9 ms·

The Long Grind Before You Become an Overnight Success

365 points by inmygarage 15y ago

Hisoka 15y ago
Just a question about Yipit... don't they need millions of visitors to be successful? 100K visitors/month sounds nice, but they're in the deal aggregating business, so the margins are even less than if they were a deal site. They don't make money off every single user, and when they do... they make a tiny percentage as affiliate commission. Am I missing something here? I know regular old-fashioned coupon sites(like CouponCabin) that make good profit, but they have visitors in the millions, and their margin is much more.
- achompas 15y ago
  Yipit also sells that aggregated data to various institutions (http://yipit.com/data/ http://yipit.com/data/). Their pricing plans [0] suggest they make a non-trivial amount of revenue from selling this data. [0] http://yipit.com/data/pricing/ http://yipit.com/data/pricing/ EDIT: See vacanti's reply down there.
  - jcampbell1 15y ago
    The people willing to pay $10k/month for data are hedgefunds planning to trade shares of Groupon. With the Groupon IPO postponed, it may be hard to retain and attract new subscribers.
    - Woost 15y ago
      What about Groupon paying 10k/month for data on what other deal sites are doing? How much interest there is in, say, food+bar deals would seem to be fairly valuable to their sales force...
    - achompas 15y ago
      Sure, that $10k figure is steep. However, I'm sure there are non-trivial amount of daily deal execs, VCs, and tech analysts who would gladly pay $2k/month to understand the competitive daily deal space.
- diolpah 15y ago
  Yeah, you're missing something. It's 2011, and we're in the middle of a huge bubble. The only thing that matters to most new startups is "getting funded". Making money is merely a sideshow to the main event, which is growing traffic and conducting round after round of follow-on financing.
  - timjahn 15y ago
    So, so true. And so horribly sad.
  - chopsueyar 15y ago
    After I read this article, I was wondering why something that took 3 days to build needs $6million in investment? Thank you for the answer.
  - cageface 15y ago
    If only we'd gone through something like this before and knew better than to make the same mistakes all over again.
    - pyre 15y ago
      This Time It's Different(tm)
DallaRosa 15y ago
Nice post! I've just had a failing experience but that also served to teach me some of the problems and difficulties involved in creating a startup. I'm happy you guys made it and I'm gonna keep trying till I find my place there too.
Omnipresent 15y ago
How do you guys make money from being in the deal aggregating business.
- vacanti 15y ago
  affiliate revenue, advertising revenue, data licensing revenue
  - ohyes 15y ago
    Your 'about' says that you learned Django and Python, is that what you are using for Yipit? What does your technology stack look like?
    - AdamN 15y ago
      The stack is all Python (2.7) using Django (1.3) on Ubuntu (11.04) and it works great. Python is fantastically easy to program and Django does plenty of heavy lifting. We use the ORM in about 95% of the queries and raw SQL in the other 5% (The Django ORM doesn't handle all m2m queries very well). We use Celery for asynchronous processing and everything is running on Amazon Web Services. We use ec2, RDS, S3, SQS, CloudFront, Route53, and ELB so we are heavily invested on that front.
    - vacanti 15y ago
      Yeah. I built the first version using Django but my code has been re-written by our engineers. I'll have our CTO chime-in on the stack.
dr_ 15y ago
This is really inspirational for people who are working at it, hard, but don't get traction immediately, and all the while are reading about others whose businesses just skyrocketed right away. It's not always a launch to the moon, sometimes you have to orbit for a while.
danmaz74 15y ago
Very good post, I especially liked that they built the winning minimum available product so fast: It would have been most likely impossible without all the learning and failed attempts. Unfortunately, some things you can only learn by doing.
iamclovin 15y ago
The hardest question which I battle with is knowing when is the right time to fold and start afresh. PG's 'Relentlessly Resourceful' post ties in very well this - http://paulgraham.com/relres.html http://paulgraham.com/relres.html Great story, very inspiring!
- collinalexander 15y ago
  I agree. I remember reading Seth Godin's book "The Dip" and the same conundrum is presented: when do you push through the dip and when do you quit? He says you should quit when you're in a cul-de-sac or heading towards a dead end, both ultimately ending unfavourably. A dip, on the other hand, has a low point that feels like a dead end but inevitably gets better the longer you persist. A good, short read that gives some suggestions to deciphering which is which if you're interested.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
ArbitraryLimits 15y ago
Mostly the lesson I'm getting from this post is not to quit your day job until you have some evidence of traction.
jjmaxwell4 15y ago
