5 ms·

How to Avoid Distractions and Start the Right Company

123 points by justin 8y ago

ttul 8y ago
Altman’s on point here: don’t follow a trend, focus on solving problems. And choose something hard. When money is growing on trees, pick a major problem with a huge upside should you solve it. Startups are hard; at least make it have a chance of being really worthwhile. — Someone who picked a small problem.
- rthng 8y ago
  If it's not too forward, what problem did you pick?
  - ttul 8y ago
    Well, once upon a time when I was young and stupid, I chose to make some very tiny improvement to spam filtering.
    - ElzeardBouffier 8y ago
      Application of Bayesian filters was not a tiny improvement.
- flyosity 8y ago
  "Fall in love with the problem, not the solution"
- jonbarker 8y ago
  Where it gets difficult to answer the very real internal almost contemplative question of 'am I solving a hard problem?' is when one looks at the history of fluffy rhetoric used by companies solving seemingly easy problems, making it impossible to convince them or their supporters they aren't solving something hard. For example, a website with photo sharing and a forum like feature called a newsfeed claims to be connecting everyone. Can't fault them for having audacious goals, I guess, but then it makes it harder to know how to approach one's own hard problems. What's the MVP for a product that attacks world hunger, cancer, or energy scarcity, for example?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
justin 8y ago
Distractions are everywhere, and one of the most insidious things in startups. Once you become a founder there is lots of "fun" stuff to do: go to conferences, have coffee meetings with important people, etc. The discipline is to be able to say "No". To be honest it is still a skill I feel I haven't mastered yet, 7+ companies later :) I recommend reading Essentialism, by Greg McKeown.
AJRF 8y ago
50 likes and 2 comments over an hour seems like too little engagement to be second on the list. Are posts about Sam effectively sticked on HN? Is there any more information on how the front page works?
- tristanho 8y ago
  I'm a simple man: I see something by Sam Altman, I upvote and read it. I suspect many folks on HN (you know, being on a YC site) are the same. This, and HN simply working based on an upvote algorithm, seems much more plausible than there being some kind of conspiracy to amplify Sam's posts.
  - AJRF 8y ago
    I never for a second suggested it was a conspiracy, I'm not entirely sure where you got that idea from. I merely asked was there information about weighing his posts and posts about him higher.
    - tristanho 8y ago
      Fair enough... sorry for taking your post uncharitably. To me that's a bit of a conspiracy, as it would be kind of dishonest to weigh his posts higher.
- swampthinker 8y ago
  HN heavily biases towards new posts that have early traction. Keeps the page fresh.
- tramGG 8y ago
  Links posted by YC alum/admins appear different in color for them, this makes it a voting ring feature built in because of this. Most likely they also have a different weight mechanic.
- kolbe 8y ago
  It probably gets favorable weighting, but I've learned tolerating Sam's writing and seeing a few too many plugs for YC alum companies is a very small price to pay for this place to exist.
paulgb 8y ago
The annoying pop-up over the content appeared just as I started reading "beware the distractions" so I closed the tab. Good advice.
- CoffeeDregs 8y ago
  I did the exact same thing...
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- birken 8y ago
  Wait a second, you don't want more of this "high quality", "totally-not-retread", "seriously-not-trying-to-get-you-to-sign-up-for-our-lawfirm" content that Sam Altman assures us is as much of a must-read as Paul Graham's essays? What is wrong with you!?
lalos 8y ago
I always feel bad when I see startups come from a rich guy chasing fame or increasing the family wealth, they have a great and vital tool (money) but not a problem to solve nor an edge in the industry they are attacking. Kind of ironic, but hey throwing money to random ideas at least generates jobs and moves the economy.
- dualogy 8y ago
  "The journey is the destination" isn't the worst of motivations and/or inadvertent side-effects =)
- tlb 8y ago
  Throwing money at unworkable ideas makes the world worse, because it employs people that could be working on good ideas instead. For example, Theranos was a tragedy not because investors lost money (it's part of the deal) but because hundreds of smart scientists and engineers spent years working on something that went nowhere. All that talent directed elsewhere could have built something great.
  - mattthebaker 8y ago
    The 'unworkable ideas' can typically only be determined in hindsight. Pushing the cutting edge will always result in some paths that lead to nowhere. Theranos was a good idea, the tragedy was rampant fraud.
andyidsinga 8y ago
Something doesn't quite sit right with me about #5 "Think Bigger" and the example that a recruit might think "So what? Your company is just another enterprise software startup." To me there are a lot of interesting opportunities in solving problems, that might initially seem mundane or tedious but could turn into successful, profitable businesses. #5 seems to sort of go against some of the sentiment in PG's article Shelp Blindness ( http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html ). I suppose I might attempt to re-state #5 thusly: "The difficult and seemingly tedious work done in the early stages might show a path to providing solutions larger problems 1..n" I'd like to be able to recruit people who are interested in a that journey more so than the end-state.
