4 ms·

Yeah this is the best for me: > Ship. Ship. SHIP. The overwhelming failure case among people who read interviews like this one is that they spend 98 units of e

by rb808 9y ago

Yeah this is the best for me: > Ship. Ship. SHIP. The overwhelming failure case among people who read interviews like this one is that they spend 98 units of effort reading about running a business for every 2 units of effort running a business. Flip that on its head. I wonder how many successful entrepreneurs actually spent time reading advice blogs when they were starting.

kfriede 9y ago
Not yet successful, but I recently launched a product that I'm sure wouldn't be launched yet if I hadn't read the recommendation to ship early.
- tertius 9y ago
  It's all about proportion :)
lettergram 9y ago
It's interesting. I can't stand reading about startups, advice, etc. I regularly watch my friends, people on HN or Reddit fall into the folly of discussing different strategies or trying to create the "perfect team" or "perfect business" prior to launch. I create products regularly, and many of them make a profit (not a ton yet, but all growing). My consumer facing apps include https://easy-a.net/ https://easy-a.net/ or https://projectpiglet.com/ https://projectpiglet.com/ both are (clearly) boot strapped together, but I launched as soon as I had anything resembling a product. What I will caution is that I did wait to launch the products until they were stable and easy enough to use. Sure, they don't look pretty, but it works. I think advice (blogs or otherwise) are one of the largest hurdles an entrepreneur has to over come. Starting a business isn't about other people, it's about yourself and your business. Even going through things like YC's Startup School can be a detriment, because they fixate so heavily on various components of the business. Often, you just have to tune it out and do what's right. In this case, that's building something, speaking to customers, and improving. Ironically, I think even this article is the same rehash of the 30 other stories I've seen (assuming the quote you took is from the article, as I didn't read it). That being said, I do see value in interaction. Which is why I post comments like these on HN or discuss an idea. It's generated tons of leads and that is much more valuable.
- kfriede 9y ago
  On the subject of not reading advice, do you have advice on how you get the word out to your side projects? How do you "market" them?
  - tixocloud 9y ago
    Depending on your projects, are some of your friends better fit for them than others? How about friends of friends? What I've done is make a list of channels and spend some time with each channel. However, what really worked for me was my network.
  - lettergram 9y ago
    I find a good product needs some, but minimal marketing. Customers will recommend it to friends if it's a good fit and it'll continue to grow that way, and obviously try to get some SEO. To get started, I'll regularly post on Reddit, HN, Slack, Facebook, etc. (typically providing some insightful comment, using one of my applications) and I'll get signups. One of my particular posts recently got me 50 sign ups for my website, to put it into perspective. Those people are also my target customers though, so it makes it easy. When "marketing" to companies, a cold call, email, or intro from a friend usually can pique their interest. Then you just need a really good demo / app. Even then, they likely wont bite; hence I'm moving away from that business and mostly to consumer apps.
- hodgesrm 9y ago
  It's worth thinking about the team in advance, especially to understand what things you do well and where you need complementary talents. Good teams also work through the problems that are inevitable in new products. There's a great speech by Ed Catmull that makes this point well. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc) Of course this is useless advice if you are doing a one-person business. :)
jasongrishkoff 9y ago
As one of those folks featured on IndieHackers (https://www.submithub.com https://www.submithub.com), I can say that I didn't read a single interview, advice blog or anything of the sort. I just focused on rolling out an MVP that streamlined the problem I was trying to solve. I confess that to this day, I haven't read any of the other interviews on IndieHackers :-D. Oops, hope you're not seeing this Courtland <3
- l33tbro 9y ago
  I struggle with this so much that I even managed to unearth a buzz term (1) for this syndrome of reading too many advice blogs. That aside, I think a lot of this is relative to where one is at in terms of education, network, support structure, access to capital, and a raft of other factors Eg, if you're an MBA with a deep and narrow understanding of a certain niche, you're not going to lean on startup blogs in the same way an enterprising trucker from Wyoming is who's fuelling the hustle with Youtube tutorials on Java and epub torrents. Entrepreneurship is a very long and lonely road, so it's perfectly reasonable that many of us look at these sites to (re)validate our decision to take a risk and steer off-course in our career choices from the rest of our peers. 1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis
  - tixocloud 9y ago
    It's a real thing and I've been involved in teams where we continue to spend so much time doing research instead of talking to prospects and launching something. We went so far to convince ourselves of why our solution sucks. If you don't have belief in your solution, why should someone else pay money for it?
  - mrisoli 9y ago
    I knew this existed but I never knew the name thank you! I suffer from this in many ways, not just shipping a product, but even when just starting a dumb side project it is easy to get sidetracked with simple decisions, such as language, framework, etc.(the infamous JS fatigue)
  - 9y ago
mkirklions 9y ago
IMO, I've wasted time on advice. The best advice I got was to: Just Do It and Learn While You Go. I'm a pretty analytical person, so I havent made any gigantic mistakes, but I've made mistakes. Learn from it, and move on. Most of the stuff people told me or I read either is- Baseless Opinion, or not useful and I forget it.
kelukelugames 9y ago
Haha, I've read 4 books on writing by famous authors but have written 0 books. I think I enjoy reading about writing more than actual writing.
- teddyh 9y ago
  That’s fine, as long as you don’t call yourself, or identify as, a “writer”.
- armenarmen 9y ago
  Finished writing my first novel, waiting on cover art now, and yeah. Reading about writing is a lot more pleasant than the actual writing. Rather, it's editing that sucks.
  - stevenj 9y ago
    Good writing is great editing.
- corpMaverick 9y ago
  > I think I enjoy reading about writing more than actual writing. Exactly. I believe Paul Graham actually uses this example on one of his early essays.

