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Jessica Livingston’s Pretty Complete List on How Not to Fail

• k2xl 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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.
  • pbreit 10y ago
    She's giving solid advice based on having watched closely 1,000 startups succeed and fail. Just consider the advice and, if anything, give some thanks. Sheesh. In fact, a lot of founders =think= they are building something people want but actually are not. Sure, they are unlikely to change based on a blog post but that's their problem.
• pfarnsworth 10y ago
  You can do all of the above and still fail. Often, success or failure is luck-based and completely not skill-based.
  • simonswords82 10y ago
    Sometimes there's an argument that following the advice reduces your chances of failure. Ultimately like most things in life, it's a healthy dose of luck combined with hard work.
  • giarc 10y ago
    In a recent YC Podcast, the guest talked about luck (sorry I can't remember who it was). The interviewer asked about how much of their success can be attributed to luck. The guest agreed that, yes, there was some luck involved but luck is like collecting lottery tickets. You can take actions with your startup to increase the chances of succeeding, just like buying more lottery tickets increases your odds (by a tiny margin). You can't just start a business and wait for it to succeed or not, you have to take action and put in effort.
    • selectron 10y ago
      The role of luck explains why your startup succeeds while that of another person who works just as hard and is just as smart fails. Obviously hard work is important, but most startups have a lot of hard-working and smart people behind them, and yet still fail. Those that do succeed are very hard to predict. If success is unpredictable, that usually means that luck plays a large role. In general people prefer to underplay the affects of chance.
      • saganus 10y ago
        > If success is unpredictable, that usually means that luck plays a large role. Could it be also that maybe we are not yet aware of the myriad of other factors that also influence the outcome? i.e. it may seem like luck but it could be something we just aren't modelling properly, unless you define luck to be precisely the "bag of unknown variables". However more than once I've seen people define luck as "that ether around us that makes lucky people lucky", kind of like an external force and not something directly related to you, your surroundings and your history.
        • selectron 10y ago
          Yes part of it is certainly hidden information, but for me luck is about how well the hidden information winds up helping you. The "ether around us that makes lucky people lucky" is a bit of a tautological definition of luck, really not sure what you mean by this. For me luck is when the variables you cannot control for work out in your favor. In physics we have what is known as the "look elsewhere effect", which is the phenomenon that if you look for new physics in many different places you are likely to find anomalies that look like new physics just due to chance. In the startup world this is roughly equivalent to saying that a startup's success was due to exceptional early founders or an exceptional idea only after that company has been successful. Here is an example - the article says to focus on building something people want. Well how do you know you have built something people want enough to pay for before they buy it? You can't really know, which is why VCs fund a lot of companies for cheap and try to see who is lucky enough to actually be building something people want. The conclusion of the article says that if you follow these steps you will be the master of your own fate, but this conclusion is disingenuous. It is based on looking backwards rather than forwards - all companies that succeed have made something people want and quickly increased their revenue, so all you have to do to succeed is make something people want and grow! Good luck.
  • jmathai 10y ago
    Luck can be when opportunity and preparation meet. It's possible to increase the chances of those intersecting.
  • humanrebar 10y ago
    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?
    • CodyReichert 10y ago
      Absolutely, and that's why there is the term "MVP". It's easy to get sucked into thinking "Before anyone will buy it, <x> must be done". That is false thinking 99% of the time. You need to get out a product, and get it out fast. Keep your feet moving, talk to users, and build in the direction they want.
    • pfarnsworth 10y ago
      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 10y ago
        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 10y ago
          There's no data to indicate that that way is superior to any other way.
