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Part of the fallacy of this is the implication that you need "good" engineers for most startups. I think, frankly, that many startups need a website with a goog

Part of the fallacy of this is the implication that you need "good" engineers for most startups. I think, frankly, that many startups need a website with a google form + some excel sheets to get started and if the thing takes off they can hire someone who can use google to bang on stackoverflow. Very few things require genuinely novel pieces of code to work. Yes, lots of value can be captured using code, but you could totally start something like airbnb with a lot of manual labor clicking in a GUI. Djikstra said "Beware premature optimization" and that's quite true. I think automation should be used when things hurt to bad to do manually anymore. For some people, that's any task which must be performed twice and then you write a script. For others it might be years manually updating excel for bookkeeping every night. One can go real far manually updating excel...

grandalf 11y ago
Excellent points. In most startups it doesn't take much technology to prove (or disprove) the business model idea. For the few startups that do experience significant growth, it's much easier to find talent (engineering and otherwise).
IndianAstronaut 11y ago
>Djikstra said "Beware premature optimization" and that's quite true. This is why a product I was working on almost got killed. The senior engineer working on it wanted perfection before delivery. The project was already one year overdue. He suddenly came in one day and rushed me to finish up something and he wrapped up a couple things and we launched at the end of the week. Found out that the project was going to be axed if we didn't deliver very soon.
- ionforce 11y ago
  How does a guy like that become senior? As a senior one should know that there is a pragmatic balance lost in trying to aim for perfection.
  - IndianAstronaut 11y ago
    He has his strengths. He produces exceptional quality code (albeit a bit on the spaghetti side) and is good at finding problems in code. He is also 63 and has decades of experience.
    - restalis 11y ago
      It's a challenge for me to imagine "exceptional quality code" with "albeit a bit on the spaghetti side". Can you elaborate?
      - IndianAstronaut 11y ago
        It covers a lot of corner cases, it is fast, it is robust, and produces good quality data. Only thing is it is hard to navigate.
        superplussed 11y ago
        These developer descriptions sound like they are coming from the "Silicon Valley" tv show.
        Shorel 11y ago
        He can use goto :)
    - gearoidoc 11y ago
      "exceptional quality code (albeit a bit on the spaghetti side)" is an oxymoron.
warrenmar 11y ago
StitchFix started as an Excel sheet. https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/2rjqt2/stitch_fix_is_a_3_year_old_startup_now_valued_at/ https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/2rjqt2/stitch_fix...
- JackFr 11y ago
  The Book-of-the-Month club operated for 75 years before they had even a website.
nawitus 11y ago
>I think, frankly, that many startups need a website with a google form + some excel sheets to get started and if the thing takes off they can hire someone who can use google to bang on stackoverflow. I agree, but this is mostly true because there's so much low-hanging fruit out there. If you look at the current successful startups like Uber and Airbnb, they're really trivial applications. That doesn't mean they can't create huge amounts of value by "trivially" repackaging services and connecting people. Once the low-hanging fruit is developed during the next 10 years or so we can finally start focusing on actual high-tech engineering startups.
- azinman2 11y ago
  If they were trivial then they'd have been eaten up by competitor now.
  - mantas 11y ago
    They're technically trivial. But execution ain't.
    - azinman2 11y ago
      Just because they're not google search doesn't mean their technically trivial either. Have you worked on either product or do you just assume?
- JackFr 11y ago
  Tens of thousands of man hours have gone into making them seem trivial, and the fact that they seem so to you is a testament to their design.
  - pc86 11y ago
    Well the fact that they've hammered on them for years doesn't mean they're not trivial, it just means they've spent a lot of time on them. And I think we've got to differentiate between the app being [non-]trivial and the infrastructure behind it supporting the massive load being [non-]trivial.
AndrewUnmuted 11y ago
An excellent point. In fact, it is stated often that ZeroCater - a YC graduate - began as an Excel spreadsheet. (http://thehustle.co/stories/zerocater/ http://thehustle.co/stories/zerocater/)
Animats 11y ago
"Soylent" is a good example. They regularly post about their elaborate IT infrastructure. Based on their sales volume, they do about two transactions a minute. One shared server could handle their transaction load. They could get a low-end hosting account from Hostgator, use one of the six shopping cart programs Hostgator supports, and lay off most of their computer staff. (Soylent doesn't even make the stuff. That's outsourced to Jasper Products in Joplin, MO.[1]) [1] http://www.jasperproducts.com http://www.jasperproducts.com

grandalf 11y ago

Excellent points. In most startups it doesn't take much technology to prove (or disprove) the business model idea. For the few startups that do experience significant growth, it's much easier to find talent (engineering and otherwise).

