
Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail - craigcannon
http://themacro.com/articles/2016/06/how-not-to-fail/
======
djb_hackernews
Yeesh. #2 hits close to home.

I think I've asked this question but I found myself a cofounder with 2 others
that prioritized too highly IMO coffee meetings with "investors", no name
board advisors, expensive conferences, and basically everything on that list.
My approach was to gently voice my concern and but also let them do it in the
hopes they'd see how useless it was. The other thing that didn't help was I
was the "technical cofounder" and the attitude essentially was I didn't "get"
business, and sometimes I wondered if they were right.

Interestingly both were woman, and I don't recall too much of #3. They
definitely participated in women in tech type groups but I thought it was no
different than any other useless networking others that aren't focused would
do.

This will be definitely something I probe for in the future. Anyone looking
for a cofounder? (I'm serious, and I have a cool little project we could do to
see if we can build something people want together)

~~~
akg_67
The networking is the personal insurance policy by your cofounders against
startup failure. The people connections built during networking events will
land these cofounders leadership/management positions at other companies if
and when startup fails instead of being unemployable or starting at the
bottom. The founders, typically technical co-founders, that don't network has
no such insurance in place and tend to go back to work for someone else as
software engineer rather than upper level technical management positions like
VP Engineering.

~~~
birken
The problem with this line of thinking is that smart companies:

1) Aren't going to hire somebody for a leadership position because they met
them networking --- they are going to hire them based on merit

2) The people in charge of smart companies aren't at networking events because
networking events are a waste of time

Startups are a way to "level up" your career only because you can skip years
of moving up a corporate ladder by starting at the top and building a
successful company below you. This doesn't mean that by being a CTO of a 3
person company you are all of the sudden eligible to be a CTO at a big,
successful company. The process of being CTO at your 3 person company and
growing it into a big, successful company is what makes you eligible for that
position at a different company.

The best insurance policy for your career is to be really good at your job,
which means working on your job instead of networking.

~~~
jtbigwoo
>> The best insurance policy for your career is to be really good at your job,
which means working on your job instead of networking.

This isn't true, in my experience. I have a few pretty good jobs on my resume
(System Architect at a Fortune 50 company, Manager of Development at a big ad
agency). Last year, when I was looking for work, those titles were pretty much
entirely disregarded by the employers I applied to. Almost every one of them
told me they never trusted titles from other companies and tried to get me to
join as a mid-level engineer.

Every time I had a friend inside the company, however, I was routed to senior-
level jobs that actually matched my experience. I've spent time keeping up
those friendships with occasional notes and lunches. If I had just assumed
that being really good at my job would be my best insurance, I would not have
found the opportunities I did.

~~~
Too
Yes, seriously, never trust titles from other companies. I've been in places
where _everybody_ was the "manager" or "architect" of something. Test manager,
release manager, system manager, configuration manager, etc etc. Most titles
barely had any responsibilities at all and were given even to fresh grads as
they joined the team. Essentially it didn't mean anything and in reality all
15 managers were just plain developers.

This was not even a startup where people get a cto-title just by happening to
be there. This was a group inside bigco.

------
danso
> _1\. Make something people want._

I haven't had a ton of experience in startups...once I had to work out of a
startup space. And it amazed me the number of conversations I would hear
between aspiring entrepreneurs and random strangers that were variations of,
"Please tell me if you think this is a good idea".

Everyone knows what it's like to want something. I didn't really hear about
Tinder until after it blew up into something huge, but its proposition always
made sense to me: _Do you want to get laid? Do you often base your decision on
the looks of a potential mate? Would you be OK with requesting consensual sex
without having to fill out a form?_. Yes to all of that. I can't think of
anything I regularly use and/or pay for that I can't sum up as a one-sentence
"want", whether it's Google, Twitter, Netflix, Facebook, Uber...of course
being the first to recognize the desire does not lead to a desirable product
-- there's scaling and marketing and implementation and luck, of course.

But that means the entrepreneur who is trawling around to learn what others
want is even deeper in the hole. Is there something in startup culture that
heavily cautions against pursuing something that you know _you_ want, because
selfish concerns do not often scale (even though they've scaled in plenty of
cases if you look at surviving startups, though that's obviously survivor
bias).

~~~
dang
It's well-established, within YC at least, that solving a problem you yourself
have is one of the strongest foundations for a startup.

Edit: actually Jessica says it in her talk:

 _My advice to those of you who are still looking for an idea is to solve a
problem that you yourself have. Then you’ll know it’s something at least one
person really wants. And when you’re part of the target market, you’ll have
insights about it that you wouldn’t otherwise._

~~~
taneq
That makes perfect sense. You're going to be best able to judge the quality of
the dogfood you're making if you are in fact a dog.

------
vonnik
This is a great talk. While most of Jessica's advice is spot on for many
startups, there are some special cases, namely enterprise software.

Once an enterprise software startup has built its product, or even 70% of its
product, you have to go to conferences. Conferences are where you meet your
users, and enterprise software users and buyers are a hard group to target
otherwise. Marketing and top-of-the-funnel sales happen there. Conferences are
also the places you gather intel about the rest of the industry to get a read
on where it's moving and if you're aligned with it. So the question for
enterprise software startups is: How do you select the most important
conferences and pay as little as possible to attend?

~~~
rgo
Here's my advice regarding conferences and events in general, out of
experience running a enterprise software startup with a decent marketing
budget:

\- Most of large conferences and shows are not worthy it, especially the
expensive ones that "everyone goes to". People are too overwhelmed, busy and
disperse. So both branding and lead generation is ineffective.

\- Mid-sized ones are better, I mean, the more targeted ones, which focus on a
special professional-groups with only a few booths and a cozy space you can
network like crazy.

\- Always try/pay to get a speaker spot. Negotiate a deal so it's "included"
in the price. That's what gives you most visibility, draws people to your
booth and kicks off lots of conversations.

\- Don't grab speaking slots right after meals (lunch usually), otherwise
you'll get a drowsy audience.

\- The opposite is true too. If you have a speaker slot, try to get a booth so
attendees can find you to extend the conversation.

\- Put up the largest screen you can get in your booth or stand, close to the
edge, so that passers-by can stop without fear of being harassed.

\- Try to get a booth close to the speaker/conference area so that you can
quickly draw people into your booth. Here's a trick: have different slide
decks, focused on each of the talks being given (prepared in advance) relating
your tech with that subject matter. Then run your decks in synch with the
talks. After listening to a talk (ie "Mobile app churn"), many people want to
stay in the momentum, they'll be immediately interested if they see "Churn
Management Strategies" in big letters on your booth's screen.

\- Focus on demoing the technology continuously instead of approaching people
asking if they'd like a demo. People stop by when they see you demoing to
someone (even if it's an accomplice). They want to listen in, but they don't
want to be sold to.

\- Don't spend money on swag. People that come for swag just want swag (or
food). But have something handy (ie. a simple card-seized mini brochure that's
not bulky) so people that stop by to see your tech but don't want to interact
have something to grab on to that has your website on.

\- Alcohol, if the conference allows it, at the end of the day is actually a
great weapon for hearing out your (potential) users. Offer beer at the booth
or sponsor a happy-hour. Don't expect to get leads or do serious branding. And
don't over do it! (like building a whole Vodka bar with DJ music at the
booth). This is more about doing F2F and socializing with people that want to
share a drink with you after you take off your salesperson/marketing mask.

\- Have your local reseller/partner (or salesperson) in the booth with you, as
co-sponsor. Not just for costs, but they can do a follow up locally much
better than your marketing team.

\- Rent the badge reader option, so you don't have to clumsy exchange emails
or biz cards. Also works great with antisocial attendees that are just
watching your deck from afar. That's an instant email distribution list for
doing a great follow up.

\- And don't forget about the follow up email. To all attendees, offer a post-
conference webinar where the same content is discussed again so they can share
the link with their colleagues saying "you should hear this talk".

Measure everything (cost vs. leads). Make sure you repeat at the good
conferences and don't insist with the bad ones. Good marketing is all about
consistency.

