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It all looks pretty easy when you see a TC write-up on them and VC business cards sprawled out on the floor, but some interesting back-story from Evan on how LA
by jmtame 15y ago
It all looks pretty easy when you see a TC write-up on them and VC business cards sprawled out on the floor, but some interesting back-story from Evan on how LAL got started (from the Startups Open Sourced interview):
"As soon as I graduated from business school I started a company called ProFounder with two cofounders, Jessica Jackley who had started Kiva before, and Dan Mauriello. While doing that, I met my current cofounders for LikeaLittle, Shubham and Prasanna. They had left Microsoft, came to Stanford, and used to hang out there because they were trying to start a company. A mutual friend introduced us and after a month or two we decided to join forces.
So we started ProFounder. I worked there for about six months and then it moved on to L.A and I didn’t want to go to L.A; I decided I wanted to stay in Silicon Valley and do some consumer Internet things. So, Shubham, Prasanna and I came back to Palo Alto, lived together in a one-bedroom apartment with no furniture, slept on the floor, subsisted off of rice, and tried a bunch of stuff until we caught something that worked.
This was January 2010. For several months we just brainstormed; it wasn’t until October that we actually came up with LikeaLittle. We had probably tried 10 ideas before that and they all failed miserably. So, in October 2010, we created a first edition of LikeaLittle.
We’ve been working together for almost a year, but before YC we had not done any fundraising. We were bootstrapping the entire time; we were living in a one-bedroom apartment our entire time together and then for a two month period, [my cofounders] lost their visas, so we had to go and live in India together. So we lived with my cofounder’s family in India and were doing the startup from there. It was interesting, the power would go out all the time and our users were in America so we had to be on U.S. time; all kinds of crazy stuff was happening.
But, in India there were no expenses. The family would make us food and we’d stay with them; we literally had a zero dollar burn rate in India. So that was pretty fantastic; we kind of had an infinite runway. We’ve basically spent the entire year living off of rice and beans and sleeping on the floor, together."
- davidu 15y agoThat's actually amazing, surprising and awesome. Love hearing that backstory. It really changes my impression of the video.
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- guynamedloren 15y agoWow, just wow. This is why I read Hacker News. Three guys living in a single bedroom apartment, sleeping on floors, being forced to move around the world, failing 10 times, and still pushing forward. That's dedication if I've ever heard it, and these guys have just earned my respect a hundred times over. Often times, especially when TC is involved, the startup life seems like fun and games, with a hackathon thrown into the mix here and there. It's obviously not the case, but the media likes to portray it that way. I wish there were more firsthand accounts like this. Keep up the great work, LAL team!
- jmtame 15y agoThe media's portrayal of startups is something I have a split opinion on right now. On one hand, I feel bad criticizing the media because several founders have cited jealousy as their reason for starting a new company. "Kevin Rose was on the cover of BusinessWeek, why the heck couldn't that be me?" So on one hand, it's a somewhat healthy amount of jealousy. On the other hand, I think it hurts people because there's a shock they experience when they do their first startup. "Wait a minute, startups aren't supposed to be like this. The magazines and newspapers had guys on the cover smiling, holding a thumbs up. This isn't what I signed up for!" It's like digital crack. You get a sensational story, and it's kind of cool because it makes the startup world seem more attractive and now you have this overconfidence that you can do it, because well it's just easy and it looks like fun. It's probably better to read the full stories and get the full context. The founders aren't usually in the media to talk about themselves anyway; they're out there promoting their startup, so you're mostly walking away with a sales pitch (although startups do this to varying degrees, Indinero comes to mind when I think of startups who are most intent on using media coverage to grow, just an example). This video was definitely cool though, it's fun to see how they all work. They have one of the best pitches for hiring: "we have some of the smartest engineers" is an easy sell. Check out the book if you want all the back-stories. It's pretty sobering; a nice break from the koolaid, so to speak.
- physcab 15y ago> They have one of the best pitches for hiring: "we have some of the smartest engineers" is an easy sell. I actually didn't get that impression when I read (and heard) their hiring pitch. To me, their pitch was "the people who work here are geniuses and you have to beat them to be recognized. Oh did we mention they are the best in <insert continent>?" Not exactly as humble as saying "come and work with brilliant people. you too can have a massive impact."
- chopsueyar 15y agoSeems very important to have all cofounders in the same physical location.
- Sukotto 15y agoWe had probably tried 10 ideas before that and they all failed miserably. Would you tell us about how this went down? Particularly how you decided it was time to toss the idea to the side and try something else?