
Things I Learned From Founding Technology Companies - kbouw
http://betashop.com/post/32913573235/90-things-ive-learned-from-founding-4-technology
======
edw519
There's a fine line between advice from someone who's been there and suffered
in the trenches and a poser who's respouting the wisdom du jour he heard from
another poser at a conference. It's often hard to tell the difference.

I waded carefully though this, expecting the usual noise, but surprisingly
found lots of signal. This is excellent and already downloaded, printed twice,
on my bulletin board, and in my binder. I need to go through it a few more
times and make notes with a red marker as it applies to myself. What a handy
barometer.

As a programmer, I love to hear unconventional technical wisdom that I know in
my gut is true (3,38,47,53). The business advice was a little more
conventional, but coming from OP, was heard in a new voice (too many to
mention). Some of the "self-help" advice was fresh and interesting
(9,18,29,36,72) while some was the same old stuff (41,77). Oh well, you can't
have everything.

Thank you, OP! What a nice way to pay it forward. I know this will make a
difference in my life, and probably for others too.

~~~
betashop
Maybe I'm ignorant but who is OP?

~~~
chris11
OP stands for original poster.

~~~
betashop
Hah! Make that 91 things learned.

------
betashop
Btw. Making it to #1 on HN is huge! So humbled. Not worthy! Thanks for
reading. I truly hope my mistakes and lessons leaned help other entrepreneurs
get a leg up.

Smile, you're designed to.

Jason

~~~
rblion
Thanks Jason.

I've been through a lot of high's and low's in the last year. This list helped
me realize that a lot of my hunches were correct and some of my assumptions
need to be dumped. Very helpful.

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crazygringo
This is an incredible article, and I would upvote it 100 times if I could.

I really wish I had something more insightful to say about it... but it's just
absolute gold, and better than 99% of the "founder advice" posts I've ever
seen on HN.

Seriously, this deserves to be a book with 90 3-page chapters.

~~~
sneak
> Seriously, this deserves to be a book with 90 3-page chapters.

I see what you did there. (PS: I love that book as well.)

~~~
samstave
I don't see what he did there... enlighten me? (is he alluding to the PG
essays?)

~~~
sneak
Fried and DHH's Rework.

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jonbischke
Please edit this link to the following:

[http://betashop.com/post/32913573235/90-things-ive-
learned-f...](http://betashop.com/post/32913573235/90-things-ive-learned-from-
founding-4-technology)

As soon as Betashop posts again to their blog it will start to get confusing.

~~~
kbouw
Will do! I only linked to the site because I kept getting an error message
from tumblr. Thanks for the link

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justjimmy
Great read. Makes me wish there was something like this for the non-CEO's and
non-founders. I'm sure not everyone wants to be a chieftain (or not ready,
interested, etc), but still wants to be part of a startup where no one knows
anything, don't know what tomorrow will bring, the scrambling, the
responsibilities, discovering customers/product value, etc.

ie: Learning to say 'no' and don't be afraid to voice your opinions to
CEO/Founders. You know, some bullet points like the OP but more to the
audience of those not in founder positions.

Feel free to share articles/links if you have any too!

------
bjansn
'Don't do side projects'? I'm not sure I fully agree with this. Side projects
have a very big internal value for companies and people. It shapes the skills
of the team and can be fun (and sometimes happen to become a business!). Side
projects shouldn't take over the company schedule.

*edit: I love the list, it's awesome :)

~~~
puranjay
Side projects have directly helped me to run my main business. If it weren't
for side freelancing gigs, my company wouldn't even be here right now.

Every person's situation is different. I remember reading an excellent post
from Parse.ly's founder who talked about how his side project helped him put
food on the table while they were building Parse.ly

Not every startup wants to give away equity and control for funding. Side
projects are essential for bootstrapped startups.

~~~
bjansn
You just described how we are building our company. Keep it up! :)

------
pinchyfingers
Points 1 and 2 don't make sense to me. How often is the one thing you are most
passionate about also going to be a huge market opportunity?