~~~
karlmdavis
Wow, uh... I'm not in enterprise software right now, but if I were, I'd be
asking you where I could send a check. This is __fantastic __advice. Thanks
for sharing it!

------
ajessup
It would be wonderful if these sorts of articles (which efficiently generalize
advice based on thousands of data points) could back their assertions up with
a few telling case studies. It's often too easy to nod sagely at advice like
"don't loose focus" but not actually recognize the pathology in ourselves in
our day to day lives.

~~~
caseysoftware
Part of the problem is that the teams that lost focused probably quietly
dissolved before they got to any of our attentions. (Maybe Yahoo?)

Personally, I find that there's a simple question:

 _Does this move the company, project, or team forward in a measurable way?_

If the answer is "No" then you need to take a long hard look at it and
_explicitly decide_ that it's either okay and then stop doing it (ideal) or
limit it. And that varies from person to person. Spending time with my toddler
is okay in my book. HackerNews, less so.

The next level question is:

 _Is this the most effective task to this move the company, project, or team
forward?_

And that is way harder to answer.

~~~
davemel37
> Does this move the company, project, or team forward in a measurable way?

I think a better question is, "Is this task consistent with our core values,
value proposition, and beliefs."

Limiting yourself to only measurable activities will cut you off from
serendipity, which alone can make or break a startup.

~~~
caseysoftware
Good point. And agreed.

But if the problem is lack of focus, there's a balance in there. And it's
going to be different for everyone. I think that's a useful bit to remember.

------
exclusiv
"build stuff and talk to users" is so simple but great advice.

For my first successful startup I did the marketing and build and my partner
focused on the users. And we crushed the incumbent in under 2 years completely
bootstrapped and they tried to buy us.

Now I have a new startup where I'm handling the build and the customers and
another partner is focused on the marketing.

It's a subscription business and talking with users helps retention,
acquisition via word of mouth and also product development. Do it even if
you'd rather be spending that time building!

~~~
atom-morgan
What did you build?

------
cableshaft
Jessica asserts that conventions are too distracting and you shouldn't go to
them.

I don't completely agree with that. Depending on what type of business you're
making, the best way to get work done is to go to conventions, because that's
the only time you can easily meet with a bunch of people that are related to
your industry and make new partnerships, check out new hardware/software
solutions to save time or money, possibly hunt for some new talent to join the
company, discuss business propositions, etc, can all be possible in much
shorter period of time than doing the same outside the convention.

Even just having the opportunity to meet someone face to face that you've been
doing business with for the past several months can be useful.

That being said, you don't need to go to a lot of them. Attend only one or two
of the most productive ones per year (most productive ones are not always the
largest), and you should get a lot done without spending too much time at
them.

Also don't go if you're strapped for cash, as they're often expensive
(depending on the industry). They're not absolutely necessary, and they can be
a waste of time if you don't utilize them properly. But they can be helpful
tools.

~~~
pbreit
Whenever someone advises "don't do this", it's usually pretty easy to come up
with valid reason to do this. Fine.

The lesson here is either avoid the sinkhole of conferences/events. Or, if you
are so inclined to go, make sure you understand that unless you are extremely
focused and efficient, it is likely to be a waste of time for you.

~~~
cableshaft
Fair enough. It's also very easy for people to treat what she says as gospel
and go "I must not go to a conventions because this very knowledgeable person
who has much more experience than I do said they're not useful. So therefore
they must not be useful."

It goes both ways.

~~~
sbov
It's somewhat circular reasoning, but my view would be: if you're so
inexperienced such that you will blindly follow her advice then you should
blindly follow her advice. If you aren't so inexperienced such that you don't
blindly follow her advice then you're probably OK to not blindly follow her
advice.

This is basically true for every field ever. Generally recommended practices
are most important for beginners. Once you're experienced you can start
recognizing when it isn't applicable. Beginners oftentimes aren't experienced
enough to apply nuanced advice, and nuanced advice oftentimes is masqueraded
as general, rather than nuanced, advice.

Somewhere inbetween people might get lost but I feel like approach this gets
the majority of people on the right track.

~~~
pbreit
But in this case, there are a lot of somewhat experienced people who
(mistakenly) think conferences are likely to be valuable. Those are the folks
who would be wise to listen to such advice.

------
pfarnsworth
You can do all of the above and still fail. Often, success or failure is luck-
based and completely not skill-based.

~~~
humanrebar
If it's true that luck is important, shouldn't it be 'smart' to try many 'fail
fast' things so there's room in a career to fail 20-30 times and have a more
reasonable shot at success?

~~~
pfarnsworth
What about those that stuck with an idea and hit gold eventually at some
point? What if failing fast is too fast and you don't give an idea enough time
to grow? MVPs and failing fast is an idea that started in the past ~7 years,
and it works for some people and not for others.

~~~
humanrebar
I didn't imply there weren't other ways to make it. But there are only a few
ways to hedge as an individual dev. One of them is to shoot with a shotgun.
It's more or less what incubators attempt to do, but spread out over times
since each of us only has one brain to go around.

~~~
pfarnsworth
There's no data to indicate that that way is superior to any other way.

------
katzgrau
As a bootstrapper of broadstreetads.com (about to pass the four year mark), I
can genuinely say that focusing on building what your customers truly need and
measuring growth are two critical pieces of advice that do not get emphasized
enough.

I love to shut myself in and write code, don't get me wrong. But consistently
tracking sales growth, setting goals, and hitting goals (i.e., execution) is
what separates the wannabes from the dids.

------
zeeshanm
I also think it's super important to make something you can sell in addition
to making something people want. Frankly, there are so many things people want
but not every founder has resources or is well-equipped to sell it.

Your goal as a founder is to maximize chances of __your__ success. Having the
right founder-market fit goes a long way.

~~~
CodyReichert
Definitely agree. It's easy to think of a cool "new social sharing blah" idea
-- but guess what? If you're a new founder, without a large persuasive network
to get word out to free users -- you're going to have a very hard time.

On the other hand, if you build something useful, and can start racking up
subscriptions by doing some footwork (talking to users, giving out free
accounts, etc), then you've got a much better chance.

------
woah
Focusing on growth and revenue sounds like the right thing to do for a p2p dog
walking marketplace, or a SaaS enterprise meal planning app, but what about
the startups solving big problems? Is month over month user growth relevant to
a nuclear fusion or jet airplane startup?