  • 50CNT 10y ago
    I think there's two domains in this case, one being "macro luck", the other "micro luck". The rise of the PC, or the fall of the horse buggy are in the former category. They can be influenced, but individual contributions are often insignificant, and predicting their course is very hard. Then there's "micro luck". Things like hiring a great engineer, finding the right investor, or including the right feature or line of copy fall into this category. With these smaller random, but not fully random events you gain the ability to influence the outcome significantly. Want to find great engineers? Move to Silicon Valley, join your LUG, get wasted at DEFCON, these all significantly increase your chances of succeeding at that particular subtask. You get to make significantly more educated guesses at what works and what doesn't. I think this is an important distinction, after which it becomes good practice to follow the advice in the Serenity Prayer by Reinhold Niebur God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference. I'm not particularly religious, but that has always seemed like good sense to me.
  • dasil003 10y ago
    It bothers me people proclaim the importance of luck to successful startups. Usually it is either sour grapes at someone else's success, or conversely, an act humility from someone who is successful. But in either case I don't find it to be a useful sentiment. The fact is that as entrepreneurs we have agency to make decisions, and we each have uniquely imperfect information on which to base those decisions. "Luck" is nothing more than this universal phenomenon of imperfect information. What might be luck for one person might not be for another. At the end of the day, lucky or not, we are all tossed about by the whims of fortune. That should not blunt our drive, or check our decisions, or detract from our accomplishments. Sincerely acknowledging luck is an admirably humble thing to say in a press conference, but luck as a concept will not help you take the best action for the future.
    • tanker 10y ago
      I like the way Richard Hamming stated a similar sentiment: " I claim that luck will not cover everything. And I will cite Pasteur who said, ``Luck favors the prepared mind.'' And I think that says it the way I believe it. There is indeed an element of luck, and no, there isn't. The prepared mind sooner or later finds something important and does it. So yes, it is luck. The particular thing you do is luck, but that you do something is not." Full Talk: http://blog.samaltman.com/you-and-your-research http://blog.samaltman.com/you-and-your-research
    • Retra 10y ago
      If your understanding of success is "be an entrepreneur who makes decisions", then there is no luck involved. But that is not most entrepreneurs' understanding of success. So this isn't about making decisions, it's about having those decisions be accepted and rewarded by a reactionary and fickle culture. And that takes a lot of luck.
  • mwfunk 10y ago
    Of course you can still fail- success or failure in most things in life almost always has at least an element of luck. There are things you can control and things you can't- the best you can do is optimize the things that are under your control, hope for the best, and brace for the worst. Maybe that's all you need, maybe not. But it'll put you in the best position to take advantage of good luck, and survive bad luck. Or, perhaps you'll be one of the lucky ones who don't need luck at all, in which case those skills had better be sharp!
  • blrgeek 10y ago
    Read about the four types of luck. By doing more & learning more & meeting more people, you essentially increase your luck surface area in 3 different ways, increasing the odds you'll get lucky. Many founders I've seen 'got lucky' when they were on the way to the 100th trip to meet customers. Did they get lucky or did they make their luck?
• zeeshanm 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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.
• davesque 10y ago
  The only way not to fail is not to try. Even then you could argue that you failed to try :).
  • cbsmith 10y ago
    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.
• cableshaft 10y ago
  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.
  • Mahn 10y ago
    I think conferences and conventions are the kind of thing that you can get some utility out of once your business is somewhat established and running, but not so much when you have a new startup that you need to take off the ground. Since YC focuses on the latter it's understandable that they would advise against them.
    • cableshaft 10y ago
      I worked at one startup (only four employees) that took advantage of conventions and we were able to meet several people we were considering doing business with, sign on for some market data we needed, see what other companies were working on, and meet in person the people we hired to do various things for us. I worked at another startup with the same number of employees where we never did anything but work, work, work, focus focus focus, everyone was in such a hurry to get everything done that there wasn't time spent to see where the market currently was, what the competition was, and if we were working on products that would be desirable and successful. That company crashed and burned real hard. If nothing else, conventions give you and your employees a bit of a forced breather from that lifestyle. But again, they aren't truly necessary, they're just tools, and can be useful or a waste of time.
• erikb 10y ago
  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.
• zxcvvcxz 10y ago
  > 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 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      > 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 10y ago
        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.
• woah 10y ago
  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?
