

Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? One Year Later - jaf12duke
http://blog.42floors.com/is-this-what-its-supposed-to-feel-like-part-2/

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martythemaniak
Funny, I've always enjoyed the mountain climbing analogy.

You look at the peak from afar and you get excited. As you get closer to the
base, you start to get a little scared. Half an hour after you start, your
legs are already burning and you're thinking "wtf am I doing here, I could be
having a pint on the patio I passed by earlier!" But you keep on eyes on the
path and keep grinding, step by step, one foot in front of the other. Your
mind goes blank and you get used to the discomfort. Occasionally you stop to
rest and then you see "wow, I'm actually making progress, this is pretty neat.
And the view! This is way better than some random patio.". You keep going and
going for years.

Few climbers make it. Mostly you give up and walk back down (ie fail).
Sometimes, someone likes your climb and sends a mule to help you on the way
back (acquihire) and sometimes they even send a helicoper (product
acquisition). And if you make it (IPO), you find out it's a fractal game - you
always keep climbing, otherwise someone will come from behind and push you
over the cliff. :)

~~~
quickpost
Don't forget all the false summits along the way. Right when you think success
and the summit are within reach, you crest it only to realize, you have a long
way to climb to reach the finish line (liquidity!).

Great analogy - thanks for sharing.

~~~
onedev
There is great danger in believing that there is a finish line.

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hglaser
Best advice in the post:

"Easy. I stopped reading Techcrunch."

42Floors is a magnitude bigger than my company
([http://periscope.io](http://periscope.io)) and has always seemed like one of
those runaway startup successes that we aspire to and occasionally despair of.
Reading something this is incredibly motivating. Thank you for writing.

~~~
jaf12duke
Man, I wish it was a runaway success. Absolutely nothing has come easy. But
we're getting there.

One of the reasons I wrote that post a year ago was that I had to own up to
the fact that we looked better than we actually were.

~~~
jordo37
This is why I am always so impressed by your writing Jason. Thanks for 1)
taking to the time to write these articles and the more advice-style ones,
they have always been useful to me as a founder and 2) being honest and open
(to the extent appropriate) in these articles. Being a founder is an exercise
in self-doubt above everything else, and its important to talk about.

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cocoflunchy
Great article, thanks for sharing.

Couldn't help but notice one thing on your home page: the price is given in
$/sqft/year. Did you A/B test with other representations? It doesn't feel
intuitive at all to me. I would expect people to have an idea of the total
budget they have (/month or /year).

Also I'm sure it's in your backlog already, but a lot of your listing prices
are way off
([http://42floors.com/?page=1&order%5Blistings_rate_per_sqft_p...](http://42floors.com/?page=1&order%5Blistings_rate_per_sqft_per_year%5D=desc))

~~~
darrennix
The reason why most brokers, landlords, and veteran office searchers prefer
$/sqft rather than $total is that $/sqft allows for easier comparison of price
efficiency between spaces of different sizes. Using $/sqft is also preferable
when the total size is fungible e.g., when a space can be subdivided or
combined.

Several of our A/B tests have used total size but it doesn't have a big enough
effect on conversion to be measurable.

~~~
secabeen
$/sqft is used by most experienced people on the residential side as well.

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mikekij
Someone told me that entrepreneurship is the art of blurring what is true
today and what will be true shortly. 42floors has done a great job projecting
success through your web presence, which certainly has at least a small part
to do with why you're actually experiencing success today. I'm looking forward
to reading your post about employee 100 next year. Keep up the good work!

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n72
"Most people walk on paved roads in the valley below"

I know it's not the author who said this, but oh piss off with that self-
congratulatory crap. How on earth do you know what _most_ people do? Let's
see, according to [http://www.statisticbrain.com/world-poverty-
statistics/](http://www.statisticbrain.com/world-poverty-statistics/) 50% of
the world lives on less than $1.50/day. If you're lucky enough to be in the
U.S. with the means and opportunity to become an entrepreneur, maybe put in a
second's thought before you go off and say how uberman you are.

~~~
jusben1369
I don't think he's referring to 3rd world poverty. He's talking to the
hundreds of thousands of people who work at Google or Facebook or PayPal vs
the handful of people who try and build the next great thing.

~~~
n72
Regardless, it's still an incredibly arrogant thing to say. The implication is
that there this class of entrepreneurs who are better than the 9-5ers.
Honestly, get over yourself. (And I say this as an entrepreneur who can't
stand to work a 9-5.)

And next great thing? Seriously? Next great thing is curing cancer not a real
estate site.

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carrotleads
Been influenced by your earlier blog about A/B testing and am using your
experiences to guide me to a large extent.

your designs assumes ( correctly I believe) that whoever comes on to 42floors
already know what they are looking for. So no need for a video or marketing
spiel.

Having thought about it even a new user should get it but have you checked it
out, like asked a random to go to your site and track their experience. Or
would you term such randoms to most likely not be your customers.