I think the most important advancements in history were done with a Long Grind before a huge success. Einstein worked away in mediocrity, living what to most people must have looked like a sub-par life on the surface. He toiled away on his own for years, then came his stratospherical rise to the upper echelons of human thought. Kant is another example; he spent 10 years alone in thought, publishing nothing in that time, before coming out with what turned out the be (arguably) the most influential philosophical work ever. It seems that the hardest part is not losing faith as you're grinding away. However corny/lame it sounds, people who believe in you are the most important thing during the grind. How many people did you guys (yipit) have that had your back as you were working away for 2+ years? I'm not in the Valley, but I've heard that this might be the best part about the it; you don't get judged for working on some random project full time(like this article says happened in New York).
mdoerneman 15y ago
As a 31 year old with a full-time job to pay the bills and a family to raise, I feel like there is not enough time to act on my ideas so they just continue to collect dust. Stories like this give me motivation but I still haven't found the answer to the question: "how can I focus on my ideas full-time and still pay the bills and support my growing family?". In other words, I don't have the savings for two and half years of hustling on no salary and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I will continue searching for the answer. Thanks for the story!
- DeusExMachina 15y ago
  Mine is to do freelance job in between to support myself in building my own ideas. If you are good and find the appropriate clients, freelancing can give you a good amount of money to have some runway before getting anther contract.
  - aliston 15y ago
    Any suggestions on how to find the "appropriate clients"?
- jkeel 15y ago
  I hear ya! I have lots of ideas that are collecting dust. I found that having a partner helps. Not only to bounce around ideas and build the product with but also for mutual dependence. Just like the author stated he didn't want to give up because of his loyalty to his co-founder, I find the same loyalty to my co-founder is what keeps me working nights and weekends... even when I'm exhausted from working all day and putting my 4 kids to sleep in the evenings. It's definitely difficult but rewarding.
- fabiandesimone 15y ago
  As someone who is somewhat in your position and I'm now in my third start-up (last two failed miserably but taught me SO much)I think you are asking the wrong question: "how can I focus on my ideas full-time and still pay the bills and support my growing family?" I think you should focus on picking one of the hundreds of ideas you might have and set a reasonable time-frame and strip your apps functionality to the core. Once you arrive at that point, just set aside one hour, even half an hour a day to work on your new start-up. Before you know it you have a product and are up and running and at least have the opportunity to see what happens. This gives you the experience and the opportunity to fail many times (if you decide to do it more than once) so you get the hang of it and still be able to support your family. Don't regret not trying.
lallouz 15y ago
Great post Vin! A great story and inspiration for everyone who is grinding hard in the startup life. We all need a little reminder that its a slogfest before you make it.
collinalexander 15y ago
This post reminds me of a philosophy held by Seymour Schulich, Canadian businessman and philanthropist. His philosophy: "Your twenties are not a time to make money, they are a time to build your foundation; your thirties are when you make money." The exact ages are peripheral, but the idea is sound: incur personal strength and experience and external success will (be more likely to) follow. Mark Suster's post about a time to learn and a time to earn hints at this same idea: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/04/is-it-time-for-you-to-earn-or-to-learn/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/04/is-it-time-for...
- mahyarm 15y ago
  Making money building your foundation is usually better than not making money doing so.
jsvd 15y ago
I remember a very nice 2d chart of success vs time with an exponential curve, with a vertical line near the high rise, showing what people see vs what really happens. Can anyone find it?
toblender 15y ago
One can not plant a seed and expect fruit the next day.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
alexkearns 15y ago
I would have enjoyed this post a lot more if at the end they had not simply created yet another bloody coupon site. I can understand going through two and half years of no money, pain and self-doubt if you were working on something world-changing. But just another bloody coupon site... I don't want to be down on these guys. They sound like really nice guys; intelligent, persistent and bright. But, please, no, not another bloody coupon site
- zazerr 15y ago
  Well, at least it's an aggregator ... of all the other bloody coupon sites.
- jjmaxwell4 15y ago
  There not just another run of the mill coupon site. Check out what there actually doing. Aggregating all of that info, much like Hipmunk has done for airlines, and providing only stuff that is interesting/useful for you.
  - Hisoka 15y ago
    This whole thing about "Hipmunk is sexy! It's named Hipmunk! From guys who made Reddit! A YC company!" needs to stop. Yipit is just as boring as Hipmunk is. Please.
- lionhearted 15y ago
  (I didn't downvote you) I think it's important to make a distinction between businesses that are aesthetically pleasing and appealing to you, and business-in-general that's successful. Lessons from business-in-general can be very useful even if you wouldn't patronize them yourself and it's always nice when people open up about their experience. Unless a business is actively knowingly hurting people, I think it's good to celebrate business-in-general even if the aesthetics/offers don't appeal to you.
