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I don't think there's any opportunity anymore. The market is super saturated, capital has dried up, and only insiders have a shot at funding. The cards are stac

I don't think there's any opportunity anymore. The market is super saturated, capital has dried up, and only insiders have a shot at funding. The cards are stacked against outsiders. I've lost hope on the Silicon Valley dream and decided to just use my big brain to make money in public markets, which is surprisingly easy given how much effort the government puts into pumping up the stock market. I used to think YC was great, I applied several times, but YC doesn't really represent what it used to anymore (to me at least). Just my 2 cents.

chuhnk 7y ago
The truest words spoken here today.
- brenden2 7y ago
  Ha, thanks! I try to always stay 100% honest and true to myself and others.
Swizec 7y ago
As an outside insider (live and work here but haven’t gotten funding directly ever), here’s my question: Do you even need funding? It’s never been this easy to start a thing. Build stuff, get some users, see how much they pay. Then go from there. Most funded startups these days just feel unnecessarily bloated. Over engineered, over staffed, building run-of-the-mill boring stuff you could slap together in a couple afternoons using 3rd party tools and some glue.
- brenden2 7y ago
  It's not the money itself that matters, it's the social proof. Since I personally have no brand, and nobody knows who I am, they won't take a chance on me. Even with lots of money, nobody is going to join a startup or give you the time of day. Admittedly you can do some marketing to change this, but that's not my area of expertise and not something I'm good at (I'm a technical person and a good natural leader). It doesn't really matter that I've done well on my own, or that I've been privileged enough to work at a few successful companies. You need either a lot of Twitter followers or a big name VC backing you before anyone will take you seriously.
  - a13n 7y ago
    > Since I personally have no brand, and nobody knows who I am, they won't take a chance on me. Who is "they" in this case? Customers? Investors? Recruiting candidates? In any case, I don't think this is true. Customers don't buy a product because of who created it (in the vast majority of cases). They buy because it provides them value. Build something valuable and you'll get customers. Once you have customers via creating something valuable, you have revenue, growth, etc. With this you can win over investors, recruiting candidates, heck even other potential customers. Social proof might help a little, but probably not as much as you think.
    - brenden2 7y ago
      Agreed, it's nuanced. I try to keep my comments on here short and easy to digest. Brevity is the soul of wit etc.
  - harryh 7y ago
    Marketing is probably the most important skill for a founder to have. You have to market to raise money. You have to market to hire employees. You have to market to get customers. It's especially hard at the beginning when you have to get the first of all of those things. If you want to start a company, you should get good at it.
    - brenden2 7y ago
      Congrats, it sounds like you have everything figured out. I wish you the best.
      - tptacek 7y ago
        I don't know if it's helpful or not for you to hear this, but as another serial startup person, I strongly second what he's saying. And marketing is a learnable skill, not a personality trait. It can even be engineered! It's also how you acquire social capital, and a "brand". Another way to think about it is: by writing comments like the one you wrote above, about the unfairness of it all, you're already marketing. You're just doing it badly. I don't want to sound like I'm picking on you, because this is an incredibly prevalent handicap among smart tech people.
harryh 7y ago
The coronavirus situation has certainly altered capital markets but outside of that your comment doesn't conform to the data. There was more capital deployed in the last several years, at all levels, then we've ever seen.
- brenden2 7y ago
  I wish I could say that was my experience.
  - harryh 7y ago
    Making generalizations about the world at large based on your personal experience is a mistake. Look at the data.
    - brenden2 7y ago
      Thanks!
    - bsder 7y ago
      "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Generalizations based upon experience are perfectly valid when the market is not flat. I suspect that there is lots of capital washing between insiders and very little outside the bubble.
      - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
        there's also opinion, expert opinion, and statistics. the problem with statistics is you have to look how it's being used to figure out if you've got something lower than a damned lie or higher than an expert opinion. Which requires work and expertise of its own.
    - dvt 7y ago
      I mean, yeah, look at the data: https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/21-charts-showing-current-trends-in-us-venture-capital https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/21-charts-showing-curren... It's not really a secret that angel and seed funding has been steadily dropping since the mid-2010s. With that said, I think that @brenden2 is overvaluing funding. Most people around here build software -- which can be easily bootstrapped. For those in hardware/biotech/energy/etc. it's much harder to get out an MVP without funding.
dan-robertson 7y ago
Things look quite different to many small, non vc-funded, profitable businesses: there is so much vc money sloshing about that one is constantly fighting competitors who operate at a loss to try to build monopolies whereas in more typical industries such businesses face much more fair competition. On your second paragraph, you may be amused to note that a popular theme in Matt Levine’s column is that “private markets are the new public markets”.
- burrows 7y ago
  > Things look quite different to many small, non vc-funded, profitable businesses: there is so much vc money sloshing about that one is constantly fighting competitors who operate at a loss to try to build monopolies whereas in more typical industries such businesses face much more fair competition. This story doesn’t add up. 1. VC funded company operates at a loss. 2. All incumbents are pushed out of market. 3. VC funded company has monopoly. They raise prices above the original “competitive-profitable price”. 4. New company enters market at original price. 5. VC funded company goes to the original price or goes bankrupt. 6. Anddd, we’re here again.
  - mrkurt 7y ago
    Operating at a loss doesn’t mean they’re running at negative margins. It means they’re burning money to do sales or marketing or hire a bunch of devs to build faster than other companies.
    - burrows 7y ago
      They provide the service at a lower price and would be profitable if they weren’t aggressively expanding? That’s just a better company.
      - mrkurt 7y ago
        I’m not sure why you’re fixated on price. Most interesting companies aren’t building commodities like toothpaste. Companies that have enough market power to crush smaller competitors tend to also drive the quality of products down. I’d prefer more high quality products to fewer “better companies”.
themoops36 7y ago
"just use my big brain to make money in public markets, which is surprisingly easy given how much effort the government puts into pumping up the stock market" Off-topic but do you have a recommended starting place or other ideas? I did well with some short positions recently but would love to explore more strategies.

chuhnk 7y ago

The truest words spoken here today.

brenden2 7y ago
Ha, thanks! I try to always stay 100% honest and true to myself and others.