~~~
balls187
growth & revenue are ways to show "traction" \-- a buzzwordy way to measure
meaningful progress.

For an R&D based startup working on Fusion, that progress would be measured
differently.

Many businesses have Key Performance Indicators (KPI's). Startups should be no
different.

~~~
tlb
I've seen meaningful progress metrics in R&D-stage companies working on
fusion, synthetic bio, AI, rockets, and more. I think they're especially
important in R&D companies, because it's so easy to go off into the weeds or
solve the wrong problems.

------
Sidnicious
Woah, I've been struggling with the idea of “going to conferences” (on the
list of distractions).

I have personal projects that I want to finish (not a startup), and the
conferences I enjoy tend to feature people showing off their own projects.
Whenever I‘m at one, I think, “I’d rather be on stage, sharing something I put
months (or years) of love into, than be one of the 100-1000 people in the
audience watching.”

Of course, going to a conference can be inspiring, or introduce me to people
or ideas that’ll shape my future work, so they’re not all bad. I’m interested
in how other HN folks approach this conflict.

Semi-related, I experienced something interesting at a hacking conference a
few years ago. Mid-conference, feeling inspired, I hid in the volunteer lounge
for almost a whole day and worked on a reverse engineering project that I’d
been fighting to understand for over a year. I solved it! Being there, and
aware of all of the people and activity around me, but _actively ignoring it_
, gave me focus and motivation. That was fascinating, and I’ve considered
doing the same thing again (or finding a really interesting conference and not
buying a ticket, so that I could work while I know I’m missing it).

------
logicallee
Could someone help me understand her list under Point 2, Stay Focused? She
writes:

>One of the most conspicuous patterns we’ve seen among the thousand startups
we’ve funded is that the most successful founders are always totally focused
on their product and their users. To the point of being fanatical. The best
founders don’t have time to get caught up in other things.

>Here’s a list of things that I see easily distract founders. These are like
the startup equivalent of wolves in sheeps’ clothing.

[she includes 8 points, of which I quote 4 below - _I am quoting selectively._
]

> \- “Grabbing coffee” with investors

> \- Networking

> \- Doing a “partnership,” thinking it will get you more users

> \- Going to conferences

Now, I need help understnanding this. She has listed some of the items that
separate people building startups in unfundable locations where there are 0
startups, and startups building in the Bay Area.

If you don't need to do these things, why did YC shut down it's Boston program
and make everyone do it in the Bay Area?

If you don't need to do these things, why can't you build a startup from
anywhere in the world as long as you speak good English and have no costs?

Aren't these things _literally_ the things that make startups fundable,
financiable, possible to grow into huge businesses?

I and anyone else on HN who has been in the Bay Area and in startup-dead
locations knows the huge difference. She seemed to quote some of it under
'distractions'.

Can someone help me understand why they aren't, in fact, part of focus?

~~~
ap22213
Having failed because of some of those reasons, I think it's because those
activities are very time-consuming and distract from being fanatical about the
product.

It would be different if they were fruitful, but more often (in my experience)
they are dead-ends, and worse they spawn other activities that are dead-ends.
It becomes a huge time sink. That said, it seems difficult to make legit
connections without having them initially. Where I live, there are a few major
companies that had succeeded decades ago, and most of the startups in the city
seem to be run by ex-employees of those companies.

