6 ms·

I'm surprised this blog post made the first page of HN given its lack of sources or analysis. Maybe a good discussion can come on one example startup advice fr

I'm surprised this blog post made the first page of HN given its lack of sources or analysis. Maybe a good discussion can come on one example startup advice from YC: do things that don't scale. I think this is really sound in that they're saying "get product-market-fit with some segment of users." i.e. know that there's demand for your product/service even if it's pretty manual to deliver early on. Then see how to automate. Because most product/services aren't materially better than existing options and so you never get product-market-fit even when it's entirely manual and customized to the user. As a founder I've been guilty of building first because it's fun. I saw what I wanted in user research and built a whole app accordingly. It failed. Would've been better to start with a smaller attack surface (email newsletter) and once we found success to then scale. The interesting thing is I knew of the advice "do things that don't scale" beforehand. But until I failed I didn't know why it mattered and how to apply it. Net: applying advice is harder than evaluating if the advice is good or bad. You want to have enough time to fail a lot and then appreciate the wisdom of startup advice :-)

shafyy 7y ago
I'm surprised myself. But I guess it's right in the target group. "Do things that don't scale" is good advice, I agree. But maybe the reality is more "Do ALSO things that don't scale", and then it becomes much more obvious and irrelevant, doesn't it?
- amoorthy 7y ago
  Sorry shafyy. I don't understand why the addition of "ALSO" chnages the statement. Sorry for being dense.
  - shafyy 7y ago
    My point is they're not saying "ONLY do things that don't scale". It's more like, "from time to time, ALSO do things that don't scale". Which, as I said, I think is good advice, but also pretty common sense.
    - amoorthy 7y ago
      Ah thanks for the clarification. My interpretation of the advice is to START with things that don't scale. Because it's about getting to Product-market-fit soonest. Then the advice is not common sense.
    - afarrell 7y ago
      > common sense Is this a meaningful category of knowledge?
      - shafyy 7y ago
        If it truly is common sense, then yes I would say. The question always is, is it really common sense.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
gtirloni 7y ago
> I'm surprised this blog post made the first page of HN given its lack of sources or analysis. Sometimes people will upvote articles not for the quality but for the discussion they will trigger.
- amoorthy 7y ago
  Ah, good point. Thanks.
- thisisbrians 7y ago
  This 100%. I sometimes upvote posts without even reading them because the comments are very interesting.
  - thisisbrians 7y ago
    I guess the parent comment isn't very interesting...
mcguire 7y ago
"...know that there's demand for your product/service even if it's pretty manual to deliver early on. Then see how to automate." So, Theranos? (I swear, if I had a quarter for every company that had "good product-market fit", I'd have...a lot of quarters. Possibly all of them.) Advice isn't terribly useful if you can only evaluate it after you've taken it, or not. P.S. Think I can get VC funding for my corner fruit cart?
- vikramkr 7y ago
  No, because they didn't deliver anything early on, manually or otherwise. "Dont do crimes and fraud" is another great bit of advice IMO. Even healthcare isn't immune from market considerations. Might have been a good idea for regeneron to have done more market research before developing praulent for example.
  - marcus_holmes 7y ago
    no, they failed because they failed. If she'd won some of her gambles she'd be a hero. My go-to ex-post example is FedEx, whose founder took their last month's payroll to Vegas, and won big enough to keep the business going. I was taught about that in business school (as an example of entrepreneurial spirit). Founders who do bad things and lose are convicted of fraud (and gambling with your employees' payroll is definitely fraud). Founders who do bad things and win are hailed as heroes.
    - vikramkr 7y ago
      Tell the ceo of Novartis that winning the gamble of hiding that data was falsified for their recently approved drug makes him a hero. The drug is successful and scientifically the falsification fo the data didn't matter. But that doesn't mean that his reputation isn't getting dragged through the mud right now for condoning lying to the FDA
    - vikramkr 7y ago
      Tell that to the ceo of uber, who built a multi billion dollar company (even after the recent underperformance) but also did some bad things, and then got kicked out of his own company for doing those bad things. Success isn't a guarantee of your sins being forgiven at all
CalChris 7y ago
That's because this is anti-advice. It's saying figure it out yourself. How does one source such advice? How does one analyze it? It is the same idea as The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715136
ThomPete 7y ago
The point is that plenty of companies did all the things the advice tells them to do and still failed.

shafyy 7y ago

I'm surprised myself. But I guess it's right in the target group. "Do things that don't scale" is good advice, I agree. But maybe the reality is more "Do ALSO things that don't scale", and then it becomes much more obvious and irrelevant, doesn't it?

amoorthy 7y ago
Sorry shafyy. I don't understand why the addition of "ALSO" chnages the statement. Sorry for being dense.
- shafyy 7y ago
  My point is they're not saying "ONLY do things that don't scale". It's more like, "from time to time, ALSO do things that don't scale". Which, as I said, I think is good advice, but also pretty common sense.
  - amoorthy 7y ago
    Ah thanks for the clarification. My interpretation of the advice is to START with things that don't scale. Because it's about getting to Product-market-fit soonest. Then the advice is not common sense.
  - afarrell 7y ago
    > common sense Is this a meaningful category of knowledge?
    - shafyy 7y ago
      If it truly is common sense, then yes I would say. The question always is, is it really common sense.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

gtirloni 7y ago

> I'm surprised this blog post made the first page of HN given its lack of sources or analysis. Sometimes people will upvote articles not for the quality but for the discussion they will trigger.

amoorthy 7y ago
Ah, good point. Thanks.
thisisbrians 7y ago
This 100%. I sometimes upvote posts without even reading them because the comments are very interesting.
- thisisbrians 7y ago
  I guess the parent comment isn't very interesting...

mcguire 7y ago

"...know that there's demand for your product/service even if it's pretty manual to deliver early on. Then see how to automate." So, Theranos? (I swear, if I had a quarter for every company that had "good product-market fit", I'd have...a lot of quarters. Possibly all of them.) Advice isn't terribly useful if you can only evaluate it after you've taken it, or not. P.S. Think I can get VC funding for my corner fruit cart?

vikramkr 7y ago
No, because they didn't deliver anything early on, manually or otherwise. "Dont do crimes and fraud" is another great bit of advice IMO. Even healthcare isn't immune from market considerations. Might have been a good idea for regeneron to have done more market research before developing praulent for example.
- marcus_holmes 7y ago
  no, they failed because they failed. If she'd won some of her gambles she'd be a hero. My go-to ex-post example is FedEx, whose founder took their last month's payroll to Vegas, and won big enough to keep the business going. I was taught about that in business school (as an example of entrepreneurial spirit). Founders who do bad things and lose are convicted of fraud (and gambling with your employees' payroll is definitely fraud). Founders who do bad things and win are hailed as heroes.
  - vikramkr 7y ago
    Tell the ceo of Novartis that winning the gamble of hiding that data was falsified for their recently approved drug makes him a hero. The drug is successful and scientifically the falsification fo the data didn't matter. But that doesn't mean that his reputation isn't getting dragged through the mud right now for condoning lying to the FDA
  - vikramkr 7y ago
    Tell that to the ceo of uber, who built a multi billion dollar company (even after the recent underperformance) but also did some bad things, and then got kicked out of his own company for doing those bad things. Success isn't a guarantee of your sins being forgiven at all

CalChris 7y ago

That's because this is anti-advice. It's saying figure it out yourself. How does one source such advice? How does one analyze it? It is the same idea as The answer to “Will you mentor me?” is no. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715136 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20715136

ThomPete 7y ago

The point is that plenty of companies did all the things the advice tells them to do and still failed.