fermienrico 8y ago
I honestly do not gain anything from articles like this. They are so abstract that when it comes down to an actual actionable information - it doesn't apply anymore. It is sort of like reading one of those fluffy "How to become a millionaire" advice books. Nothing of substance comes out of it and they do not work for me. I recently watched Sam Altman's MIT lecture [1] on Youtube about startup advice for hard tech companies. It was such a waste of time. Instead, I find it much more informative and educational to read and watch stories about how a specific company was formed. Each story is unique and the just goes to show that each startup has unique challenges. There is so much to learn from these stories and their mistakes. For example, watch the SolidWorks founder presenting at Harvard about their initial marketing/pricing phase [2]. It is absolutely fascinating. Reading generalized abstract fluff bothers me. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7HyWFJMAxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7HyWFJMAxg [2] https://youtu.be/t-EaWM8miHw https://youtu.be/t-EaWM8miHw
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- sp527 8y ago
  These think pieces are meant to reinforce Altman's image as a tech industry theorist a la pg. It's really just advertising. But he's not nearly as good at it as pg was.
- liquid153 8y ago
  All his stuff are fluff pieces, it's like listening to a pitch coach. I have no idea why people see him as an authoritative figure in this space, when all he had was 1 failed start up.
  - kolbe 8y ago
    I know it's not his fault per se, but YC has had a horrible track record since he joined, too.
    - pen2l 8y ago
modi15 8y ago
Broadly disagree with ALL the points, except for the first one. IMO this happens with a LOT of standard advice regarding startups. The problem is that there are as many ways to do a startup as there are founders and its too tempting for VC's to infer 'wisdom' from their immediate samples. I suspect that this happens because as an observer its extremely hard to distinguish causation from correlation. Also, it seems that VC's tend to view 'emergent' success in terms of their own work ethics. Sam's not the only one though. Paul Graham did this too with his two founder rule for startups.
- tlb 8y ago
  From an investor point of view, correlation can be good enough. If startups with property X are measurably more likely to succeed, it doesn't matter whether X causes success or if X is caused by some other property Y of the startup that causes success but isn't easy to determine in an interview. In your example, X = "has multiple founders", Y = "first founder is not impossible to work with". Clearly Y causes success, but X is easier for investors to determine. From a founder point of view, you want to focus mainly on the real causes of success rather than appearances, but give some thought to appearances. Customers are far more influenced by appearances than investors (because they have less time to dig in), so when you devote time to appearances you should think mainly about customers. Customers tend to be skeptical of one-man shows.
  - modi15 8y ago
    The concern is that Sam is offering this advice for founders not investors - and many would lap it up given the authority he has and make suboptimal decisions about their startup. I think YC is probably HEAVILY influenced by appearance. Wrestle with the data little bit, check all the right boxes, prep that video, get some intros and your YC MBA is set. Customers largely couldnt care less about one-man shows and even if in any specific case they do, it is very easy to 'look' like a company on the internet or in real life. Amazon has always been a one-man show - but maybe thats why they never made money.
ministrator 8y ago
I keep seeing Sam Altman tied to clickbaity 'How-to' articles, but never managed to apply any of the lessons to start and grow a successful company himself. Obviously from his position now, he has a lot of insights into what other companies do, so It'd be great to see factual data from his insights, rather than top-down advice that he wasn't able to apply to his own career.
bedros 8y ago
slightly offtopic, but startup related: why Sam Altman would post on atrium.co website? when checking their services, they provide incorporating and other legal services, is it more custom legal service than clerky.com? any idea about pricing? I'm looking to incorporate but slightly more complex than clerky standard templates
- ameister14 8y ago
  Atrium is a YC alum
jaredklewis 8y ago
A lot of sama hate in this thread for some reason, but the criticisms just come off as petty. It's a less than 1000 word article giving a 30,000 ft ariel overview of making a startup. Not sure what people expected. If you have 10 years experience in graphic design, you are probably not going to find much of interest in a 1000 word article titled "Getting started in graphic design." Deal with it. And everyone seems very glib to point out that his startup "failed," but I am not sure how that is relevant here. He's the president of Y Combinator and last time I checked they are doing fine. In art and science, some of the most accomplished figures are lousy teachers and vice versa. Any reason why this would be different in business?