I think the advantages of living in the bay are 1) more opportunity to bump
into someone who knows someone, and 2) having access to more (passionate and
active) early adopters.

~~~
logicallee
I think I misread it. She actually said:

>The best founders don’t have time to _get caught up in_ other things.

>Here’s a list of things that I see _easily distract founders._

So if you don't get "caught up" in it it's important; while they can "easily
distract" founders, they're important. I think she might have gone too far
stating that they're the startup equivalent of "wolves in sheeps’ clothing",
because wolves in sheeps clothing presumably are _only_ out to hurt you - but
read this way her point comes across well. Spending too much time with them
ends up hurting you, even though they can be important. I mean one of them is
Networking... try building a startup without that.

------
usmeteora
as a 26yr old female Electrical Engineer getting involved with
entrepreneurship and doing my own software startup, I agree there is too much
controversy, talk and fear surrounding being a female in tech.

Don't get me wrong, it is isolating in general but after working for two
startups, one bought out by a foreign company and another now has billions in
funding, doing software analytics on the trading floor through summer
internships in college, and going to a predominately male college for
engineering, 70% males overall, and 99% male in my major, I can say I have a
diversity of experience even within the tech field and also years of
experience working at single companies before moving on, I can say a few
things that I think echo what she is saying

1\. Most of the people speaking the most about female controversey are not
coders, or engineers or in the nitty gritty of tech. While I appreciate their
empathy and willingness to latch onto a cause and speak for us, they often get
it wrong, and recently have done so much so that they scare the MAJORITY of
men to feeling uncomfortable talking about it. What do I mean? onto point #2

1a. Sorry, before I go to Point 2, another way journalists or people wanting
to speak out on our behalf (female women in tech) get it wrong is by assuming
we want to change the culture to be this outgoing, social fashion forward
world. Actually, alot of us are introverted geeks and like doing the same
thing other male engineers do. I definitely think wheather you were or are a
cheerleader sorority girl who likes to bake and throw parties or an
introverted star wars nerd and each one is an engineer, either should feel
equally comfortable at a new tech company and not isolated by the culture, but
anecdotally I happen to be an extreme introvert, and the excessive socializing
and advice or notion that if we have an environment where we can all be super
girly like omg together is the vibe I get from alot of female focused events
in tech. It's actually overwhelming and makes me feel more out of place than
not. Listen to us, not imposing your idea of how we might feel onto us. Get a
good profile of what females are saying who are IN tech, and if there is a
difference between that and the ones who are latching onto the idea of it or
operating in auxiliary roles surrounding tech. These women are just as
important, and are are still subject to sexism working around male dominated
industries, but if you want more women IN tech, instead of talking about tech
but not in it, listen to the women IN it, you might be surprised.

EXAMPLE

Here is one example where both genders are contributing to the problem but
making it harder for women IN tech. my friend is a Biomed Engineer who
prototyped and developed her hardware. Keeping her anonymous on here, but she
went to a big tech conference in the bay area and was approached by three men
asking if she was a "showgirl" at the conference as a starter to the
conversation. Of all the things you could possibly say right? How offensive to
a female engineer with over 30 pending patents running a multi million dollar
company and two engineering degrees under her belt. Welp, those guys are in
the wrong, but also why are there showgirls at tech conferences. because hot
girls attract geeks to the boothe. But MEN hired these showgirls, and WOMEN
are actually fufilling those roles. So both parties are at fault.

Who suffers? The people who suffer are the ACTUAL female engineers who would
love to go to a conference and not have it be assumed they are there in an
auxiliary tech role until proven otherwise.

once my friend described who she was, both of the guys felt really bad, even
embarassed and apologized profusely. They ended up being cool guys she is
still friends with. they learned a lesson, but they have also been heavily
conditioned by males and females who are both willing particpants in
establishing a stereotype that is demeaning to women actually in tech.

2\. Most men I've met and worked with in tech are absolutely fine. It is that
in general outlier cases good and back stick out in our heads. If there are
200 employees at a company and only 2 females in my department of 40, probably
over a 6 months period the chances are I'm going to be made to feel
uncomfortable whether intentionally or not by one person atleast. I'm not
saying it's acceptable or ok, or that steps shouldn't be taken to fix it, I'm
saying 19/20 guys I work with in a random sampling are just fine, and don't
make being a girl a thing, and treat me just the same, or if anything are
excited to see women in tech and go out of their way to make you feel
comfortable. It's then in your discretion to stand on your own two feet and
not take advantage of that, because some women do, which brings me to...

3\. There are some women who abuse their minority status. I'm NOT saying women
who have spoken out about being treated poorly are the ones who are abusive,
or that they are lying. It is usually ones that have nothing to complain about
and the situations are much more nuanced. I'm sorry people will get mad at me
about this statement but I feel comfortable saying it as I've observed it and
I work in tech and I'm not going to lie to remain politically correct. Both
males and females are capable of abusing their position. Not all males do it,
not all females do it. So hating men or making them terrified of saying the
wrong thing if anything is just going to make you feel more isolated.

There are also women who still have queen B syndrome and like being the only
female around, and actively bully other women. This is so obnoxious. However,
in my varied experience in tech, I can say one key indicator of a real female
engineer, is that most of us would LOVE a female friend because we don't have
many. Females that view male dominated workplaces as a fun new playground
because of all the men, are constantly having coworker boyfriends, and view
other women as competition, instead of empathizing with them, have probably
not experienced the long term years of being in college engineering classes
and doing their homework and not having female friends, and the desire to be
treated as an equal instead of put on a pedastool or having to prove
themselves. Real females doing real work in tech know what it's like to be
isolated, and when we get together as females, we are all super super grateful
for it, and we all feel uncomfortable going to glitzy girl focused events
where we are bombarded by girls not in tech telling us how things should be.
This has been my experience.

4\. While some of us can't choose who we work for and with, if you are a
female IN Tech, not marketing or some soft auxiliary department of a developed
company, but you code or prototype electronics or hardware or engineer
something, then you are valuable enough that you can move onto thousands of
other companies if you don't find one with a culture that fits your comfort
zone. Not just because you are a talented brilliant ambitious female, but
because you are a talented brilliant ambitious engineer, and they are in great
need in any gender, but being a female is always a great added diversity and
step into equality for EVERYONE, not just females. AGAIN, it's not ok women
should ever have to feel uncomfortable but we live in the real world and not
everything is fair, not just for women, but for alot of situations and people
in general.

CLOSING COMMENTS

In life in general, forget being a women or startups, a good rule of thumb,
and one I took way too long to learn myself in my personal and professional
life, if you don't like how you are being treated, then start hanging around
different people.

I have plenty of male engineer friends who are low key, we geek out together,
order pizza, watch tv, code, switch knowledge, music and talk about latest
tech stuff, and its totally chill. What and who makes you feel comfortable but
also gets you excited about learning and obtaining your goals? hang around
them and your work life and personal life will be better. It's the same as if
you want to stop drinking but your friends only method or venue for
socializing is drinking, well it's not going to be super fun for you, so hang
out with people who gel with your same lifestyle.

I definitely have my frustrations, but my successes and friends male and
female far outweigh my desire to spend most of my time feeling negatively.
This is coming from a girl who has been through some troubling times with male
coworkers. It's not that is hasnt been harder, its just that I have so many
things I want to do, I'd rather "show them" by being successful and acheiving
my goals than fighting a legal battle. I am glad some women have chosen the
legal path, but I actually would be upset if someone chastized me for not
spending all my time in court. There are lots of way to bring tech forward
with everyone, not just articles and legal battles. Sometimes, just being a
good role model, the girl you wish you had to hang with 5 years ago when you
had no female friends, goes alot farther in the world of tech females who
actually need a friend, not just people reading the hottest news. Any new girl
I meet in my company or department or otherwise who is an engineer or software
developer, I atleast attempt to make friends and go out to lunch or a grab a
drink with them , let them know I'm available to chat or otherwise, and every
time I've been endlessly thanked saying I'm the only female friend they have.
Well, now I have like 5 awesome female engineer friends and we all are friends
as a group now, it's not much, its not enough, but its more than we ever had
and it's all we have time for, because you know, we are also coding, starting
companies and doing all the same things males do so we are not over here just
being social butterflies. As cliche as it sounds, and something I never would
have believed about myself years ago when I was feeling isolated, is that I
focused on being the change I wanted to see in the world, and the role model I
wish I had when I was fresh out of college, instead of fighting legal battles.
Sometimes thats the right thing to do, sometimes my path is a good one too,
and I don't regret it.

I've had to abandoned some groups, and in one case a company because I was
around egotistical chovenistic males who challenged me on everything and even
worse it was all subconscious sexism so it was not even easy to address. no
its not ok, but I decided to instead of fighting for it for years and years,
to move onto something better for me, and now I can spend the majority of my
time coding and working on my goals, instead of fighting against people. It
was the best decision I've ever made, I'm able to be alot more technically
advanced, and by holding my head high and deciding I could do better, instead
of tearing other people down.

Atleast three of those guys have come to me years later to apologize (with no
prodding on my part), tell me I was a good player on the team, and I know from
females who joined that same team later, they are treated very well. Those
guys straightened up because sometimes the most powerful thing you can do, is
know you deserve better, walk away and discover a place that fosters your
worth. If you have real tech skills, this will always be an option for you as
a woman, or a man. It's ok to stand up and "fight" and it all depends on your
situation. I should have had more support in mine, but honestly I think I made
the right choice by just moving onto something better.

FINAL NOTE

She is right, don't be scared. JUST DO IT. If you can actually code or
prototype, then do it. Perform, let your product speak for itself and noone
can argue with you. That is the cool thing about coding or being an engineer,
if it works and people are paying for it, who cares if youre a girl, or a
transgender, or have purple hair, wear tennis shoes to work, or if you are a
hippopotamus. It's not going to be easy, it's going to be WORTH it, and there
may be some extra barriers, but how rewarding for you to be a trailblazer.

I never thought of myself that way until people started calling me a
trailblazer or a "badass" years out of college and now that I think about it,
hey yeh, I've been through some pretty hard times but damn this is cool,
minority or not, I love what I do and nothing is going to stop me. In fact, I
had no idea when I first went into this that anyone would want to stop me, or
feel threatened by me, and honestly, that is the hard part.

THE HARD PART

The hard part is realizing that some people are actually not supportive of
you, subconsciously or not, alot of the anger on your part comes from the
confusion surrounding the challenge of understanding this concept, because if
youre an awesome person who doesnt need to tear other people down to have
success, this isn't going to be intuitive for you to understand other people
are actually that lame. Once you realize yes these warped people in self
denial who project their own insecurities onto you DO exist, and probably
always will in some form or fashion, then you can be like "oh, no I'm better
than that sorry". Sometimes again, legal is a good way, sometimes not.

Just do you and find that confidence. if you don't have it, dig deeper, if
youre reading this youre already way ahead of the game and have nothing to
feel insecure about. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond
and how you let it effect your opinion of yourself or your subconscious belief
about your capabilities.

Have that attitude, and support other girls around you, focus on your work and
not people, and youll be amazed. In the words of Dr. Suess "oh the places
youll go.."

