6 ms·

Not all ex-post theories are BS. For example, I slam my hand in the drawer and theorize, "Slamming hands in drawers hurts; one should not do it." That theory is

• edgarvaldes 7y ago
  Maybe theories about what not to do are more solid.
  • mcguire 7y ago
    Thank you for the validation! My purpose in life is to serve as an example of what not to do.
    • toss1 7y ago
      Sounds like fun! But you have a paradox. Do you demonstrate one big thing to not do and go out with a bang, winning a Darwin Award, or demonstrate many smaller (less lethal) things to not do? Which generates more net benefit for the world? Always these career choices, and what kind of advice is there on that?
  • davidivadavid 7y ago
    Nah. In fact that's the whole reason "contrarianism" is a thing.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• sha_r_roh 7y ago
  > "Slamming hands in drawers hurts; one should not do it." This is a fact and don't think this is what the author is trying to say. I guess he's more focused on the kind of theories which people throw around as some sort of self-evident truth, when in fact it's a personal truth which they learned through trial and error. But I guess there's a point in learning from some of these "self-evident" truths (this is more rare though)
  • 8note 7y ago
    slamming your hands in drawers is also a personal experiment. I might be wearing a good set of gloves, and it won't hurt
    • ahhzen 7y ago
      There always has to be a balance between learning from other people's mistakes and making your own. However learning from the right people is important. You wouldn't use avocadoes when a recipe asks for flour but in the start-up world, everyone seems to think that what works for the well-known successes will automatically work for them. What really frustrates me (rant, rant... :)) is the notion that if I build, they will come. So so many of the start-ups I work with think that. What happened to people understanding basic business theory? Basic marketing theory would be useful but I don't hold out much hope for that!
  • deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
• not_a_cop75 7y ago
  Not taking sides, but your example is a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man fallacy.
  • pier25 7y ago
    Is it though? The parent comment is criticizing the article for "cherry picking". That in itself is not a fallacy.
  • smallgovt 7y ago
    It's not. He's directly refuting the claim made in the title of the blog post. That is: Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs. In the title, the author is seemingly making the claim that all ex-post startup advice is BS. The commenter is debunking that claim by providing sound ex-post advice.
    • neilv 7y ago
      > directly refuting the claim made in the title of the blog post. That is: Most [...] In the title, the author is seemingly making the claim that all [...]
      • CrazyStat 7y ago
        Very clever, but missing the point. Those two qualifiers refer to different classes: (1) Most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs. (2) All ex-post startup theory is bullshit. Those claims may or may not be true, but there's no contradiction between the two. The title does indeed seem to implicitly claim (2), in the form of the following (implied) syllogism: Most startup theory is ex-post. All ex-post startup theory is bullshit. Therefore, most startup theory is bullshit. Or, more concisely: most startup theory is ex-post, therefore bs.
        • shafyy 7y ago
          Well, since I'm here no need for the guesswork. I'm not saying all ex-post theories all bullshit. I think that most ex-post startup thoeries are bullshit.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• chibg10 7y ago
  The difference is the prior. There's strong prior reason to believe not paying payroll tax is not going to end well. The theoretical basis is simple, clear, well-reasoned, and supported by strong evidence in adjacent realms (i.e. the IRS takes taxes taxes pretty seriously). Whereas the prior on the validity of something like "early-stage founders should live with their customers" is much weaker. Even though the advice for each presented example is based on sample size n=1, the resulting belief can and should be quite different depending on your prior. The real meta-advice is to be able to understand and evaluate your prior for any given piece of advice you receive. This mostly comes down to thinking rationally, being knowledgeable, and critically considering each piece of advice for whether it's worth heeding or not. Which is not so far from the author's message I think ("figure everything out yourself", "I don't mean to say don't take any advice"). (Obligatory shout-out to Bayes Theorem)
  • nostrademons 7y ago
    > Whereas the prior on the validity of something like "early-stage founders should live with their customers" is much weaker. There's a pretty strong theoretical reason for that as well: startups succeed because they make something customers want; the more time the person making product decisions spends with times with customers, the more information they can gather about what the customers want; and the more the customer trusts and has a rapport with the founder, the more willing they'll be to share candid feedback. There are some practical problems that make living with your customers a little problematic if you're not Brian Chesky, namely that they may not want another roommate, you may not want a roommate, they or you may already have a family, or you might just get on each others' nerves. But if you extend the general principle to "spend a lot of time with your users" (and being able to extend to a general principle is a big advantage of having theoretical reasoning), there are a lot of other companies that have found similar success. Facebook was another one where the founder literally lived with his first users. Google, for all intents and purposes, lived with their first users (it's grad school, after all). DropBox, Reddit, and Instacart were their first users. Apple, Stripe, Clerky, Twitch, etc. were in regular contact with their first users.
    • Retric 7y ago