  • adora 10y ago
    at the very least, you can get LOIs or POCs
  • balls187 10y ago
    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.
    • dasil003 10y ago
      And YC probably doesn't see many of those...
    • tlb 10y ago
      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.
  • greendestiny 10y ago
    You just have to spend a lot longer in phase 1 (or pre phase 1) where you're trying to make something people want. Once you've built that tech you still want to sell it and to have growth right?
• ajessup 10y ago
  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.
  • douglance 10y ago
    Read books. They often contain anecdotes like that.
    • jpm_sd 10y ago
      I really enjoyed this one in particular: Founders at Work (http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/dp/1590597141 http://www.amazon.com/Founders-Work-Stories-Startups-Early/d...). Hey, look at that! It's by Jessica Livingston!
      • ajessup 10y ago
        I'm a fan of that book too, and definitely provides some constructive anecdotes. This said, it's a survey of largely succesful organisations - and focuses in the main on what people did right. This talk was about anti-patterns, that in many cases often led to unsuccessful startups (or at least put unnecessary bumps in the road). I can completely empathize that it's hard to talk safely about other people's private failures, especially as an investor.
  • caseysoftware 10y ago
    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.
• ape4 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      >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 10y ago
        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.
    • contingencies 10y ago
      I think this is where starting out small and simple usually works Of course, some ideas are impossible to execute small and simple.
• logicallee 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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 10y ago
• katzgrau 10y ago
  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.
• sbardle 10y ago
  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.
• exclusiv 10y ago
  "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 10y ago
    What did you build?
  • PKop 10y ago
    What was the first one that you built? I'd be interested to hear more about this.
• usmeteora 10y ago
  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.."
• djb_hackernews 10y ago
  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)
  • yishanl 10y ago
    Emailed.
  • palakchokshi 10y ago
    This one hit so close to home for me too. Your comment is what I would have written except my cofounder was a non-technical guy. In the future I am going to voice my concerns a little more forcefully.
  • akg_67 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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.
• danso 10y ago
  > 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).
  • balls187 10y ago
    > Do you often base your decision on the looks of a potential mate? Curse my ethnic looks!
  • dang 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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.
• draw_down 10y ago
  - Don't do bad stuff. - Do do good stuff.
  • CodyReichert 10y ago
    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.
• kayhi 10y ago
  "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.
  • verganileonardo 10y ago
    I would say that revenue and marginal marginal contribution are the most important. It is OK to be unprofitable of you can fix it by growing and diluting fixed costs.
  • mathattack 10y ago
    Early on profit will be negative by definition. (Otherwise they wouldn't need to raise money) This is advice for hypergrowth startups, not stable companies.
  • kross 10y ago
    > The best metric to choose is good old fashioned profit I agree that ultimately, the only measure is profit for a company you are building to operate. The only caveat being that in the early stages, it may require more investment, and you don't want to sacrifice good investment to higher profit when it could mean the ultimate decline of the company (and profit). This is why there could be a period of time where the revenue measure is simplest and meaningful. With regard to at least Amazon, I think they are focused on the long game and profitability. Twitter and others I don't follow, but I would agree that from the outside, many seem not to focus on building sustainable, profitable business without continued funding or expectation of being sold.
  • kingnothing 10y ago
    Amazon still doesn't turn a profit. Neither does Salesforce. Their measures are pure revenue / growth.
    • eye2sky 10y ago
      Not true. AMZN had positive net income for the last 4 fiscal quarters. Also for fiscal 2015, and fiscal 2013 (but not 2014). http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AMZN http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=AMZN
• nutheracc 10y ago
  "...shares her learnings about..." -- this is not English. Failing in the second sentence.
  • whatever_dude 10y ago
    I disagree. Sounds perfectly fine to me. What do you think is wrong about the sentence?
  • castis 10y ago
    Critiquing others without understand the subject matter is a surefire way to make yourself look foolish. http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/19227/plural-of-learning http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/19227/plural-of-l...