~~~
mklim
>anecdotally I happen to be an extreme introvert, and the excessive
socializing and advice or notion that if we have an environment where we can
all be super girly like omg together is the vibe I get from alot of female
focused events in tech. It's actually overwhelming and makes me feel more out
of place than not.

I'm just one more anecdote and a bit of a living edge case, but this has been
painfully true for me as well. I deliberately avoid women in tech
events/blogs/etc now because of how uncomfortable they tend to make me.
Hearing "tech" talks about how it's important for women to get hired because
we're just like, so in touch with our feelings and therefore we make great UX
--incredibly demoralizing and othering for me.

~~~
ci5er
I'm assuming based on your use of pronouns that you are a "woman in tech" (if
that is incorrect, please correct me). IF that is wrong, then my eventual
stated question later is pointless, but I am forging ahead on that
assumption...

I am an old white straight male. When I started out in my employed career -
semiconductor design - Motorola - Tokyo Japan in the late 80s, I had to spend
a year in the US for "training", but in both the US and Tokyo it was about
70%~80% males and 20%~30% females. Systems. Circuits. Layout. Fab. Prequal. I
guess more females in layout, but ... in general that was about how it was.

We all worked together, raised barns together, drank together, went to
funerals together. We were mates. Co-workers.

It wasn't until recently that I was told that this was wrong. That I needed to
show more concern about female issues in a male dominated world. And maybe
this is right - I don't know. I wasn't educated enough to know that treating a
talented female engineering co-worker as a talented co-workers wasn't enough.

I guess my question is this: Is ignoring gender when interacting with co-
workers wrong? Should I be doing something different when I interact with
female co-workers?

~~~
mklim
>I guess my question is this: Is ignoring gender when interacting with co-
workers wrong? Should I be doing something different when I interact with
female co-workers?

Me being sexed female doesn't really qualify me to answer this question--I'm
just some random person and have no formal power to speak as the official
representative for Women Everywhere (I'd be a very bad choice for that, too--I
am so masculine that I tend to be perceived as male, that's part of what I
meant when I called myself a "living edge case" in my earlier comment).

That disclaimer out of the way, two points to your question:

1\. It's highly unlikely that you are treating women identically to men, even
though you genuinely believe you do. I'd bet hard money that you don't,
actually, because a) almost nobody does, myself included despite my best
efforts b) I can already name an instance where you didn't--you specifically
asked me this question based on my sex and only my sex, by your own admission.
I don't know how much you've read about unconscious bias, but it's a very
well-studied and documented phenomenon and I recommend looking into some of
the research on it that's been done. Hiring managers are more likely to extend
offers to identical resumes that have male names, and the offers they extend
to the male-named resumes tend to be higher. Startup pitches given by male
actors are rated as more convincing and more likely to earn investment by VCs
than the exact same pitches given by female actresses. Women are interrupted
much more frequently than men in group discussions, and a group will perceive
that women have talked "most of the time" if they talk for >=30% of the time.
Men are perceived as more technically competent than women. Women are
perceived negatively (too aggressive, "not a team player") for negotiating
their salary, in general, whereas men are not. Even if you specifically are
100% egalitarian and have no mental shortcuts that you apply towards women
whatsoever, the vast majority of the people they're interacting with are not
truly gender blind. This is from people who really believe that they are
unbiased, in a lot of cases, and aren't aware of the subconscious stereotyping
that's driving their behavior--that's the unconscious part, and it's
insidious. So, consciously saying "well I believe the genders are equal and I
treat everyone the same and that's what we should do in the workplace, not
take sex into account at all and just be buds" can just leave subtle sexism
totally unchecked and rampant, instead of truly promoting equal behavior.
Harvard hosts a couple free online tests to check your implicit bias, if
you're curious to check yourself:
[https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html](https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html)
(I come off as biased on gender, for the record, most people do, regardless of
their sex.)

2\. I think this question, like affirmative action, comes down to whether you
think it's more ethical to prioritize equality of opportunity or equality of
outcome. Women in general are socialized to defer to the people around them,
be more caring, be less assertive, be less confident. That has already
happened by the time you're hiring them. If you and everyone in your workplace
somehow do overcome your socialization and years of mental heuristics and
manage to treat women in the field exactly the same as you do men in the
field, the women will still have lower salaries (don't want to be
confrontational and negotiate aggressively), apply to your job openings less
(women do not apply to a job unless they meet the majority of the listed
qualifications, unlike men), be less likely to voice their opinions in
meetings, etc. Note here: I'm not saying all women act like this or every
individual woman is more likely to than every individual man, I don't as far
as I'm aware, but I'm saying that a random sampling of women are in general
more likely to than a random sampling of men are. I'm sure you've seen that
internet argument half a dozen times already, but in general the argument for
treating everyone the exact same way is that you're treating everyone equally
and that's the best you can do, even if there's disparate outcomes we
shouldn't treat people differently, we should just control our behavior and
make sure that's egalitarian. The argument against is along the lines of: we
don't tell people confined to wheelchairs "the stairs are open to you too,
stop fussing", we build ramps for them--the starting points for the two groups
are not equal, therefore treating them the same isn't really egalitarian in
the first place, it's just keeping the (unequal) status quo.

I can tell you that I personally would be extremely unhappy if my coworkers
decided to behave in specific ways towards me because of my sex, but I'm, like
I said, an edge case. And, on the contrary, I've had coworkers (correctly)
guess that I am attracted to women and make awkward non-sequitor statements
about their lesbian relative/friend and how happy they are for her--I actually
am really pleased when this happens, even though it's always extremely awkward
and we both know why they're bringing this up out of the blue. It lets me
relax about it and just act normally without it affecting my career. (An
aside: my first internship, my boss was big on listening to Rush Limbaugh in
his cubicle, I wasn't working in a state where sexual orientation was a
protected class, and I wasted a huge amount of mental energy agonizing over
him potentially firing me over it, 0/10 internal conflict would not
recommend.) So even an individual can have conflicting feelings about their
minority status being explicitly accounted for by their coworkers, you can't
really generalize.

~~~
ci5er
I've never worked in a protected-anything state, but why would someone fire a
valuable contributor because of orientation after they've gone to the expense
of hiring and training them? Was your fear irrational because you were young -
or was your fear rational because humans are jerks?

~~~
mklim
If you're in the US, there are already several universally protected classes
(race, gender).

Why would a parent knowingly disown and put their gay child out on the street,
risking criminal charges and effectively wasting however many years of effort
they put into raising their child? I don't know, but ~40% of the homeless
American youth population identifies as LGBT. (Source:
[http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/americas-
shame-4...](http://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/press/americas-shame-40-of-
homeless-youth-are-lgbt-kids/)) Happened to a friend of mine as a teenager.
People are not always rational actors. Firing someone over their sexual
orientation is extremely rare, but not unheard of. (A handful of anecdotes:
[http://www.advocate.com/year-review/2013/12/18/meet-
people-f...](http://www.advocate.com/year-review/2013/12/18/meet-people-fired-
being-lgbt-2013))

Luckily though, my former boss had similar opinions to you and I was
completely fine. I've since moved to California and established myself as a
solid developer, so it's not even a serious issue on my radar anymore. I would
just switch to a better workplace now if I was concerned.

~~~
ci5er
So, in this case, you were young and irrational and didn't understand the cost
of replacing a good developer?

I'm still processing your upstream comments, but anecdotally, when I got to
spend about a year on the street, Imma gonna to say that in central Texas,
there were a lot of people with mental challenges (which is sad) and a whole
lot more with drug issues (which is a different problem, and separately sad),
and either of them would have swung any way you asked for their next hit. I am
not going to claim that this experience is representative in any way.

