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To me it seems that in today's startup culture it's all about becoming another gigantic successtory. Every startup I visit (see more than 10 every month) people

To me it seems that in today's startup culture it's all about becoming another gigantic successtory. Every startup I visit (see more than 10 every month) people tell me that they envision the next new big thing with their product/company. Taking over the world, becoming multi billionaires. No wonder that there are so many failures. And sad at the same time. waste of resources, just because people wan to much.

collaborative 5y ago
Another consequence of this is the culture of "never be profitable and always aim to grow". Imagine what the world would look like if this was applied to every type of business? It's unsustainable and prevents legitimate businesses from making a living
- marcus_holmes 5y ago
  For private companies, profit is largely an accounting fiction. And re-investing every cent earned into the company while you're growing it is perfectly reasonable. The import metric is cashflow. Positive cashflow == sustainable. Aiming to be permanently cashflow-negative (because you're burning through VC cash) does seem a little crazy. But if your VC's handed you a huge pile of cash, then they expect you to spend it growing the business. Sitting on that pile of cash while carefully being cashflow-positive is not a good plan. Aiming for growth is also reasonable for most organisations. Aiming to shrink is clearly not a good thing, and aiming for stability is tricky and can backfire.
codingdave 5y ago
True, but that is the defacto definition of "startup culture" - go big, go fast, be huge... or fail. Never fear - there are a huge number of people running slow growth, sustainable small businesses and projects. They are talked about on HN on occasion, but for the most part they just quietly exist and do their thing. And based on my experience, they are far more enjoyable to work in. If you aren't running into those, is it safe to assume you live in a tech hub? If so, leave the hub - you'll find much more variety in the goals of the people you run into.
- shafyy 5y ago
  That's only the definition of "startup" because VCs keep pushing that definition. They hogged the term "startup" as they are trying to hog the term "web3" now. It doesn't need to be that way. Just keep pushing back.
- sheeshkebab 5y ago
  It’s a culture of a bs vc funded hype non-business. I’ll stick with my on boring “lifestyle” biz (I think that’s how they call businesses that make more than enough yearly to their founders).
  - gnicholas 5y ago
    That or “mom and pop business”. What a silly misnomer - a software business that generates six figures of passive income is nothing like an old-school mom and pop business like a hardware store, which carries inventory, pays rent, and requires daily staffing.
- anovikov 5y ago
  Problem with these businesses is that they can only be small. When your niche becomes considerable enough to attract VC funding to your competitors - you are toast with that model. So probably you never get above ~$1M MRR, or even less. Which probably means an income of not over 2-3-4M per year to the founder, at best - but this is the amount you can (in Western countries) do by simply having a custom development team.
onion2k 5y ago
Unless you actually need to solve a specific problem, or you just don't want to work for a big company, the primary reason to found a startup is to make more than you could make in a regular job. With the amount of money FAANG companies pay, that means aiming very high. It doesn't mean founders won't be happy if they walk away with less, but if you say you'd be happy with a smaller exit everyone just asks "why not just join a FAANG?" You kind of have to say you want to be a billionaire.
- holoduke 5y ago
  I don't think money should be a driver to start up a company. Anyway not in my case. The product must be the motivator. Not money. Never seen someone succeeding with just money as the motivator. I rather make 200k with my own business than working for a large company.
  - counters 5y ago
    Eh, I'd suggest your case may be an anomaly, at least in the VC/unicorn world. Products are "fluffy." Your idea for a solution or useful tool may or may not take off, for a thousand different reasons. If you're married to it, you may never pivot enough. If you have too much integrity, you may not be willing to bend the story about the problems it solves. But if you just care about the money, none of that is a problem. Product doesn't have traction? Pivot to something else. Product doesn't _really_ solve the problem that the market is telling you would have value? Just fake it or fib until you that next round of funding and then maybe - just maybe - go back and build the actual solution. You just have to live long enough to position yourself for the big gambit, which should give you enough time and money to try to figure things out. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but I've seen first-hand a situation where the product meant nothing - we sold the story.
- lmeyerov 5y ago
  Startups are hard: even for ultimately winning ideas, likely to see poor win/loss rate, unknowns, few resources, no 40 hour work week, etc. with 5-10 years to exit or more likely, failure. Even when things go super well, they just go to your limit in other ways -- most of my male CEO friends went prematurely gray/bald/etc, irrespective if $30M co or $30B. I was just advising a new founder yesterday: one of the best advices questions I received when working through some ideas is which I cared enough about to do for the next 5+ years. Money can be the motivator, but extrinsic motivators are hard over long periods. The billionaire thing matters more if you are taking VC money, bc they need people (a) with big ideas and (b) willing to repeatedly increase company risk in exchange for VC capital and that unlikely shot of going from millions to billions, even when the numbers stop making sense. But for non-VC startups, (a) is enough!
rotten 5y ago
Not to mention that every one of these startup CEO's thinks they are the next Steve Jobs and find it necessary to act like him.
m_ke 5y ago
It's VC culture, doing what VCs need and want, which is looking for outliers and expecting 1 or 2 bets to return the fund. "Founders" and engineers should really understand what the incentives are and how the math in this model only favors the investors.

