

Revenge of the Fat Guy - ssp
http://blog.pmarca.com/2010/03/the-revenge-of-the-fat-guy.html

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ghshephard
I think Fred Wilson and Ben Horowitz actually agree with each other. They are
basically both saying "Find a market that you are likely to dominate, and then
go big or go home."

And, Marc Andreesen/Ben Horowitz had an advantage that 99.9% of all
entrepreneurs didn't have - they were basically able to staff their first 50
engineers from the best of the best, which then allowed them to hire the next
200+ engineers at a higher calibre ("A" people typically hire better people
than "C" people) - Hell, at one point they were hosting "Interqueues" at
Marc's house - Interviews + BBQs - hiring engineers at a clip of a half dozen
a day.

But, I do tend to agree with Fred Wilson more so than Ben - What Marc/Ben did
was unique, they sat down with a few colleagues (Insik Rhee, Tim Howes) said
"What kind of company would we like to build", thought about their experience
trying to on-board companies at AOL, and said, "Hey, that's a really tough
problem. Let's automate it."

They sketched out _very_ rough business proposal. Did a few pitches with
basically little-to-no formal business plan (Heck, for all I know they just
had their pitch), and then Boom, they had money. How many entrepreneurs can
pull that off?

It was also 1999/2000 and money was being dropped right, left and center just
before the bubble burst. Another difference from today's market.

Ironically, Marc agrees with Fred Wilson when it comes to _marketing_. He
always used to say (I don't know if this is still the case) - "Spending large
amounts of money on branding _before_ you have the great product is just a
waste. Build a great, solid product, and then move onto branding / marketing.
Until then, spend the money on engineering, not marketing." (I actually
disagree with him there - sometimes you have to get out a little ahead of the
market, and get in your customers brain, so when you do have a product, you
already have their attention. )

~~~
jon_dahl
I like Ben's point that being lean isn't a goal in itself for a startup.
_Dominating a market_ and _not running out of cash_ are the goals. Running
lean often helps with these goals, especially early on, but if fattening up a
bit helps you dominate the market or not run out of cash (through revenue),
that's what you should do.

I had a friend who ran a small business, and was overly concerned with costs.
It was almost like he was more interested in reducing the expense line than
increasing the revenue line. So that's what happened - both numbers went down,
and he's working on his own today.

~~~
Luyt
Reminds me of a Dutch proverb: "He who thinks in quarters will never be a
millionaire."