~~~
mklim
I couldn't tell you if I was irrational or not without knowing the number of
tech bosses conservative enough to listen to Limbaugh at their desk and strike
up pro Tea Party/anti liberal discussions as a way of making casual
conversation, and then the number of those that would fire a developer over
their sexual orientation. I don't know what that percentage looks like, so I
can't say whether or not I justified in my concern. I know I was wrong in this
specific instance thankfully, but I don't know what the real probability looks
like given my boss' behavior. I had gone through some negative prior
experiences that could have made me jumpy, admittedly.

Maybe the methodology was incorrect or the sample unrepresentative, my only
personal experience with it is the one friend.

~~~
ci5er
Wow. wow. wow. I find it incomprehensible that this would be a concern. I am
sorry that you have been made to feel this way.

I'm probably so far right as to make Rush Limbaugh un-listenable (to me)
because: 1) he's irritating and repetitive, and 2) too far left. :-) (that's
kinda/sorta a joke)

But I've gotta say that even though they were outnumbered (80/20?), females
made up at least half, if not more, of my top developers in a start up in the
late 90s. And from what I understood (I was afraid to ask), half of the female
developers were homosexual. The point is: I would have had to have been insane
to fire them. It would have knocked $20M (maybe $200M) off my market cap the
very same day!

I guess I need to thank you. I have a lot to learn about the way that the
world works...

(thank yOU!)

~~~
mklim
No problem, glad my anecdotes are interesting/helpful!

To be fair, the internship and his mentorship were both invaluable to me, I
was very lucky to be hired, I don't want to make it sound like a sob story.
Firing over sexual orientation isn't really tracked so there's no hard
numbers, but IME it is incredibly rare--never happened to me or anyone that i
personally know, to the best of my knowledge. My concern could have been
(probably was? your anecdote brings N up to 2, anyway) completely irrational,
like the above poster was wondering.

Hah. Reminds of the story about the time Eisenhower reportedly tried to root
out lesbian members of the armed forces:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=HO7IKU79zgAC&lpg=PA47&ots=...](https://books.google.com/books?id=HO7IKU79zgAC&lpg=PA47&ots=WVUFNHX6A1&dq=%22forget%20the%20order%22%20wac%20policy&pg=PA47#v=onepage&q&f=false)

~~~
ci5er
I don't know. I (maybe I am wrong) have been intending to treat team-members
as "some dudes with bumps on their chest that may have various after hours
habits that are none of my concern".

In aggregate, upstream, you are saying: 1) No: I am not treating them equally,
even if I think I am, and 2) Females have some real needs/concerns that I
should care about.

Now that I know that I am inadequate to this task - what should I do to be
better?

~~~
mklim
>I (maybe I am wrong) have been intending to treat team-members as "some dudes
with bumps on their chest that may have various after hours habits that are
none of my concern".

FWIW, this is personally my ideal working environment. I can't speak for women
in general, and I'm not a moral authority, but this is exactly the kind of
treatment I want from my coworkers.

>what should I do to be better?

I don't know, honestly. I know that's an inadequate response, but I'm not sure
how to appropriately address ingrained societal sexism either. As far as
subconscious bias in hiring goes, having rubrics and standardized interviews
goes a long way at eliminating it. I'd theorize that standardized metrics for
performance reviews would help on that front, too, though I don't think that's
been studied.

If you browse the million and one women in tech posts out there you can see
people talking about it at length, though I would be wary of taking somebody's
opinion as truth just because they're female, and I would be doubly wary of
taking a tech blogger at her word vs an actual female engineer. Your personal
set of ethics re: equality of opportunity vs outcome also plays into what you
"should do" quite a lot. Some suggestions (like formalized hiring rubrics) are
completely valid whether or not you believe in equality of opportunity vs
outcome, but others (like instituting diversity quotas in hiring) are not.

This blog post is well cited and worth a read, it has a few good suggestions
IMO: [https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-
women-i...](https://medium.com/tech-diversity-files/if-you-think-women-in-
tech-is-just-a-pipeline-problem-you-haven-t-been-paying-attention-
cb7a2073b996#.h1fsht52h)

And this personal anecdote is a positive story, which I think is just good to
keep in mind (that not all individual women necessarily feel or have been
through the standard negative Women in Tech narrative):
[http://lea.verou.me/2015/12/my-positive-experience-as-a-
woma...](http://lea.verou.me/2015/12/my-positive-experience-as-a-woman-in-
tech/)

~~~
belorn
Maybe its my interpretation, but it seems that you are in favor of equality of
outcome and tools like affirmative action. I have always wondered what
proponents for it thinks if it was to be used in gender equal language, like
if government would have a policy to always use affirmative action for work
groups that has less than 40% women or men. A lot of professions have above
90% of a single gender (a trend that has been increasing in the last 30
years), and universal use of affirmative action would cause a lot of movement
from typical male or female professions.

------
zxcvvcxz
> So while I’ll tell you that it is going to be harder for you as a woman,

I read this phrase a few times. I'm genuinely curious - and didn't really see
it in the article - what are the reasons for which Jessica is referring?

Edit - downvoted for asking a genuine question...? Did it ever occur to anyone
that I may be asking to see how I could help, seeing as I'm involved with a
few startups?

~~~
sachinag
Some: * "networking events" with alcohol become minefields * investors will
literally try to get you to sleep with them for an investment * people will
not take your technical team seriously (so you look riskier) * conferences are
prisons of harassment * selling to customers takes longer because (again)
people don't take you as seriously

That's literally off the top of my head from things I've literally seen first
hand.

Can we stop pretending the real world isn't full of douchebags?

~~~
AnimalMuppet
> Can we stop pretending the real world isn't full of douchebags?

OK. But don't miss the rest of what she said:

> So while I’ll tell you that it is going to be harder for you as a woman,
> it’s not going to be _so_ much harder that it will make the difference
> between success and failure.

There's real sexism, still. It makes it harder for women. That's unfair. It
shouldn't be that way. But while all that shouldn't be, and all that makes it
harder for women, _don 't just look at "harder" and decide not to do it._

~~~
calibraxis
Her analysis may not apply to women in general, but only to fortunate
subgroups. Discrimination compounds at intersections. So the game becomes much
harder for Latinas and African-American women.

------
kayhi
"The best metric to choose is good old fashioned revenue."

The best metric to choose is good old fashioned profit.

I appreciate that growth can be hindered by making a profit, but isn't that
what matters in the end? Amazon, Twitter, Box and many other public tech
companies went public without turning a profit so it seems I'm wrong.

~~~
kingnothing
Amazon still doesn't turn a profit. Neither does Salesforce. Their measures
are pure revenue / growth.

