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Yes, I'm a little concerned about this too; we've all presumably watched most of the startup talks and I know more information about this stuff than I think I r

Yes, I'm a little concerned about this too; we've all presumably watched most of the startup talks and I know more information about this stuff than I think I really need to. It's easy to follow the checklist of things not to do but proving out new ideas is always going to throw up specific challenges. I'm more concerned about the detail focused questions like which features I should build first, how should I test (with a proper statistical probability) and a low number of users? What leads us astray most as startup founders (apart from investors and running out of money)? How can I simplify this feature so it takes me a day to try rather than 4-5 days? Should I remove it if no-one liked it or persevere with improvements? I mean even stupid questions like what size should I make my DB server if I'm posting my startup to Show HN on a Friday afternoon? What logging/dashboard/analytics should I set up to start? The problem is I'm not sure someone who talks to me once per week would be anything other than a sounding board for my own thoughts as I should know my business so much better than they ever could. The real reason to do YC of course is their unmatched network of people and the brand recognition you get when talking to investors...

dnautics 9y ago
I'd actually be more worried that none of that matters and other things like "who you know" matter more. A lot of the technical things you mention could be just a wierd inverse cargo cult. Those are things that actually would be effective for running a real company, but you're going through the motions because that's what everyone else "did to get money" even though that's not what they did to get money. Look at indie.bio -- almost every single one of their companies is a joke chasing some hot topic in biotech with often little or no real market or effective business strategy. The folks running the company make big noise about, open source science and breaking free of the postdocapalypse/community science, and the ruination brought to a generation of academic PhDs. Yet not a single one of their companies licenses operates with free ip licensing and about half of the companies are spinoffs with full time academic professors on the founding team or advisory board. In general there is a disconnect between the narrative that's sold and what actually happens.

dnautics 9y ago

I'd actually be more worried that none of that matters and other things like "who you know" matter more. A lot of the technical things you mention could be just a wierd inverse cargo cult. Those are things that actually would be effective for running a real company, but you're going through the motions because that's what everyone else "did to get money" even though that's not what they did to get money. Look at indie.bio -- almost every single one of their companies is a joke chasing some hot topic in biotech with often little or no real market or effective business strategy. The folks running the company make big noise about, open source science and breaking free of the postdocapalypse/community science, and the ruination brought to a generation of academic PhDs. Yet not a single one of their companies licenses operates with free ip licensing and about half of the companies are spinoffs with full time academic professors on the founding team or advisory board. In general there is a disconnect between the narrative that's sold and what actually happens.