

These tweets are proof that startup people are crazy - liamgooding
http://liamgooding.com/these-tweets-are-proof-that-startup-people-are-crazy

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ahussain
A little disingenuous I feel. Sometimes people click 'click-bait' links
precisely because of how ludicrous they are, not because they are looking for
a hack. I can imagine people clicking some of these thinking 'Ha, who would
possibly fall for this?' rather than 'Gosh, I hope this works!'.

My 2 cents - still a fun experiment

~~~
liamgooding
Yeah 100% agree, particularly with the "Instagram selfie tips to raise a seed
round" link, I think people were more likely to be clicking to laugh at the
article/author!

Worth noting, I churned a few twitter followers during his period too who I
suspect were pissed off at being link-baited :-(

~~~
onion2k
If you agree that people are clicking to laugh at the ludicrous claim of the
author, why then do you say;

 _The conclusion I’ve drawn from the data you’re about to see, is that we’re
all looking for the ‘hacks’. The shortcuts. The non-obvious variables we can
change to have a directly causal effect on helping us to get the things we
really, really want: raising investment, getting MRR (and as you’re about to
see) getting a date!_

Surely, as you apparently agree, the conclusion is that people _aren 't_
looking for hacks, but rather they're looking for idiots to laugh at. The only
causal effect going on here is that people who tweet stupid links cause people
to laugh at them.

~~~
yebyen
Isn't there another possibility, that people are looking for hacks, but
they're also very good at detecting link-bait, and even then they still click
it for the lulz?

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dwightgunning
Since I get called out I'll elaborate on my thoughts on this...

I can understand and appreciate the intention and the potential to learn and
share something useful from such an 'experiment'. It's a topic I'm actually
quite interested in.

I just disagree with using a bait-and-switch which doesn't deliver anything of
value to an unknowing participant. It'd be cooler if the links led to genuine
articles along with a footnote explaining that there's an experiment running
on the side. That just seems more fair and wouldn't impact the result.

I'll laugh off a rick-rolling from a mate but I don't need the distraction
from a company I don't have much of a relationship with. No hard feelings but
hence the unfollow.

~~~
liamgooding
Hi Dwight,

As I said on the tweet, I should have pinged you on the headsup that I was
using your tweet for the "against" argument. Sorry again about that, poor
judgement call on my part, but thanks for the positive words about the whole
idea at the time and again now that I've blogged it all up.

You make a great point, and something I really wish I'd done at the time, in
terms of the "trick" article actually having something else of value. Perhaps
a list of some of the best (genuine) article headline crafting guides, some
posts about real pitch decks, some actual sleep/life hacking posts.. etc.

Looking back I think that would have made the 'testing' phase much better
experience for our followers, and just better all around and had a +ve brand
impact instead of the minor hit our accounts took.

~~~
dwightgunning
It's all good. We all learn here.

------
digitailor
I like this article, because it calls out some concerning trends. I'm having
more and more trouble tolerating contact with startup culture at the moment
and SF in general; I've been avoiding interacting too much with my Bay area
acquaintances recently (but not my friends up there, obv). The amount of
hyperbole, even amongst seemingly sincere people, is increasing at an alarming
rate, and the old feedback-loop insular bubble problem seems to be worsening
in my view. In 1997, at 18, I was at a crazy net startup, and I'm seeing the
rapid growth of the kind of nonsense and marketing-literature driven fluff
that I saw explode then. Bad sign.

A lot of recent Stanford and Berkeley grads I've met sound more like real
estate agents than technologically oriented people.

 _Maybe a Victoria Secret model is actually very technically switched on,
regularly reads HN in between outfit changes, trolls reddit when parties get
boring, loves to Buffer her selfies, manages tickets to club appearances with
Eventbrite and has her accountant send her weekly reports directly in Xero.

Either way, it’s not true. And not likely. But I’m proud to report I’m engaged
to a stunner, and I met her when I was a poor student :-)_

I know this is just gentle snark, but yes, one of my closest friends is a very
successful model that does pretty much everything you listed, often on sites I
haven't heard of yet. (She only reads HN with me but she chooses the links and
always has insight). So maybe kill the snark a little? It makes you look less
cool and maybe distances some people who could be truly awesome, unique
friends. There are some _extremely_ savvy models out there. She travels
constantly and is basically my chief advisor on international communication
trends. Now try to imagine what she overhears when some [redacted] dude wants
to fly her to Bali on his private jet... Yeah. You think they ask her for an
NDA?

Anyway congrats on your engagement! Money is NOT what it takes, right? Carry
that message to the youngins ;)

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thegeomaster
People engaging in all that "startup culture" stuff can be annoying sometimes,
especially when they're of the type "I've just seen The Social Network and am
looking for a technical co-founder to bring my $1bil idea to life".

As for the article, I could totally imagine myself clicking on these
ridiculous titles just to see what the articles say. I hope that was the
motivation for most of those clicks too...

~~~
romanovcode
>especially when they're of the type ..

Or when they're of the type "look at me, i'm so different". No you're not. :)

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VintageCool
25 clicks is noise. This post on HN has more points than any of his tweets had
clicks, which clearly proves that startup people want to think that startup
people are crazy.

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kylnew
There really isn't much to be concluded about startup people so much as the
effects of link bait in general.

I appreciate the humour, don't get me wrong, but I'm just not sure this is
'proof' of anything [EDIT:] about startup people specifically.

That said, if I see an article titled "How our unscientific link bait
experiment helped us raise $xxM" next week I'm not sure if I will laugh or
cry.

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efounders
Great and "fun" experiment :-)

Would be interesting to see how these "types of titles" (How, Tips,
Shortcuts)convert in terms of "time spent", "bounce rate" etc...

I guess that this is also really "Twitter" oriented. On other distribution
channels like HN it might be different.

Last thing, I'm wondering if it's sustainable. So many "tips" and "shortcuts"
articles are shared on Twitter nowadays. Maybe it's rooted too deep in the
human brain :-)

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oxryly1
Can anyone ELI5 this to me? Even this Hacker News thread about crazy startup
people seems crazy to me.

------
solox3
Countering upworthy headlines:
[https://github.com/snipe/downworthy](https://github.com/snipe/downworthy)

(Not guaranteed to work on all headlines; feel free to contribute filters)

~~~
dublinben
Instead of 'fixing' the hyperbolic headlines, stop following the sources that
have shared them, and ignore these sites. Upworthy et. al. do this because _it
works_.

~~~
solox3
The author's idea was to block upworthy headlines, but I use it myself to
block any article links _to_ these upworthy websites, on sites like HN and
Reddit.

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dwaltrip
Honestly, this title is just another link-bait (how meta). Those few dozen
clicks are most likely simply people who are bored and looking for something
moderately entertaining to read.

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JacksonGariety
I'd say "crazy" is less accurate than "mainstream."

When something goes mainstream, it gets a little whack anyway.

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ellysetaylor21
Well, if they are not crazy they won't be startup's.

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tempodox
I like “quadrupole” best. It's prove that startup people are dyslexic.

~~~
phorese
> prove

something something pot kettle something

~~~
kawliga
awesome