~~~
nickpsecurity
They actually alternative between being profitable and not being profitable.
See this graph:

[https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/net_income](https://ycharts.com/companies/AMZN/net_income)

Growth is their priority. Yet, they make sure they have plenty money coming in
to keep everyone paid, invest back in business, and have a pile of profit on
occasion. Years ago, I did a research report on them. Back then, they were
making a significant profit with just $200 mil in debt or so. They could've
paid off total debt in just a few years if they paused to maintain the profit.
They killed the profit on purpose to expand the then-new AWS. Smart decision.
:)

------
mathattack
Measuring the right things is very important too. I was at a company that
lived and died on user counts. We grew 30X in users over my year there, but no
revenue so we ultimately died. (And costs were out of control too, and we lost
focus, so much of this article hits home)

------
tmaly
I think #1 is the key to the whole thing.

I love how Pat Flynn talked about building a market map in his recent book
Will It Fly. I think this method is very helpful in finding out if what your
doing is something people want.

Derek Sivers of CDBaby has this same mindset. He has always worked off the
pull method rather than the push method for what he creates.

Ash Maurya in his book running lean gives you a nice script for customer
development interviews. I have tried this with a previous startup idea, and
they saved me from going down the road of working on something people did not
want. They are probably a bit more involved than Pat's method, but it is
something else to consider.

------
EmbeddedHook
Kudos -- really interesting, thoughtful and useful summary. However (yes,
there's always a however), I'm always surprised and baffled why these kinds of
lists rarely attribute startup failures to non/mis-management of the
development process. I worked for a couple of successful startups and have
consulted for the last six years (performance stuff) and am dumbfounded by the
amount of time developers waste on "crap" \-- trivial bugs, insignificant
performance issues, "enterprise" build/QA automation, etc. At one startup, THE
key developer went off for six months rewriting the comm stack for a
performance problem that didn't exist -- all the while destabilizing and
slowing down the product. At my last "real" job, every time I went to the
coffee room, I would ask a developer what they were working on and 90% of the
time it was "bugs." That's fine if you're working at IBM on DB2 but NOT if
your funding dries up in 12 months. IMHO, it is RARE to find a manager/VP who
will pull a developer back out of the weeds. I often see an endless series of
stand-ups where the status is "fixed a bug" or "recoded an inefficient loop"
or "wrote a Java wrapper for the Jenkins garbage collector." It SOUNDS like
progress but six months later POCs are crashing and burning because 2/3 of the
core features are still missing. Maybe I've had a totally weird career but how
come no one talks about this?

------
chmike
A parallel to "don't waste time in conferences" is don't waste time on hacker
news. Ha! I don't run a startup, so I'm allowed.

------
poof131
Not sure I agree about advisors. Getting smart people who have experience in
places the team is lacking seems pretty critical to me. Perhaps it’s different
at YC where you have advisors built into the program and getting ‘boards of
advisors’ is extraneous, but for other teams without those resources behind
them this seems like bad advice. Find people who’ve done it before and learn
from them.

------
micah63
Summary:

1 - Seed money is given on promise

2 - How to get VCs to invest: Build something people want + talk to users +
focus = 10% growth

3 - Be default alive, which means: existing cash + revenue - consistent
expenses gets you to breakeven

*How to shoot yourself in the foot: Overhire -> Default Dead -> Ugly Duckling -> No VC

------
ape4
On "making something people want"... You don't always know. If its a cheaper
version of something else then - yah. But if its a new category you don't
know. eg Nest - turns out people did want an expensive smart thermostat. But
wasn't obvious.

~~~
wvenable
I think this is where starting out small and simple usually works. You
normally start with an idea that _somebody_ wants whether it's you or a
friend. You want your house to warm when you wake up and when you come home.
You convince some other people. You build a small prototype. You try it out on
people. They either want one or they don't.

We all know companies that have built products that nobody wants. They went
through all the planning, product development, market research, production,
and the result was nobody wanted it. It's a myth that if you build it, they
will come. People have to want your product at each stage of the process.

~~~
vcarl
>I think this is where starting out small and simple usually works.

Very much agree. Make something quickly that somebody really likes, and try
and find more people who like it. Figure out what people like about it and
expand in that direction. Rinse and repeat, as you expand just keep making
sure more people want it.

~~~
wvenable
The corollary to this is also that if nobody likes your product, adding more
features to it isn't likely to help. Lots of developers also fall into that
trap.

------
davesque
The only way not to fail is not to try. Even then you could argue that you
failed to try :).

~~~
cbsmith
I was going to post a similar comment. I kind of think the "Don't try"
strategy is worth highlighting, because... it kind of points out how silly it
is to worry about failure.

------
S4M
So networking, "grabbing coffee" with investors and talking to potential
acquirers are a waste of time, yet YC insists that startups go to one of the
most expensive place in the world just because it's more convenient to to
those three things.

~~~
dang
Here's a nice example of where we can apply the Principle of Charity
([http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html](http://philosophy.lander.edu/oriental/charity.html)).
That's the idea that you should respond to the strongest plausible
interpretation of an argument, instead of a weaker one.

Sure, you can interpret YC's advice as containing an obviously silly
contradiction. But you could also interpret it as saying that you should
fundraise when you need to, but not waste time on coffee meetings when you
don't.

~~~
asimuvPR
The romanticised idea of being a founder focuses on the lifestyle. Getting
coffee is akin to "Let's play tennis sometime!" in other social circles.
People want to be seen as founders but not a lot of them are willing or
capable to do the work. Reality is that founding a startup is not glamorous.
Its lots of hard work with no promise of anything.

~~~
dang
Yes, that's one of the advantages of doing a low-status activity. The people
doing it really want to.

We're seeing a similar shift with programming, too. When one's formative
experiences were in the low-status phase, it can be weird and challenging to
realize that's not true anymore.

~~~
asimuvPR
I'm still a bit shy when people ask about what I do. My answer is always: I
fix and program computers. They don't probe anymore. To be honest, programming
is not glamorous or even "cute". I find it really challenging (in a good way)
and interesting. Sometimes even fun. But high status? Allow me to simply LOL.

------
ssreeniv
> Doing a “partnership,” thinking it will get you more users

Why is this a distraction?

~~~
evaneykelen
Because (and I have to generalize here since this is a broad topic)
partnerships can suck up a huge amount of time, with the following downsides:

1) you get introduced to customers indirectly (the partner's users), this
isn't necessarily a bad thing but you'd rather have customers come directly to
you.

2) the partner's objectives as a business are not your objectives, they may
demand exclusivity of you or prevent you from doing business with their (the
partner's) competitors. This may come to bite you if your startup grows,
evolves or pivots and a better partnership comes along.

3) partnerships usually involve contracts which cost time and money.

------
sbardle
Solid advice. I think YC advice gives you the road map, but in addition
speeches like Paul Buchheit's "The Technology" can also help stimulate the
vision in the first place.

------
ck2
Video of keynote by Jessica Livingston

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2B4cVFIVpg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2B4cVFIVpg)

------
k2xl
How many startup founders do you know think they aren't building something
people want?

These are some nice tips, but the problem with this advice is that it probably
won't change founder behaviors.

Most startup founders I know would think that they are focused, building
something people want, not over hiring, etc...

With the exception of the default alive or dead, none or the other tips are
really quantifiable.

I appreciate everything Jessica has done, and she has a wealth of experience
and exposure to a wide variety of startups, but this advice is too subjective.

