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> we were burning $100K/m and making $9K/m in revenue There's all that needed to be said, right there.

by empressplay 10y ago

joemi 10y ago
I like how he specifically called that "mediocre success"...
- antisthenes 10y ago
  Even worse, he contrasted "mediocre success" against "failure", whereas anyone outside of the tech bubble would have looked at the numbers and rightly called it a failure outright. The bubble is not in valuations, the bubble is in people's heads - the naive delusion that you can disrupt all aspects of human nature by applying enough technology and holistic ideology.
  - jrs235 10y ago
    >the naive delusion that you can disrupt all aspects of human nature by applying enough technology This. Absolutely this. Superior software/technology has, is, and will lose to crappy stuff from time to time. And here is why... psychology trumps technology. If your technology doesn't align well with psychology then you have an enormous uphill climb to conquer. If your solution requires people to fight their nature, best of luck to you.
  - onion2k 10y ago
    The bubble is not in valuations, the bubble is in people's heads - the naive delusion that you can disrupt all aspects of human nature by applying enough technology and holistic ideology. It may be true that there are aspects of human nature that can't be disrupted by technology, but the problem is recognising which can and which can't. Often when something fails you don't actually know because it may succeed under slightly different circumstances. The failure of a startup is evidence that there may not be a market for "disrupting human nature" in that domain, but it definitely isn't proof.
- shinymark 10y ago
  As someone running a bootstrapped small business that lives and dies on cashflow while we try to reach larger success that statement struck me as crazy. It would be fun to spend some time working in a venture backed company since it's so different from the reality I operate in currently.
b_emery 10y ago
"default dead" [1] 1 http://paulgraham.com/aord.html http://paulgraham.com/aord.html
- dhimes 10y ago
  That's a great read. I'm flabbergasted that founders don't model their expected finances. I mean, Jesus, what are they thinking? How, then, do they make decisions? Even if the model turns out to be grossly incorrect at least you get some idea of critical factors and milestones. And, it's fun! So you update it regularly. Here we are nearing the end of Q2....
  - the_watcher 10y ago
    Many founders have never had to do anything remotely like running a business. Particularly when they started the company more to build something they wish existed than to make crazy amounts of money.
prodmerc 10y ago
"Mediocre category" O_O It's dead, Jim (unless you can increase that revenue FAST)...

> we were burning $100K/m and making $9K/m in revenue There's all that needed to be said, right there.

joemi 10y ago

I like how he specifically called that "mediocre success"...

antisthenes 10y ago
Even worse, he contrasted "mediocre success" against "failure", whereas anyone outside of the tech bubble would have looked at the numbers and rightly called it a failure outright. The bubble is not in valuations, the bubble is in people's heads - the naive delusion that you can disrupt all aspects of human nature by applying enough technology and holistic ideology.
- jrs235 10y ago
  >the naive delusion that you can disrupt all aspects of human nature by applying enough technology This. Absolutely this. Superior software/technology has, is, and will lose to crappy stuff from time to time. And here is why... psychology trumps technology. If your technology doesn't align well with psychology then you have an enormous uphill climb to conquer. If your solution requires people to fight their nature, best of luck to you.
- onion2k 10y ago
  The bubble is not in valuations, the bubble is in people's heads - the naive delusion that you can disrupt all aspects of human nature by applying enough technology and holistic ideology. It may be true that there are aspects of human nature that can't be disrupted by technology, but the problem is recognising which can and which can't. Often when something fails you don't actually know because it may succeed under slightly different circumstances. The failure of a startup is evidence that there may not be a market for "disrupting human nature" in that domain, but it definitely isn't proof.
shinymark 10y ago
As someone running a bootstrapped small business that lives and dies on cashflow while we try to reach larger success that statement struck me as crazy. It would be fun to spend some time working in a venture backed company since it's so different from the reality I operate in currently.

b_emery 10y ago

"default dead" [1] 1 http://paulgraham.com/aord.html http://paulgraham.com/aord.html

dhimes 10y ago
That's a great read. I'm flabbergasted that founders don't model their expected finances. I mean, Jesus, what are they thinking? How, then, do they make decisions? Even if the model turns out to be grossly incorrect at least you get some idea of critical factors and milestones. And, it's fun! So you update it regularly. Here we are nearing the end of Q2....
- the_watcher 10y ago
  Many founders have never had to do anything remotely like running a business. Particularly when they started the company more to build something they wish existed than to make crazy amounts of money.

prodmerc 10y ago

"Mediocre category" O_O It's dead, Jim (unless you can increase that revenue FAST)...