~~
iseff
Awesome, an Inc. article inspired by a Hacker News thread. That, to me, is a
perfect example of the quality of comments on HN.

------
tptacek
Quick, what are the minor adjustments you've made to the dials in your
business that made a huge difference?

~~~
mechanical_fish
If only I was allowed to talk openly about the specific problems I and my
fellow product engineers solved in the semiconductor industry. Let's just say
that the setting of a single knob can make the difference between a fab that
produces millions of dollars of profit and one that produces millions of parts
that are broken and will eventually be scrapped (hopefully _before_ they are
sold to customers as part of their cell phones.)

There's a legend about the Intel shipping clerk who single-handedly destroyed
a sizeable percentage of his fab's output by being too diligent. He wanted to
make sure the company wasn't being shortchanged, so when a box of wafers
arrived from the silicon supplier he would open the box, carefully count out
the wafers into a pile on his dusty desk, then put them back in the box and
send them on into the fab.

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Forgive my ignorance, but was the output destroyed because he was ruining the
purity of the wafers by removing them from the box?

~~~
mechanical_fish
You got it.

Human environments are filled with dust, salt, and oils. When I was trying to
finish my Ph.D. -- which required me to build some semiconductor lasers that
were reliable enough to be tested more than once -- I eventually reached a
mental state where I was so focused on cleanliness that I felt vaguely
uncomfortable touching _anything_ , including objects in my own home, without
wearing gloves.

I'm much better now.

------
pbnaidu
I think tuning little things or finding right combination of things is right
on. For example, if you watch Chef Gordon Ramsay's Restuarant Nightmares TV
show, he does the same thing. He comes in to a failing restaurant observes how
it is run and tries to change Menu, Interior decoration, etc to make it
successful. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Ramsay>

~~~
tptacek
In the bastardized US version of the show, he seems to mostly be turning them
all into the same restaurant. Also, his makeovers don't have a great track
record (check Wikipedia, and also Yelp). I also think the advice you'd distill
out of the show is pretty superficial:

* Reduce your menu to simple, accessible dishes with a restaurant "specialty".

* Reduce price.

* Source fresh ingredients.

* Redecorate.

What annoys me most about the show (even the BBC version) is that personnel
changes never seem to be on the docket --- you have people that clearly
shouldn't running a kitchen, and at the end of the episode there they are,
plating Ramsay's sauteed skate wing.

~~~
mhp
That's not true. Some of the great earlier episodes had HUGE blowups between
Ramsay and the not fit for kitchen people. Watch the Babylon, NY episode, or
the one about the Indian restaurant in NYC.

I think you fail to consider that the places he goes into are usually owned by
a family or a clueless person. He can't go in and say "well, honestly since
you asked to be on my show, it's clear that YOU are the problem. You'd be
better off if you just closed."

~~~
tptacek
Uh, clearly he could choose not to "take the cases" of restaurants that were
structurally incapable of improving. And yet his producers do, because they
are the ones willing to embarass themselves on this show.

More importantly, the fact that Ramsay is willing to yell and bare his chest
for the camera does not change the fact that he does not seem willing to stick
to his guns and demand that they fire the old guy in the kitchen and hire a
talented Ecuadorian to take his place.

------
gasull
Don't business fail also just because they run out of money?

You can have all the morale in the world, but if you run out of money and you
need to pay your rent, you have to move into something else.

~~~
edw519
Think about this statement:

"I am willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want."

(If anyone is interested, I can point you to the source.)

AFAIC, that statement = "all the morale in the world".

Do you really think that someone who says and truly believes that statement
would ever run out of money?

~~~
davidw
Sure. Do you think that someone who truly believes that they can fly won't
land smack on their face if they jump off a tall building?