    • hordeallergy 10y ago
      That link is the weakest possible support. The previous poster is correct. Look elsewhere.
      • castis 10y ago
        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 10y ago
          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-word-1482696634 http://valleywag.gawker.com/dear-dummies-learnings-is-not-a-... * http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/9_completely_pointless_corporate_words_45629.aspx http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/9_completely_pointless_co... 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.)
• mathattack 10y ago
  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)
• S4M 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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 10y ago
        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 10y ago
          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.
• hitekker 10y ago
  Removed because I am an idiot
  • bgnm2000 10y ago
    How is she connected to Theranos?
  • subie 10y ago
    I believe you're talking about Elizabeth Holmes.
  • gohrt 10y ago
    > Theranos and, by extension, Jessica Livingstone [sic] What's the connection between those two?? You don't think all women look alike, do you?
• kreetx 10y ago
  I want a T-shirt which says "Jessica Livingston"! Very good advice overall.
• deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
• Sidnicious 10y ago
  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).
• ck2 10y ago
  Video of keynote by Jessica Livingston https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2B4cVFIVpg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2B4cVFIVpg
• poof131 10y ago
  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.
• outworlder 10y ago
  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.
  • alain94040 10y ago
    You're over-analyzing this. It's a speech at a conference, addressing entrepreneurs. That sentence is just pep talk. Don't take it literally.
  • jl 10y ago
    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 10y ago
      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.
• tmaly 10y ago
  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.
• JBiserkov 10y ago
  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.
• qznc 10y ago
  > if you spend all your time trying to sell what nobody wants, it will never become something people want As an engineer, I agree. However, I follow Scott Adams blogging about Trump and I am starting to think different. Currently Trump is trying to sell something nobody wants (himself as president) and he seems to able to change people so they want him. If he really becomes president, I cannot ignore the fact that Adams predicted it over a year before the election.
  • nostrademons 10y ago
    Let's see the outcome of the election before we use Trump as an example that flouts the common wisdom, and also use data instead of perceptions. The total popular vote counts [1] for each of the major candidates in the primary were: Clinton - 15.7M Trump - 13.3M Sanders - 12M Cruz - 7.6M Rubio - 3.5M Kasich - 4.2M Note that the top vote-getter of the primaries - Hillary Clinton - has received votes from only 5% of American citizens. By contrast, Barack Obama received 69.4M votes in the general election of 2008. The primaries are relative side-shows in American politics; they bring out the most militant voters, which is why a very polarizing strategy like Trump has followed tends to work well. But a candidate that alienates too many voters in the primaries still has to reckon with the fact that 95% of the electorate did not vote for them. It's also not true that Trump is selling something nobody wants - it's pretty clear that at least 13M people do want it. For a startup, that would be plenty for a beachhead. For an election, you still have to win over another 100M. [1] http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/republican_vote_count.html http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/repub...
    • qznc 10y ago
      Adams is not talking much about the polarizing strategy of Trump. Polarization is just a hack to get attention. The interesting part is to use the attention to make people dislike your opponent/competition and like you more.
  • shimon 10y ago
    Without getting into the political situation, what makes you think nobody wants Trump as president? Clearly enough people wanted him over the other Republican candidates for him to win most of the primaries. What definition of "something people want" is he not meeting? I ask because this smells like denial. How can you say nobody wants Trump if many are voting for him? How can you say nobody wants [insert crummy-sounding product here] if they're buying tons of it?
• qznc 10y ago
  > 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.
• vonnik 10y ago
  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 10y ago
    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.
• banhfun 10y ago
  She forgot #8: Be Lucky
  • deleted 10y ago
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• deleted 10y ago
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• akshatpradhan 10y ago
  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.
• ssreeniv 10y ago
  > Doing a “partnership,” thinking it will get you more users Why is this a distraction?
  • evaneykelen 10y ago
    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.
• chmike 10y ago
  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.
• micah63 10y ago
  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
• EmbeddedHook 10y ago
  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?