123 points by justin 8y ago

ttul 8y ago

Altman’s on point here: don’t follow a trend, focus on solving problems. And choose something hard. When money is growing on trees, pick a major problem with a huge upside should you solve it. Startups are hard; at least make it have a chance of being really worthwhile. — Someone who picked a small problem.

rthng 8y ago
If it's not too forward, what problem did you pick?
- ttul 8y ago
  Well, once upon a time when I was young and stupid, I chose to make some very tiny improvement to spam filtering.
  - ElzeardBouffier 8y ago
    Application of Bayesian filters was not a tiny improvement.
flyosity 8y ago
"Fall in love with the problem, not the solution"
jonbarker 8y ago
Where it gets difficult to answer the very real internal almost contemplative question of 'am I solving a hard problem?' is when one looks at the history of fluffy rhetoric used by companies solving seemingly easy problems, making it impossible to convince them or their supporters they aren't solving something hard. For example, a website with photo sharing and a forum like feature called a newsfeed claims to be connecting everyone. Can't fault them for having audacious goals, I guess, but then it makes it harder to know how to approach one's own hard problems. What's the MVP for a product that attacks world hunger, cancer, or energy scarcity, for example?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

justin 8y ago

Distractions are everywhere, and one of the most insidious things in startups. Once you become a founder there is lots of "fun" stuff to do: go to conferences, have coffee meetings with important people, etc. The discipline is to be able to say "No". To be honest it is still a skill I feel I haven't mastered yet, 7+ companies later :) I recommend reading Essentialism, by Greg McKeown.

AJRF 8y ago

50 likes and 2 comments over an hour seems like too little engagement to be second on the list. Are posts about Sam effectively sticked on HN? Is there any more information on how the front page works?

tristanho 8y ago
I'm a simple man: I see something by Sam Altman, I upvote and read it. I suspect many folks on HN (you know, being on a YC site) are the same. This, and HN simply working based on an upvote algorithm, seems much more plausible than there being some kind of conspiracy to amplify Sam's posts.
- AJRF 8y ago
  I never for a second suggested it was a conspiracy, I'm not entirely sure where you got that idea from. I merely asked was there information about weighing his posts and posts about him higher.
  - tristanho 8y ago
    Fair enough... sorry for taking your post uncharitably. To me that's a bit of a conspiracy, as it would be kind of dishonest to weigh his posts higher.
swampthinker 8y ago
HN heavily biases towards new posts that have early traction. Keeps the page fresh.
tramGG 8y ago
Links posted by YC alum/admins appear different in color for them, this makes it a voting ring feature built in because of this. Most likely they also have a different weight mechanic.
kolbe 8y ago
It probably gets favorable weighting, but I've learned tolerating Sam's writing and seeing a few too many plugs for YC alum companies is a very small price to pay for this place to exist.

paulgb 8y ago

The annoying pop-up over the content appeared just as I started reading "beware the distractions" so I closed the tab. Good advice.

CoffeeDregs 8y ago
I did the exact same thing...
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
birken 8y ago
Wait a second, you don't want more of this "high quality", "totally-not-retread", "seriously-not-trying-to-get-you-to-sign-up-for-our-lawfirm" content that Sam Altman assures us is as much of a must-read as Paul Graham's essays? What is wrong with you!?

lalos 8y ago

I always feel bad when I see startups come from a rich guy chasing fame or increasing the family wealth, they have a great and vital tool (money) but not a problem to solve nor an edge in the industry they are attacking. Kind of ironic, but hey throwing money to random ideas at least generates jobs and moves the economy.

dualogy 8y ago
"The journey is the destination" isn't the worst of motivations and/or inadvertent side-effects =)
tlb 8y ago
Throwing money at unworkable ideas makes the world worse, because it employs people that could be working on good ideas instead. For example, Theranos was a tragedy not because investors lost money (it's part of the deal) but because hundreds of smart scientists and engineers spent years working on something that went nowhere. All that talent directed elsewhere could have built something great.
- mattthebaker 8y ago
  The 'unworkable ideas' can typically only be determined in hindsight. Pushing the cutting edge will always result in some paths that lead to nowhere. Theranos was a good idea, the tragedy was rampant fraud.