collaborative 5y ago

Another consequence of this is the culture of "never be profitable and always aim to grow". Imagine what the world would look like if this was applied to every type of business? It's unsustainable and prevents legitimate businesses from making a living

marcus_holmes 5y ago
For private companies, profit is largely an accounting fiction. And re-investing every cent earned into the company while you're growing it is perfectly reasonable. The import metric is cashflow. Positive cashflow == sustainable. Aiming to be permanently cashflow-negative (because you're burning through VC cash) does seem a little crazy. But if your VC's handed you a huge pile of cash, then they expect you to spend it growing the business. Sitting on that pile of cash while carefully being cashflow-positive is not a good plan. Aiming for growth is also reasonable for most organisations. Aiming to shrink is clearly not a good thing, and aiming for stability is tricky and can backfire.

codingdave 5y ago

True, but that is the defacto definition of "startup culture" - go big, go fast, be huge... or fail. Never fear - there are a huge number of people running slow growth, sustainable small businesses and projects. They are talked about on HN on occasion, but for the most part they just quietly exist and do their thing. And based on my experience, they are far more enjoyable to work in. If you aren't running into those, is it safe to assume you live in a tech hub? If so, leave the hub - you'll find much more variety in the goals of the people you run into.

shafyy 5y ago
That's only the definition of "startup" because VCs keep pushing that definition. They hogged the term "startup" as they are trying to hog the term "web3" now. It doesn't need to be that way. Just keep pushing back.
sheeshkebab 5y ago
It’s a culture of a bs vc funded hype non-business. I’ll stick with my on boring “lifestyle” biz (I think that’s how they call businesses that make more than enough yearly to their founders).
- gnicholas 5y ago
  That or “mom and pop business”. What a silly misnomer - a software business that generates six figures of passive income is nothing like an old-school mom and pop business like a hardware store, which carries inventory, pays rent, and requires daily staffing.
anovikov 5y ago
Problem with these businesses is that they can only be small. When your niche becomes considerable enough to attract VC funding to your competitors - you are toast with that model. So probably you never get above ~$1M MRR, or even less. Which probably means an income of not over 2-3-4M per year to the founder, at best - but this is the amount you can (in Western countries) do by simply having a custom development team.

onion2k 5y ago

Unless you actually need to solve a specific problem, or you just don't want to work for a big company, the primary reason to found a startup is to make more than you could make in a regular job. With the amount of money FAANG companies pay, that means aiming very high. It doesn't mean founders won't be happy if they walk away with less, but if you say you'd be happy with a smaller exit everyone just asks "why not just join a FAANG?" You kind of have to say you want to be a billionaire.

holoduke 5y ago
I don't think money should be a driver to start up a company. Anyway not in my case. The product must be the motivator. Not money. Never seen someone succeeding with just money as the motivator. I rather make 200k with my own business than working for a large company.
- counters 5y ago
  Eh, I'd suggest your case may be an anomaly, at least in the VC/unicorn world. Products are "fluffy." Your idea for a solution or useful tool may or may not take off, for a thousand different reasons. If you're married to it, you may never pivot enough. If you have too much integrity, you may not be willing to bend the story about the problems it solves. But if you just care about the money, none of that is a problem. Product doesn't have traction? Pivot to something else. Product doesn't _really_ solve the problem that the market is telling you would have value? Just fake it or fib until you that next round of funding and then maybe - just maybe - go back and build the actual solution. You just have to live long enough to position yourself for the big gambit, which should give you enough time and money to try to figure things out. Perhaps I'm too cynical, but I've seen first-hand a situation where the product meant nothing - we sold the story.
lmeyerov 5y ago
Startups are hard: even for ultimately winning ideas, likely to see poor win/loss rate, unknowns, few resources, no 40 hour work week, etc. with 5-10 years to exit or more likely, failure. Even when things go super well, they just go to your limit in other ways -- most of my male CEO friends went prematurely gray/bald/etc, irrespective if $30M co or $30B. I was just advising a new founder yesterday: one of the best advices questions I received when working through some ideas is which I cared enough about to do for the next 5+ years. Money can be the motivator, but extrinsic motivators are hard over long periods. The billionaire thing matters more if you are taking VC money, bc they need people (a) with big ideas and (b) willing to repeatedly increase company risk in exchange for VC capital and that unlikely shot of going from millions to billions, even when the numbers stop making sense. But for non-VC startups, (a) is enough!

rotten 5y ago

Not to mention that every one of these startup CEO's thinks they are the next Steve Jobs and find it necessary to act like him.

m_ke 5y ago

It's VC culture, doing what VCs need and want, which is looking for outliers and expecting 1 or 2 bets to return the fund. "Founders" and engineers should really understand what the incentives are and how the math in this model only favors the investors.