B. Wayne Hughes founded Public Storage and is now a billionaire. Was self-
service storage units his driving passion in life? Or did he recognize a
unfulfilled market demand.

Does DHH love project management and CRM apps more than he loves racing
Porsches?

------
jwr
This advice is spectacularly good. As someone with a bit of experience I found
myself either nodding along or shouting "yes!" while reading some of the
points. And some were new to me — I intend to spend time to understand them
and think about how to use your advice.

Thanks!

------
hnriot
I just see all the usual stuff that's get put on motivational posters, "insist
on perfection" - seriously? I'm sure there's some good stuff for people but
buried under all the usual platitudes.

"Don't outsource" may have been right for fab.com but its not always good
advice. Simple websites that are just retail stores care about brand, real
technology companies that actually do something that hasn't been done before
often outsource with good success. Like Apple for example, that outsource
quite a lot of their product and yet seem to be doing ok. (Maps aside)

Most of this reads like a 60's flower child that went to Harvard and got an
MBA.

I'd like to see some of this craving for perfection and every pixel needs my
approval put into practice and not see fab.com paint itself smaller than the
viewport on the iPad and then onReady() redraw itself to fit the screen. Or
menus that don't need to be double clicked.

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ideamonk
I just printed a super-mini version of 'one thing' for my home office -
<http://i.imgur.com/3oa6a.jpg> (single founder edition) . Grab original here -
<http://heldfree.com/one-thing.png>

The text shape can also easily be wrapped over a tall whiskey bottle :)

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rdudekul
Fantastic advice! This will be a classic for long time to come. In the age
where attention span is short and every one is looking for simple formulas or
hacks for success, @betashop poured his heart out to create this list of 90
golden nuggets for entrepreneurs building next generation companies. I will
read this multiple times.

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CReber
I love the article, and I do agree focus & clarity is more than important for
a young business. But when a team/company is successful, you need to be able
to spread your focus on more than one thing.

True success it is (I think) if you can enter any market, build the best
product, and dominate it.

Thanks Jason!

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akurilin
Each one of those points could lead to at least a couple of pages of in-depth
analysis and recount of personal experiences. You could turn all the 90 points
into a book (or into a blog, if so inclined) if you were to expand on each.
Thanks for sharing!

------
dizzystar
This is an excellent article. I disagree with the naysayers that say it's too
long. The short articles I see are usually half-inspired and incomplete. This
is bookmark material. I hope that I follow even half of this advice
effectively one year from now.

Thank you!

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USNetizen
I've read a lot of these, and this one is by far the best. It makes sense and
is drawn from actual experience. Its concise and practical, yet covers so many
topics. Highly recommended. It should be a book!

------
gfodor
It's articles like these that cause me to still load HN every day and trawl
through the garbage looking for gems. Well done.

------
tisme
Thank you Jason, what a super list. And as a side effect, what a super
compliment to those that work with you.

------
lutusp
> 90 Things I Learned ...

Clearly, appealing to a popular audience wasn't on the list. Rescue your
article by changing its title and make a few editorial changes:

Title: "My Ten Principles for Startup Success"

Edit the article to highlight the ten most important principles from your long
list -- write this section carefully, knowing that most people aren't going to
read any further. Then append a list of 80 corollaries for those few souls
willing to read a longer article.

~~~
betashop
Hi. I'm the author. I like it as it is. 10 is a list. 90 is a compilation of
lessons. Thanks for your input though! Don't stop learning.

~~~
gav
One thing that made me chuckle is "Ship it fast and ship it often", which is
both good advice for building software and for order fulfilment.

I like Fab.com and I'm a repeat customer, but the terrible shipment times are
something I use as an example in my work. I'd buy a lot more if I knew I'd get
things delivered faster than the usual 3-4 weeks.

~~~
betashop
This has been our biggest blind spot. Until now.

We're been making great progress on it and 70% of Fab orders will ship within
1-5 days anywhere in the u.s. in Q4 2012.