~~~
creichert
She does mentions how to deal with that problem:

> If you do the first two things I told you, make something people want and
> focus, you’ll get growth as a result. And that means you can use growth as a
> test of whether you’re doing those two things.

------
JBiserkov
This reminds me of
[http://paulgraham.com/die.html](http://paulgraham.com/die.html) and
[http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html](http://paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html)

P.s. I haven't seen her talk yet.

------
banhfun
She forgot #8: Be Lucky

------
erikb
just as a side note. She pretty much says that "ugly duck hiring" (hiring
start-ups that seem to be on a good track but have burned too fast through
their money) may be a thing to make money with.

PS: And i don't like the "not fail" part. You don't want to not fail. You want
to succeed. If you fail and succeed the failing is fine.

------
akshatpradhan
I'm in the interesting position that I've built something that everybody
needs, but nobody wants.

I've built a product that manages the compliance process for the Big 5 (i.e.
PCI-DSS, SSAE16-SOC2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, and FEDRAMP).

My product, ComplianceChaos[1] competes with RSA Archer, Protiviti, Lockpath,
Aruvio, and MetricStream.

From my research, 80% of IT operations around the world can't confidently
certify themselves against any of those information security frameworks. When
recently talking to Security Directors and above, they claim "I don't need to
comply" or "well we may not be the best, but we're not the worst, so
compliance just isn't a priority."

We understand that a big business like General Electric will not do business
with your company unless you can show some kind of proof that you're compliant
with the Big 5. For example, if you're a cloud service provider or SaaS, GE
wants you to certify for SOC 2 and ISO 27001.

We also know that if you host on Amazon's FEDRAMP Compliant environment or
Catalyze.io's HIPAA compliant environment, it doesn't automatically mean your
company is also compliant. Your company still needs to go through the
compliance process too."

When I first set off to build this product a couple years ago, the security
officers first exclaimed, "We need a compliance tool so that we don't have to
deal with scattered documents and long spreadsheets." When I built the MVP and
continued iterating on it, security officers again exclaimed, "this is the
most beautiful compliance product I've ever seen! Better than RSA Archer."

However, when I asked them to use it, for FREE, they would say, "Well it's
nice, but compliance just isn't a priority for us because the business has
other missions like doing real security work". Explaining to them that
compliance frameworks like ISO 27001 and FEDRAMP is real security work was met
with deaf ears. In fact, they would retaliate saying, "Compliance like ISO
27001 isn't security. It's a low bar, bare minimal, and not enough."

When I counter with, "But 80% of the industry can't confidently assert that
they've done due diligence in meeting the compliance controls. If compliance
is so bare minimal, then why do only 20% go all the way to Attestation instead
of all 100% of you guys?" That question would again fall on deaf ears.

I've recently pivoted to a services company, no thanks to TrustWave for
getting sued for performing subpar security compliance auditing work. I'm
specifically looking at you auditors who ask employees to put their passwords
in a spreadsheet.

So here I am, having built a product and auditing service that IT Operations
do in fact need, but do not want. They don't want the politics behind it nor
the emotions behind it, and wish to sweep compliance under the rug.

How do I solve for #1 Make something that people want, when nobody wants
compliance, but definitely needs it?

[1][http://www.ComplianceChaos.com](http://www.ComplianceChaos.com)

I'm going to sleep now, but I would really appreciate reading your responses
in the morning and I'll definitely respond too.

~~~
danieltillett
You need to make the decision makers life easier. At the moment it sounds like
you have made something that makes their life harder right now in exchange for
some future benefit that might not help them personally. Until someone loses
their job because they are not able to show compliance then you are going to
have a hard time getting people to use your product.

How do your competitors sell their products?

------
kreetx
I want a T-shirt which says "Jessica Livingston"! Very good advice overall.

------
draw_down
\- Don't do bad stuff. \- Do do good stuff.

~~~
CodyReichert
Believe it or not, it's not always that obvious to new (or even seasoned)
founders. Heck "going to a conference" still sounds like a good idea -- in
reality, talking to some of my existing users about the product fit could be a
much better way to spend that time.

------
nutheracc
"...shares her learnings about..." \-- this is not English. Failing in the
second sentence.

~~~
castis
Critiquing others without understand the subject matter is a surefire way to
make yourself look foolish.

[http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/19227/plural-
of-l...](http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/19227/plural-of-learning)

~~~
hordeallergy
That link is the weakest possible support. The previous poster is correct.
Look elsewhere.

~~~
castis
Incorrect, the weakest possible support would have been me just backing up the
idea with my own words, which is not what happened. If you need further proof
then that is your burden, not mine.

~~~
smacktoward
OK, I'll bite.

* [http://grammarist.com/usage/learnings/](http://grammarist.com/usage/learnings/)

* [http://www.johnsmurf.com/jargon.htm](http://www.johnsmurf.com/jargon.htm)

* [http://www.dailywritingtips.com/what-the-heck-are-learnings/](http://www.dailywritingtips.com/what-the-heck-are-learnings/)

* [http://customerthink.com/16_marketing_terms_to_ban_in_2011/](http://customerthink.com/16_marketing_terms_to_ban_in_2011/)

* [http://valleywag.gawker.com/dear-dummies-learnings-is-not-a-...](http://valleywag.gawker.com/dear-dummies-learnings-is-not-a-word-1482696634)

* [http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/9_completely_pointless_co...](http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/9_completely_pointless_corporate_words_45629.aspx)

 _Learnings_ is a plural version of a singular noun that does not exist. And
there's already a perfectly good word you can use to get at what it attempts
to communicate, namely _lessons_. (You can even call them _lessons learned_ if
you absolutely must shoehorn the idea of learning in there.)

------
outworlder
Overall, I found the reading very enjoyable. And down to earth, which is
refreshing.

Until this part, that is:

> And you know where the founders of these big winners are going to come from?
> From this room!

Not sure how to view this part. On one hand, of course she's right. If no
"unicorns" ever came from YC, they wouldn't be around still. But it seems to
imply that all founders that are going to be wildly successful were in that
room. That's either appealing to emotion for morale purposes, or way too
elitist. Not sure which.

~~~
jl
I was giving a talk to 800+ women (most of whom were not affiliated with YC in
any way) who attended the Female Founders Conference last April in SF. A
majority of them have already started a startup, so of course I'm hoping they
will become successful someday.

~~~
outworlder
Thanks for the context and taking the time to answer.

I took the time of watching the talk, not just read the transcript. Came up
with a completely different impression. They really needed some words of
encouragement after the meat of the talk.

As the sibling comment says, I've indeed over-analyzed it. My apologies.

------
qznc
> Make something people want. This is YC’s motto, and after 11 years and more
> than 1000 startups, I know we picked the right one.

I find this sad. It tells you something about humanity. Don't build something
people need. Build what they want. Make it addictive. We either don't know
what we need or if we know it, we still want something different.

