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Using Slashdot terminology - Interesting, but not Insightful. Patrick is trying to derive generic advice by formalizing his personal experiences. While it is u

by eps 17y ago

Using Slashdot terminology - Interesting, but not Insightful. Patrick is trying to derive generic advice by formalizing his personal experiences. While it is useful to know what worked in his case, it is still just one project, an isolated experience. I've been in a similar situation myself. I have sold a startup that settled me and my family for life, and things unfolded pretty much as I expected them to from the start to the acquisition. But the more I think about the whole experience now the more I am becoming convinced that there was a great deal of chance involved. And over the years I started describing my startup less in terms of how things should be done and more how they worked for me. In other words, once you are lucky, twice - you are good. Once you are "twice", then it will be Insightful. Until then it's just Interesting. Feel free to disagree ;)

skmurphy 17y ago
Candidly I think you have mis-assessed. o Code is 10% of the business o Wall Clock Time vs. Calendar Time o Avoid Events, Plan for Processes all seem broadly applicable and non-obvious
- jacquesm 17y ago
  > Code is 10% of the business Is pretty obvious to anybody that's ever had or worked in a business. The other two are common sense. But that doesn't mean that it isn't good to re-iterate these things every now and then, but if you fell off your chair because of any of those three sentences then you do not have much - or even any - business experience, and likely are not quite ready to make the jump. There are some much deeper insights in that piece than those: - I started this business to make an extra $200 so I could spend it on video games without feeling guilty That's a really good one, it shows you that no matter what goal you have when you start out your business you are not going to be even near it (in a positive or a negative sense) when you're a couple of years down the line. After all, why didn't he stop when he made his goal? Why all the extra work? Clearly we set our goals, then the goal becomes the new 'base', and we set another goal. If I can make $200, how about $400... Another gem: - The 'time as debt' view. That's a very interesting way of looking at time, and I think that if it is an original then that alone is a huge contribution to running a small business. It also says in no uncertain terms that if you want to run a small business, any small business, you should learn how to do some minimal automation. There is lots of other good stuff in there, but those two stand out for me. One really good thing too, is that in spite of doing this for years, Patrick never quit his job or skimped on it. He waited until the right moment, probably constrained by the $-in-the-bank as well as the amount of money made on a daily basis by the job vs the project.
Periodic 17y ago
We tend to have quite a problem with survivorship bias[1] on HN. We like to look at the cases where things went well and we assume that is because they did something right that the others did not, and since the founder believe this, he will list the things he intentionally did that he thinks helped. In reality, it may have been something he was taking for granted, or it may have been that he happened to miss some common pitfalls. From one data point it is impossible to know if those are the factors that pushed him over the edge or not. Of course, one data point like this is useful if we look at all the other stories we get here on a daily basis. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias
- webwright 17y ago
  One thing that he did (dunno if he takes it for granted) is get a URL that matches with the top search phrase. If he'd named his company "GridFriend Creator", we'd be reading a VERY different article. Every time anyone links to him, it's like the George Bush "miserable failure" googlebomb [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb ]... Except that it's not frowned upon by Google.
  - patio11 17y ago
    I think that is of fairly minor consequence to the overall success of my business. I've been #1 for that phrase for almost four years now -- and as of four years ago, it was worth about 150 visits a month, or substantially less than five sales. "Whee." It is worth more these days, but that is because people searching for [bingo card creator] are probably looking for Bingo Card Creator (for example, with five seconds of checking into my stats, I can guarantee at least 30% of folks searching for it last week and clicking on my site already have an account with me). (Have I mentioned that "Google owns navigation on the Internet"?)
    - ericd 17y ago
      Doesn't that help it also rank for "Bingo " and "Bingo Card ", though? I'm very hazy on how Google uses anchor text, but this is how I assumed it works. On a related note, I'd be very happy to pay you for an SEO consultation.
maneesh 17y ago
I've been running an Internet marketing firm on 4hrs / week for a year (see: http://maneeshsethi.com/how-to-live-the-digital-nomad-life/ http://maneeshsethi.com/how-to-live-the-digital-nomad-life/) and I'm currently building a marketing plan to sell the software that makes my 4h workweek possible. EPS...it's been done many times before and will be done again. OPs time as an asset/debt idea is right up with what I believe, since people seem to believe their time is free...I believe it's better off outsourced so I can spend the one resource I'll never get back. Good article.
- huhtenberg 17y ago
  Wait till you get a kid or two. Then it becomes bloody obvious that your time is your most valuable asset. :)

