

17 Ways For a Startup To Save Money - coglethorpe
http://www.calacanis.com/2008/03/07/how-to-save-money-running-a-startup-17-really-good-tips/

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Flemlord
This article made me laugh out loud. My first startup was a bootstrap with
$20k in the bank. We were eating hotdogs for lunch and drinking tap water,
trying to make our money last. If somebody had given me startup advice that
included "buy the inexpensive automatic espresso machine," I would have kicked
them in the nuts.

It was a year before we could afford a coffee pot. (The inexpensive coffee
pot, mind you.) The article should be entitled "17 Ways For a _Reasonably Well
Funded_ Startup to Save Money".

~~~
tom_rath
Yes, this advice reads like a naive tale from the dot.com boom.

I thought the first suggestion to buy Macintosh-only (to eliminate the need
for office IT) was leading into a satire.

~~~
cstejerean
The first advice is actually a good one. Buy everyone computers that just
work, so they can focus on getting their job done not having to remove spyware
from their Windows box (or alternatively put up with draconian restrictions
from your IT department).

~~~
thaumaturgy
No! You get people the computers that they work best on. Cramming a Mac down
the throat of a developer or designer that's used to Windows will slow 'em
down and piss 'em off. Ditto the Linux hackers that are out there.

My primary workstation is a Windows 2K Pro machine. Works great. No problems
with spyware, etc. -- I know how to use it.

~~~
cstejerean
I should have been clearer. I'm against forcing people to use any particular
OS (I would never take a job for example that required me to code on Windows).
If your employees want Macs go ahead and buy some. If they need to use Linux
make sure to buy a laptop with supported hardware.

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run4yourlives
>Fire people who are not workaholics.... come on folks, this is startup life,
it's not a game. go work at the post office or stabucks if you want balance in
your life. For realz

Spoken like a true single guy. A horrible way to build a company though.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I dunno. That point hit home for me, actually. I recently got some help in the
form of somebody that's enthusiastic as long as I'm within four feet of him.
Beyond that, he doesn't get anything done, and I certainly don't have the time
right now to constantly watch over him.

I'm usually a nice-guy manager, but I think there are certain stages in a
business where you really need to keep it trimmed down to the folks that are
really willing to get in and work for you.

~~~
run4yourlives
Sure, I'm with you there. But does "the right people" == "workaholics?". I
think not.

I'm always brought back to my army days with this one... I tried out for JTF
2, which is Canada's special forces, basically. Special Forces are like the
start-ups of military life... Small teams, high-performers, massive
flexibility... One of their #1 knocks on me at the time was that I wasn't
married.

Marriage showed stability, it showed you were multi-dimensional, that you had
a built in support group, and that you weren't too much of a risk taker.

When you relate that back to the situation at hand, I think you want people
who have something to lose, but at the same time have an understanding that
there are other important things in life that need to be appreciated and
respected.

Workaholics tend not to have this, and because of that they often make one-
dimensional decisions, get burnt out, and over exert themselves in the wrong
direction.

~~~
thaumaturgy
I think that your response -- and the one at 37Signals -- both point to
problems with workaholics in an unstructured environment.

An effective manager has, among their skillset, the ability to recognize the
workaholics, and recognize the early signs of burn-out. That sort of manager
knows how to massage people so that the workaholics can get their fix -- and
do so in a way that really helps the company! -- without making other
employees feel guilty, and without letting the situation evolve into a burn-
out scenario.

Workaholics will also tend to develop the workaholic streak only so long as
they perceive that there is that much extra work to be done. If you have a
company full of workaholics, and they're all working around the clock for an
extended period of time, then you're understaffed or horribly mismanaging your
projects.

I'm a workaholic. That doesn't mean that I want to spend all of my time
working in the same chair, and if I were to find myself (again...) in the
situation where I'm putting that much effort into a company that didn't
appreciate it, then I'd leave. However, I think I'm a pretty useful asset if
suddenly the company finds itself staring down the cold barrel of a deadline
that's gonna require a quick burst of 14 hour days. I've also in the past
stayed late to implement new features, or just push things a little bit
further ahead.

Now, let's say you don't have any workaholics in your company. What happens if
something does require the big push? Now you're forced either to demand
overtime, which can generate some pretty serious resentment, or you're forced
to figure out some other way out of your problem, which'll probably involve
missing the deadline.

I would think of workaholics as the 10,000RPM part of the engine that is your
company. You can't run the engine that hard for very long, but when you need
that power, there's just no substitute.

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aneesh
Investing in (great) employees is the best investment you'll ever make. To
this day, Google still provides free food to tens of thousands of employees.

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davidw
A _Swiss_ Espresso machine? Banks... ok, chocolate... check. Espresso comes
from Italy though:-)

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LostInTheWoods
These are by far some of the worst suggestions for saving money in a startup
ever.

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srp
At the startup I work at, we just let developers come in with their own
laptops - I would be very surprised if I am hiring an experienced programmer
and they don't already have a super customized laptop that they swear by. It
didn't make sense to buy brand new hardware/software for folks who already
have a wonderful setup on their machine.

Of course then there was this guy who didn't want to do official work on his
personal laptop. We offered to buy him a laptop of his own choice (we
specified a max price of course). He got a HP something (doesn't like Mac's)
and runs some version of linux on it.

Likewise we have no artificial restrictions on software they use - say
editors, jabber chat clients, mail clients etc etc, as long it all works well.

As long as the programmers are hacking away in an env that can run our stack
well we have no problems with what they run. Keeps the programmers happy.

~~~
ardit33
1\. not everybody has a laptop. I have a own custom build laptop.

2\. If I am joining a startup as a founder (or early employee with lots of
equity), I will buy my own laptop, otherwise you are just being cheap.

3\. That guy is smart. There might be legal ramification with doing personal
work on work equipment. So, he wanted to keep his personal and work equipment
separate (or maybe he had too much porn on his personal one, who knows).

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edw519
"Anyone else have startup money saving tips?"

Yes. If the first word of your "startup money saving tip" is "Buy", then it
may not be a very good tip.

~~~
cstejerean
It might actually be pretty good advice. I once worked for a company that
didn't have a supply room (with markers, pens, etc) because they were afraid
too much of it went to waste. So if you needed a marker you needed to make a
request, get it approved and then someone would get you a marker.

Having your $150/hr consultant have to run around and figure out what they
need to do to get a marker does NOT save you money. Often times there is a
trade off between money you spend to buy things and time your employees
otherwise need to spend to compensate. EMPLOYEES ARE NOT CHEAP.

Outsource the parts that are not core to your business, and buy the things you
can afford to buy so you can focus your time (and the time of your employees)
on actually creating value for your users (and company).

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pchristensen
These are actually pretty good for a post-living room company.

