3 ms·

It's nice to make friends but this isn't how you start up companies

by alaskamiller 19y ago

edw519 19y ago
From the responses on this page you appear to be correct. What would you suggest?
- alaskamiller 19y ago
  The pairings that are made today would be best to apply for future cycles later in the year. Most people here you talk to will at best end up as an employee in your eyes, it's going to be hard to treat them as equals when most people are just throwing out soft skills they want filled. My partner and I have known each other since high school but he went off to college while I went into the military. After reconnecting we've been working on small projects on and off for the past couple cycles to learn each others quirks, styles, and most importantly trust. And after attending our 5 year high school reunion it's really surprising that people we haven't talked to in awhile turned out to be doing very similar tech things as well, even if they're not in the area. It surely doesn't hurt to look up Facebook some old friends and see what they're doing or what they're working on. Maybe some hate big corporate culture as much as we all do here. A better way would be for people to list out their work experiences or market they're analyzing for their startup. For example, one of the failed ideas I was researching for was event planning and building an evite competitor. After 4 months I dropped it but I've kept plenty of notes about trends, other websites, feature lists, specs, and so forth. If anyone wants to discuss it feel free to get in touch with me at alaska.miller@gmail.com. I also worked at a big corporation working with CMS tools, search tools, publication, enterprise software for PLM processes. If you want to build software to optimize those fields, again, get in touch with me. Likewise my current idea is dealing with Flash video and Flex environment, and accessibility. If anyone has experience with that, please email me. Start emailing people and sharing with them your ideas for feedback, then ask them for another referral to someone else you can talk to until you've literally have no one left to talk to. I've been keeping track of all my conversations and people of interest in iCal and 37s Highrise and building my business network. I'm also inviting local people to lunch to pick their brains. But it's completely youthful naivety to think this is the right way to cofound a business together.
  - edw519 19y ago
    Thanks. Already been doing some of what you suggest. This just looked like an interesting thread. In the meantime, back to work.
    - alaskamiller 19y ago
      I've even got you stored in my little database as the ERP guy
      - edw519 19y ago
        Thanks. I never thought of describing myself that way, but who knows, maybe I can find 2 chicks who dig it.
        kirubakaran 19y ago
        They will, when you get acquired.
  - apexauk 19y ago
    "But it's completely youthful naivety to think this is the right way to cofound a business together.".. Perhaps not the ideal way, if you already have a big database of contacts you should probably go through that first, yes. But I co-founded our company after meeting a guy I didn't know previously who had advertised for a hacker to do some contract work (as I said elsewhere on this thread) and 2 years later the company's doing great.. Don't rule out this as a possibility, basically.

It's nice to make friends but this isn't how you start up companies

edw519 19y ago

From the responses on this page you appear to be correct. What would you suggest?

alaskamiller 19y ago
The pairings that are made today would be best to apply for future cycles later in the year. Most people here you talk to will at best end up as an employee in your eyes, it's going to be hard to treat them as equals when most people are just throwing out soft skills they want filled. My partner and I have known each other since high school but he went off to college while I went into the military. After reconnecting we've been working on small projects on and off for the past couple cycles to learn each others quirks, styles, and most importantly trust. And after attending our 5 year high school reunion it's really surprising that people we haven't talked to in awhile turned out to be doing very similar tech things as well, even if they're not in the area. It surely doesn't hurt to look up Facebook some old friends and see what they're doing or what they're working on. Maybe some hate big corporate culture as much as we all do here. A better way would be for people to list out their work experiences or market they're analyzing for their startup. For example, one of the failed ideas I was researching for was event planning and building an evite competitor. After 4 months I dropped it but I've kept plenty of notes about trends, other websites, feature lists, specs, and so forth. If anyone wants to discuss it feel free to get in touch with me at alaska.miller@gmail.com. I also worked at a big corporation working with CMS tools, search tools, publication, enterprise software for PLM processes. If you want to build software to optimize those fields, again, get in touch with me. Likewise my current idea is dealing with Flash video and Flex environment, and accessibility. If anyone has experience with that, please email me. Start emailing people and sharing with them your ideas for feedback, then ask them for another referral to someone else you can talk to until you've literally have no one left to talk to. I've been keeping track of all my conversations and people of interest in iCal and 37s Highrise and building my business network. I'm also inviting local people to lunch to pick their brains. But it's completely youthful naivety to think this is the right way to cofound a business together.
- edw519 19y ago
  Thanks. Already been doing some of what you suggest. This just looked like an interesting thread. In the meantime, back to work.
  - alaskamiller 19y ago
    I've even got you stored in my little database as the ERP guy
    - edw519 19y ago
      Thanks. I never thought of describing myself that way, but who knows, maybe I can find 2 chicks who dig it.
      - kirubakaran 19y ago
        They will, when you get acquired.
- apexauk 19y ago
  "But it's completely youthful naivety to think this is the right way to cofound a business together.".. Perhaps not the ideal way, if you already have a big database of contacts you should probably go through that first, yes. But I co-founded our company after meeting a guy I didn't know previously who had advertised for a hacker to do some contract work (as I said elsewhere on this thread) and 2 years later the company's doing great.. Don't rule out this as a possibility, basically.