by eps 17y ago

skmurphy 17y ago

Candidly I think you have mis-assessed. o Code is 10% of the business o Wall Clock Time vs. Calendar Time o Avoid Events, Plan for Processes all seem broadly applicable and non-obvious

jacquesm 17y ago
> Code is 10% of the business Is pretty obvious to anybody that's ever had or worked in a business. The other two are common sense. But that doesn't mean that it isn't good to re-iterate these things every now and then, but if you fell off your chair because of any of those three sentences then you do not have much - or even any - business experience, and likely are not quite ready to make the jump. There are some much deeper insights in that piece than those: - I started this business to make an extra $200 so I could spend it on video games without feeling guilty That's a really good one, it shows you that no matter what goal you have when you start out your business you are not going to be even near it (in a positive or a negative sense) when you're a couple of years down the line. After all, why didn't he stop when he made his goal? Why all the extra work? Clearly we set our goals, then the goal becomes the new 'base', and we set another goal. If I can make $200, how about $400... Another gem: - The 'time as debt' view. That's a very interesting way of looking at time, and I think that if it is an original then that alone is a huge contribution to running a small business. It also says in no uncertain terms that if you want to run a small business, any small business, you should learn how to do some minimal automation. There is lots of other good stuff in there, but those two stand out for me. One really good thing too, is that in spite of doing this for years, Patrick never quit his job or skimped on it. He waited until the right moment, probably constrained by the $-in-the-bank as well as the amount of money made on a daily basis by the job vs the project.

Periodic 17y ago

We tend to have quite a problem with survivorship bias[1] on HN. We like to look at the cases where things went well and we assume that is because they did something right that the others did not, and since the founder believe this, he will list the things he intentionally did that he thinks helped. In reality, it may have been something he was taking for granted, or it may have been that he happened to miss some common pitfalls. From one data point it is impossible to know if those are the factors that pushed him over the edge or not. Of course, one data point like this is useful if we look at all the other stories we get here on a daily basis. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

webwright 17y ago
One thing that he did (dunno if he takes it for granted) is get a URL that matches with the top search phrase. If he'd named his company "GridFriend Creator", we'd be reading a VERY different article. Every time anyone links to him, it's like the George Bush "miserable failure" googlebomb [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb ]... Except that it's not frowned upon by Google.
- patio11 17y ago
  I think that is of fairly minor consequence to the overall success of my business. I've been #1 for that phrase for almost four years now -- and as of four years ago, it was worth about 150 visits a month, or substantially less than five sales. "Whee." It is worth more these days, but that is because people searching for [bingo card creator] are probably looking for Bingo Card Creator (for example, with five seconds of checking into my stats, I can guarantee at least 30% of folks searching for it last week and clicking on my site already have an account with me). (Have I mentioned that "Google owns navigation on the Internet"?)
  - ericd 17y ago
    Doesn't that help it also rank for "Bingo " and "Bingo Card ", though? I'm very hazy on how Google uses anchor text, but this is how I assumed it works. On a related note, I'd be very happy to pay you for an SEO consultation.

maneesh 17y ago

I've been running an Internet marketing firm on 4hrs / week for a year (see: http://maneeshsethi.com/how-to-live-the-digital-nomad-life/ http://maneeshsethi.com/how-to-live-the-digital-nomad-life/) and I'm currently building a marketing plan to sell the software that makes my 4h workweek possible. EPS...it's been done many times before and will be done again. OPs time as an asset/debt idea is right up with what I believe, since people seem to believe their time is free...I believe it's better off outsourced so I can spend the one resource I'll never get back. Good article.

huhtenberg 17y ago
Wait till you get a kid or two. Then it becomes bloody obvious that your time is your most valuable asset. :)