by rb808 9y ago

kfriede 9y ago

Not yet successful, but I recently launched a product that I'm sure wouldn't be launched yet if I hadn't read the recommendation to ship early.

tertius 9y ago
It's all about proportion :)

lettergram 9y ago

It's interesting. I can't stand reading about startups, advice, etc. I regularly watch my friends, people on HN or Reddit fall into the folly of discussing different strategies or trying to create the "perfect team" or "perfect business" prior to launch. I create products regularly, and many of them make a profit (not a ton yet, but all growing). My consumer facing apps include https://easy-a.net/ https://easy-a.net/ or https://projectpiglet.com/ https://projectpiglet.com/ both are (clearly) boot strapped together, but I launched as soon as I had anything resembling a product. What I will caution is that I did wait to launch the products until they were stable and easy enough to use. Sure, they don't look pretty, but it works. I think advice (blogs or otherwise) are one of the largest hurdles an entrepreneur has to over come. Starting a business isn't about other people, it's about yourself and your business. Even going through things like YC's Startup School can be a detriment, because they fixate so heavily on various components of the business. Often, you just have to tune it out and do what's right. In this case, that's building something, speaking to customers, and improving. Ironically, I think even this article is the same rehash of the 30 other stories I've seen (assuming the quote you took is from the article, as I didn't read it). That being said, I do see value in interaction. Which is why I post comments like these on HN or discuss an idea. It's generated tons of leads and that is much more valuable.

kfriede 9y ago
On the subject of not reading advice, do you have advice on how you get the word out to your side projects? How do you "market" them?
- tixocloud 9y ago
  Depending on your projects, are some of your friends better fit for them than others? How about friends of friends? What I've done is make a list of channels and spend some time with each channel. However, what really worked for me was my network.
- lettergram 9y ago
  I find a good product needs some, but minimal marketing. Customers will recommend it to friends if it's a good fit and it'll continue to grow that way, and obviously try to get some SEO. To get started, I'll regularly post on Reddit, HN, Slack, Facebook, etc. (typically providing some insightful comment, using one of my applications) and I'll get signups. One of my particular posts recently got me 50 sign ups for my website, to put it into perspective. Those people are also my target customers though, so it makes it easy. When "marketing" to companies, a cold call, email, or intro from a friend usually can pique their interest. Then you just need a really good demo / app. Even then, they likely wont bite; hence I'm moving away from that business and mostly to consumer apps.
hodgesrm 9y ago
It's worth thinking about the team in advance, especially to understand what things you do well and where you need complementary talents. Good teams also work through the problems that are inevitable in new products. There's a great speech by Ed Catmull that makes this point well. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2h2lvhzMDc) Of course this is useless advice if you are doing a one-person business. :)

jasongrishkoff 9y ago

As one of those folks featured on IndieHackers (https://www.submithub.com https://www.submithub.com), I can say that I didn't read a single interview, advice blog or anything of the sort. I just focused on rolling out an MVP that streamlined the problem I was trying to solve. I confess that to this day, I haven't read any of the other interviews on IndieHackers :-D. Oops, hope you're not seeing this Courtland <3

l33tbro 9y ago
I struggle with this so much that I even managed to unearth a buzz term (1) for this syndrome of reading too many advice blogs. That aside, I think a lot of this is relative to where one is at in terms of education, network, support structure, access to capital, and a raft of other factors Eg, if you're an MBA with a deep and narrow understanding of a certain niche, you're not going to lean on startup blogs in the same way an enterprising trucker from Wyoming is who's fuelling the hustle with Youtube tutorials on Java and epub torrents. Entrepreneurship is a very long and lonely road, so it's perfectly reasonable that many of us look at these sites to (re)validate our decision to take a risk and steer off-course in our career choices from the rest of our peers. 1) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis
- tixocloud 9y ago
  It's a real thing and I've been involved in teams where we continue to spend so much time doing research instead of talking to prospects and launching something. We went so far to convince ourselves of why our solution sucks. If you don't have belief in your solution, why should someone else pay money for it?
- mrisoli 9y ago
  I knew this existed but I never knew the name thank you! I suffer from this in many ways, not just shipping a product, but even when just starting a dumb side project it is easy to get sidetracked with simple decisions, such as language, framework, etc.(the infamous JS fatigue)
- 9y ago

mkirklions 9y ago

IMO, I've wasted time on advice. The best advice I got was to: Just Do It and Learn While You Go. I'm a pretty analytical person, so I havent made any gigantic mistakes, but I've made mistakes. Learn from it, and move on. Most of the stuff people told me or I read either is- Baseless Opinion, or not useful and I forget it.

kelukelugames 9y ago

Haha, I've read 4 books on writing by famous authors but have written 0 books. I think I enjoy reading about writing more than actual writing.

teddyh 9y ago
That’s fine, as long as you don’t call yourself, or identify as, a “writer”.
armenarmen 9y ago
Finished writing my first novel, waiting on cover art now, and yeah. Reading about writing is a lot more pleasant than the actual writing. Rather, it's editing that sucks.
- stevenj 9y ago
  Good writing is great editing.
corpMaverick 9y ago
> I think I enjoy reading about writing more than actual writing. Exactly. I believe Paul Graham actually uses this example on one of his early essays.