Swizec 7y ago

As an outside insider (live and work here but haven’t gotten funding directly ever), here’s my question: Do you even need funding? It’s never been this easy to start a thing. Build stuff, get some users, see how much they pay. Then go from there. Most funded startups these days just feel unnecessarily bloated. Over engineered, over staffed, building run-of-the-mill boring stuff you could slap together in a couple afternoons using 3rd party tools and some glue.

brenden2 7y ago
It's not the money itself that matters, it's the social proof. Since I personally have no brand, and nobody knows who I am, they won't take a chance on me. Even with lots of money, nobody is going to join a startup or give you the time of day. Admittedly you can do some marketing to change this, but that's not my area of expertise and not something I'm good at (I'm a technical person and a good natural leader). It doesn't really matter that I've done well on my own, or that I've been privileged enough to work at a few successful companies. You need either a lot of Twitter followers or a big name VC backing you before anyone will take you seriously.
- a13n 7y ago
  > Since I personally have no brand, and nobody knows who I am, they won't take a chance on me. Who is "they" in this case? Customers? Investors? Recruiting candidates? In any case, I don't think this is true. Customers don't buy a product because of who created it (in the vast majority of cases). They buy because it provides them value. Build something valuable and you'll get customers. Once you have customers via creating something valuable, you have revenue, growth, etc. With this you can win over investors, recruiting candidates, heck even other potential customers. Social proof might help a little, but probably not as much as you think.
  - brenden2 7y ago
    Agreed, it's nuanced. I try to keep my comments on here short and easy to digest. Brevity is the soul of wit etc.
- harryh 7y ago
  Marketing is probably the most important skill for a founder to have. You have to market to raise money. You have to market to hire employees. You have to market to get customers. It's especially hard at the beginning when you have to get the first of all of those things. If you want to start a company, you should get good at it.
  - brenden2 7y ago
    Congrats, it sounds like you have everything figured out. I wish you the best.
    - tptacek 7y ago
      I don't know if it's helpful or not for you to hear this, but as another serial startup person, I strongly second what he's saying. And marketing is a learnable skill, not a personality trait. It can even be engineered! It's also how you acquire social capital, and a "brand". Another way to think about it is: by writing comments like the one you wrote above, about the unfairness of it all, you're already marketing. You're just doing it badly. I don't want to sound like I'm picking on you, because this is an incredibly prevalent handicap among smart tech people.

harryh 7y ago

The coronavirus situation has certainly altered capital markets but outside of that your comment doesn't conform to the data. There was more capital deployed in the last several years, at all levels, then we've ever seen.

brenden2 7y ago
I wish I could say that was my experience.
- harryh 7y ago
  Making generalizations about the world at large based on your personal experience is a mistake. Look at the data.
  - brenden2 7y ago
    Thanks!
  - bsder 7y ago
    "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics." Generalizations based upon experience are perfectly valid when the market is not flat. I suspect that there is lots of capital washing between insiders and very little outside the bubble.
    - bryanrasmussen 7y ago
      there's also opinion, expert opinion, and statistics. the problem with statistics is you have to look how it's being used to figure out if you've got something lower than a damned lie or higher than an expert opinion. Which requires work and expertise of its own.
  - dvt 7y ago
    I mean, yeah, look at the data: https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/21-charts-showing-current-trends-in-us-venture-capital https://pitchbook.com/news/articles/21-charts-showing-curren... It's not really a secret that angel and seed funding has been steadily dropping since the mid-2010s. With that said, I think that @brenden2 is overvaluing funding. Most people around here build software -- which can be easily bootstrapped. For those in hardware/biotech/energy/etc. it's much harder to get out an MVP without funding.

dan-robertson 7y ago

Things look quite different to many small, non vc-funded, profitable businesses: there is so much vc money sloshing about that one is constantly fighting competitors who operate at a loss to try to build monopolies whereas in more typical industries such businesses face much more fair competition. On your second paragraph, you may be amused to note that a popular theme in Matt Levine’s column is that “private markets are the new public markets”.

burrows 7y ago
> Things look quite different to many small, non vc-funded, profitable businesses: there is so much vc money sloshing about that one is constantly fighting competitors who operate at a loss to try to build monopolies whereas in more typical industries such businesses face much more fair competition. This story doesn’t add up. 1. VC funded company operates at a loss. 2. All incumbents are pushed out of market. 3. VC funded company has monopoly. They raise prices above the original “competitive-profitable price”. 4. New company enters market at original price. 5. VC funded company goes to the original price or goes bankrupt. 6. Anddd, we’re here again.
- mrkurt 7y ago
  Operating at a loss doesn’t mean they’re running at negative margins. It means they’re burning money to do sales or marketing or hire a bunch of devs to build faster than other companies.
  - burrows 7y ago
    They provide the service at a lower price and would be profitable if they weren’t aggressively expanding? That’s just a better company.
    - mrkurt 7y ago
      I’m not sure why you’re fixated on price. Most interesting companies aren’t building commodities like toothpaste. Companies that have enough market power to crush smaller competitors tend to also drive the quality of products down. I’d prefer more high quality products to fewer “better companies”.

themoops36 7y ago

"just use my big brain to make money in public markets, which is surprisingly easy given how much effort the government puts into pumping up the stock market" Off-topic but do you have a recommended starting place or other ideas? I did well with some short positions recently but would love to explore more strategies.