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The third thing that goes wrong when you take your toy too seriously is that you immediately start optimizing on the things that you believe serious businesses
by rsp1984 9y ago
The third thing that goes wrong when you take your toy too seriously is that you immediately start optimizing on the things that you believe serious businesses should – profit and margins. While these things are important in the long run, focusing on them too early injects an impossible set of things for an early startup to do.
How is this not in direct contradiction to http://paulgraham.com/aord.html http://paulgraham.com/aord.html?
Can somebody shed some light on this? I don't necessarily disagree with Aaron but its tough to make any sense of it when one YC person tells you one thing and another YC person tells you pretty much the exact the opposite.
- akharris 9y agoOne of the fun things about advice is that you'll find things that seem in direct opposition, even from people who generally agree. In this case, though, context is critical. PG's point here is around startups that have been around for a while, on which people are working full time, that are meant to be businesses. I'm trying to get at the part that comes before that stage. In this case, the additional context I'd look for would be around what the creator/founder is trying to do and how successful they've been at doing that.
- lmm 9y agoFrom the PG page you link: > It's not a question that makes sense to ask early on, any more than it makes sense to ask a 3 year old how he plans to support himself. But as the company grows older, the question switches from meaningless to critical. That kind of switch often takes people by surprise. There's a point at which you have to worry about profitability, and that point can be earlier than you think, but at the same time it's not something you should be doing right at the start.