4 ms·

If you put 100% into your startup you'll get 100% out. If you're constantly chasing the dollars/pounds/euros/crores then your startup is under constant pressure

by iuguy 16y ago

If you put 100% into your startup you'll get 100% out. If you're constantly chasing the dollars/pounds/euros/crores then your startup is under constant pressure to become a side project. What things like YC do is give you the opportunity to make the idea your full time job with full attention. The money isn't necessarily great but the network is. The alternative is that you raise the money elsewhere and do without the network. If the benefits of that network outweigh the potential later costs of Ycombinator, I'd say do YCombinator. If you need the money and YC is where it's at, do YC. If not, find out how much burn you'd need for a year and go contracting to save up the cash. You can normally get enough money contracting in a year for a further two of frugal living or one for several frugal folk. If you can't get traction there, then you have a problem that YC might not be able to solve.

tptacek 16y ago
You can put 105% into a startup and get 0% out. You can put 20% into a startup and get 10000% out. Real life is not like an inspirational half time locker room speech. A lot of these companies you see putting 100% in, I see setting themselves up for failure by betting their lives on a plan that only works if they grab the rope, jump over the scorpion, and hop on exactly the right sequence of crocodile mouths. They don't have to do that. DHH just had Zonda commission a supercar for him. Did he put 100% in during 37signals first year?[1] [1] Hint: no.
- mrkurt 16y ago
  I really[1] like your footnotes. [1] Really really
- iuguy 16y ago
  > You can put 20% into a startup and get 10000% out. Really? I don't know anyone who does anything with 20% focus and effort put in and gets 10000% out. Then again, maybe we're talking cross-purposes as to what gets put in or taken out. As for DHH, he wasn't at 37signals until 2003, so I'm not quite sure where you're coming from with that. I'm not even sure DHH is a good example as it wasn't like he came in as a partner (at least AFAIK, but please correct me if I'm wrong), so clearly he had to put some effort in in order to become one.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    I think he means that the outcome is not required to be proportional to the input. I have a couple examples of my own that I can use to demonstrate. The business that pays my rent took me the better part of a week to build and launch 3 years ago. I've gone literally months without opening the project in an IDE, marketing it, or thinking about it beyond answering an email or two. And the profits keep rolling in. Some years back I was part of a 6 man dev team at a 20 person startup, burning through 60 hour weeks and $8M in funding to build the mother of all SaaS products, which over the course of its life brought in roughly the same amount of revenue as the product mentioned above. So, as the grandparent said, there's no reason to expect that effort and outcome are coupled in any way.
  - tptacek 16y ago
    You think everyone who's ever had a "fuck you money" exit put 100% focus into their company? I don't care to argue about DHH's position at 37signals. He's the one who said he built Basecamp as a part-time project. He has me at "custom Zonda supercar".

by iuguy 16y ago

tptacek 16y ago

You can put 105% into a startup and get 0% out. You can put 20% into a startup and get 10000% out. Real life is not like an inspirational half time locker room speech. A lot of these companies you see putting 100% in, I see setting themselves up for failure by betting their lives on a plan that only works if they grab the rope, jump over the scorpion, and hop on exactly the right sequence of crocodile mouths. They don't have to do that. DHH just had Zonda commission a supercar for him. Did he put 100% in during 37signals first year?[1] [1] Hint: no.

mrkurt 16y ago
I really[1] like your footnotes. [1] Really really
iuguy 16y ago
> You can put 20% into a startup and get 10000% out. Really? I don't know anyone who does anything with 20% focus and effort put in and gets 10000% out. Then again, maybe we're talking cross-purposes as to what gets put in or taken out. As for DHH, he wasn't at 37signals until 2003, so I'm not quite sure where you're coming from with that. I'm not even sure DHH is a good example as it wasn't like he came in as a partner (at least AFAIK, but please correct me if I'm wrong), so clearly he had to put some effort in in order to become one.
- jasonkester 16y ago
  I think he means that the outcome is not required to be proportional to the input. I have a couple examples of my own that I can use to demonstrate. The business that pays my rent took me the better part of a week to build and launch 3 years ago. I've gone literally months without opening the project in an IDE, marketing it, or thinking about it beyond answering an email or two. And the profits keep rolling in. Some years back I was part of a 6 man dev team at a 20 person startup, burning through 60 hour weeks and $8M in funding to build the mother of all SaaS products, which over the course of its life brought in roughly the same amount of revenue as the product mentioned above. So, as the grandparent said, there's no reason to expect that effort and outcome are coupled in any way.
- tptacek 16y ago
  You think everyone who's ever had a "fuck you money" exit put 100% focus into their company? I don't care to argue about DHH's position at 37signals. He's the one who said he built Basecamp as a part-time project. He has me at "custom Zonda supercar".