IndianAstronaut 11y ago

>Djikstra said "Beware premature optimization" and that's quite true. This is why a product I was working on almost got killed. The senior engineer working on it wanted perfection before delivery. The project was already one year overdue. He suddenly came in one day and rushed me to finish up something and he wrapped up a couple things and we launched at the end of the week. Found out that the project was going to be axed if we didn't deliver very soon.

ionforce 11y ago
How does a guy like that become senior? As a senior one should know that there is a pragmatic balance lost in trying to aim for perfection.
- IndianAstronaut 11y ago
  He has his strengths. He produces exceptional quality code (albeit a bit on the spaghetti side) and is good at finding problems in code. He is also 63 and has decades of experience.
  - restalis 11y ago
    It's a challenge for me to imagine "exceptional quality code" with "albeit a bit on the spaghetti side". Can you elaborate?
    - IndianAstronaut 11y ago
      It covers a lot of corner cases, it is fast, it is robust, and produces good quality data. Only thing is it is hard to navigate.
      - superplussed 11y ago
        These developer descriptions sound like they are coming from the "Silicon Valley" tv show.
      - Shorel 11y ago
        He can use goto :)
  - gearoidoc 11y ago
    "exceptional quality code (albeit a bit on the spaghetti side)" is an oxymoron.

warrenmar 11y ago

StitchFix started as an Excel sheet. https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/2rjqt2/stitch_fix_is_a_3_year_old_startup_now_valued_at/ https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/2rjqt2/stitch_fix...

JackFr 11y ago
The Book-of-the-Month club operated for 75 years before they had even a website.

nawitus 11y ago

>I think, frankly, that many startups need a website with a google form + some excel sheets to get started and if the thing takes off they can hire someone who can use google to bang on stackoverflow. I agree, but this is mostly true because there's so much low-hanging fruit out there. If you look at the current successful startups like Uber and Airbnb, they're really trivial applications. That doesn't mean they can't create huge amounts of value by "trivially" repackaging services and connecting people. Once the low-hanging fruit is developed during the next 10 years or so we can finally start focusing on actual high-tech engineering startups.

azinman2 11y ago
If they were trivial then they'd have been eaten up by competitor now.
- mantas 11y ago
  They're technically trivial. But execution ain't.
  - azinman2 11y ago
    Just because they're not google search doesn't mean their technically trivial either. Have you worked on either product or do you just assume?
JackFr 11y ago
Tens of thousands of man hours have gone into making them seem trivial, and the fact that they seem so to you is a testament to their design.
- pc86 11y ago
  Well the fact that they've hammered on them for years doesn't mean they're not trivial, it just means they've spent a lot of time on them. And I think we've got to differentiate between the app being [non-]trivial and the infrastructure behind it supporting the massive load being [non-]trivial.

AndrewUnmuted 11y ago

An excellent point. In fact, it is stated often that ZeroCater - a YC graduate - began as an Excel spreadsheet. (http://thehustle.co/stories/zerocater/ http://thehustle.co/stories/zerocater/)

Animats 11y ago

"Soylent" is a good example. They regularly post about their elaborate IT infrastructure. Based on their sales volume, they do about two transactions a minute. One shared server could handle their transaction load. They could get a low-end hosting account from Hostgator, use one of the six shopping cart programs Hostgator supports, and lay off most of their computer staff. (Soylent doesn't even make the stuff. That's outsourced to Jasper Products in Joplin, MO.[1]) [1] http://www.jasperproducts.com http://www.jasperproducts.com