andyidsinga 8y ago

Something doesn't quite sit right with me about #5 "Think Bigger" and the example that a recruit might think "So what? Your company is just another enterprise software startup." To me there are a lot of interesting opportunities in solving problems, that might initially seem mundane or tedious but could turn into successful, profitable businesses. #5 seems to sort of go against some of the sentiment in PG's article Shelp Blindness ( http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html http://www.paulgraham.com/schlep.html ). I suppose I might attempt to re-state #5 thusly: "The difficult and seemingly tedious work done in the early stages might show a path to providing solutions larger problems 1..n" I'd like to be able to recruit people who are interested in a that journey more so than the end-state.

fermienrico 8y ago

I honestly do not gain anything from articles like this. They are so abstract that when it comes down to an actual actionable information - it doesn't apply anymore. It is sort of like reading one of those fluffy "How to become a millionaire" advice books. Nothing of substance comes out of it and they do not work for me. I recently watched Sam Altman's MIT lecture [1] on Youtube about startup advice for hard tech companies. It was such a waste of time. Instead, I find it much more informative and educational to read and watch stories about how a specific company was formed. Each story is unique and the just goes to show that each startup has unique challenges. There is so much to learn from these stories and their mistakes. For example, watch the SolidWorks founder presenting at Harvard about their initial marketing/pricing phase [2]. It is absolutely fascinating. Reading generalized abstract fluff bothers me. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7HyWFJMAxg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7HyWFJMAxg [2] https://youtu.be/t-EaWM8miHw https://youtu.be/t-EaWM8miHw

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
sp527 8y ago
These think pieces are meant to reinforce Altman's image as a tech industry theorist a la pg. It's really just advertising. But he's not nearly as good at it as pg was.
liquid153 8y ago
All his stuff are fluff pieces, it's like listening to a pitch coach. I have no idea why people see him as an authoritative figure in this space, when all he had was 1 failed start up.
- kolbe 8y ago
  I know it's not his fault per se, but YC has had a horrible track record since he joined, too.
  - pen2l 8y ago

modi15 8y ago

Broadly disagree with ALL the points, except for the first one. IMO this happens with a LOT of standard advice regarding startups. The problem is that there are as many ways to do a startup as there are founders and its too tempting for VC's to infer 'wisdom' from their immediate samples. I suspect that this happens because as an observer its extremely hard to distinguish causation from correlation. Also, it seems that VC's tend to view 'emergent' success in terms of their own work ethics. Sam's not the only one though. Paul Graham did this too with his two founder rule for startups.

tlb 8y ago
From an investor point of view, correlation can be good enough. If startups with property X are measurably more likely to succeed, it doesn't matter whether X causes success or if X is caused by some other property Y of the startup that causes success but isn't easy to determine in an interview. In your example, X = "has multiple founders", Y = "first founder is not impossible to work with". Clearly Y causes success, but X is easier for investors to determine. From a founder point of view, you want to focus mainly on the real causes of success rather than appearances, but give some thought to appearances. Customers are far more influenced by appearances than investors (because they have less time to dig in), so when you devote time to appearances you should think mainly about customers. Customers tend to be skeptical of one-man shows.
- modi15 8y ago
  The concern is that Sam is offering this advice for founders not investors - and many would lap it up given the authority he has and make suboptimal decisions about their startup. I think YC is probably HEAVILY influenced by appearance. Wrestle with the data little bit, check all the right boxes, prep that video, get some intros and your YC MBA is set. Customers largely couldnt care less about one-man shows and even if in any specific case they do, it is very easy to 'look' like a company on the internet or in real life. Amazon has always been a one-man show - but maybe thats why they never made money.

ministrator 8y ago

I keep seeing Sam Altman tied to clickbaity 'How-to' articles, but never managed to apply any of the lessons to start and grow a successful company himself. Obviously from his position now, he has a lot of insights into what other companies do, so It'd be great to see factual data from his insights, rather than top-down advice that he wasn't able to apply to his own career.

bedros 8y ago

slightly offtopic, but startup related: why Sam Altman would post on atrium.co website? when checking their services, they provide incorporating and other legal services, is it more custom legal service than clerky.com? any idea about pricing? I'm looking to incorporate but slightly more complex than clerky standard templates

ameister14 8y ago
Atrium is a YC alum

jaredklewis 8y ago

A lot of sama hate in this thread for some reason, but the criticisms just come off as petty. It's a less than 1000 word article giving a 30,000 ft ariel overview of making a startup. Not sure what people expected. If you have 10 years experience in graphic design, you are probably not going to find much of interest in a 1000 word article titled "Getting started in graphic design." Deal with it. And everyone seems very glib to point out that his startup "failed," but I am not sure how that is relevant here. He's the president of Y Combinator and last time I checked they are doing fine. In art and science, some of the most accomplished figures are lousy teachers and vice versa. Any reason why this would be different in business?