  - jayliew 15y ago
    Yup. It's kind of like being a web developer and building a startup. You have to be clear that you're trying to build a business, not a web site. In business, you don't get points for being creative/sexy and win by getting the most points. You win by simply winning. At business. Seriously, there is no reason to be so negative towards anybody's startup, no matter how "bloody" you think it is. Be happy for other people.
johnrob 15y ago
This is a pretty good case against the notion that "ideas don't matter". They absolutely matter; how else can 3 days so drastically change the prospects of a company?
- vacanti 15y ago
  I've actually come to believe that, with what I know now, I could have gotten traction with a few of my earlier ideas. Impossible to know for sure.
- Helianthus 15y ago
  They don't matter because having one at the right time in the right place is entirely out of your control. It is much better to build a system capable of handling an idea then to spend a lot of time waiting on the 'right' idea.
- leon_ 15y ago
  Would you have bought that idea for $1 million? No one says ideas don't matter. Without a good idea even the best execution will yield nothing. Ideas alone are just not that much worth. (Other way round this is true too.) I'm sure that if 100 teams would have tried to execute this specific idea many of them would have failed. Don't be just the idea guy and don't be just the execution guy. Try to be both :)
  - gfodor 15y ago
    "No one says ideas don't matter." This is patently false. People say "Ideas are nothing, execution is everything" all. the. time. and it's just as wrong every time they do.
    - sdrinf 15y ago
      What they really mean by that, is ideas are on the critical 1%. You can mess up a lot on the execution, and still have a viable business; but if you're building the wrong thing, no amount of execution will save you. But! In terms of energy spent, ideation consumes less, than a percent of the total investment: hence, a guy with an idea (even if it's the right one) can't claim to have invested much effort into the business as the one researching / custdeving / building it.
rglover 15y ago
Really inspiring article. It's great to attach positives to what you're doing not only to keep your morale up, but also to remind yourself that if what you're working on now doesn't pan out, it's not the end. Crazy to learn, though, that they managed to turn around their business in a matter of three days. Impressive that they kept with it and had the focus to transition to another idea (and make it successful).
suurvarik 15y ago
Awesome post. I really liked the instructions about getting inital press. I'am sure it will help me along the way. Thanks.
larrys 15y ago
WSJ has taken to calling them a research firm "According to estimates from research firm Yipit Data" in an article about groupon http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904265504576566804156893080.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190426550457656...
bootload 15y ago
"... In all honesty, I probably would have given up earlier. The only reason why I didn’t was out of loyalty to my co-founder, Jim, who had also quit his finance job. He had passed up many amazing job opportunities to work alongside me and I wasn’t going to quit on him. ..." Interesting observation. The advantage of having multiple founders is shown here where "accountability to comrades", "bonding", and "mutual surveillance" [0] means the founders stuck at the task long after a solo founder might quit in despair. [0] David Grossman, P21, "Defeating the Enemy’s Will: The Psychological Foundations of Maneuver Warfare" ~ http://killology.com/defeating_the_enemys_will.pdf http://killology.com/defeating_the_enemys_will.pdf
tled 15y ago
What is the differences, advantages that you guys (Yipit) have over other competitors (e.g 8coupons.com)?
astrofinch 15y ago
As cheesy as it may sound I find this song helps me keep in mind that I should expect things to take a lot of time and effort. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1iR2Wi3u5o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1iR2Wi3u5o
cousin_it 15y ago
Okay, how do I tell the kind of long grind that leads to overnight success from the kind of long grind that leads to nothing?
- robjohnson 15y ago
  And that's the difficult thing. It's inspiring to hear about how a team's long-running lack of constructive feedback finally led to success, but what about the 20 other teams who have gone 3 years and still haven't found it? Don't get me wrong, I like reading stories like this, but there is a lot more at play.

365 points by inmygarage 15y ago

Just a question about Yipit... don't they need millions of visitors to be successful? 100K visitors/month sounds nice, but they're in the deal aggregating business, so the margins are even less than if they were a deal site. They don't make money off every single user, and when they do... they make a tiny percentage as affiliate commission. Am I missing something here? I know regular old-fashioned coupon sites(like CouponCabin) that make good profit, but they have visitors in the millions, and their margin is much more.

achompas 15y ago
Yipit also sells that aggregated data to various institutions (http://yipit.com/data/ http://yipit.com/data/). Their pricing plans [0] suggest they make a non-trivial amount of revenue from selling this data. [0] http://yipit.com/data/pricing/ http://yipit.com/data/pricing/ EDIT: See vacanti's reply down there.
- jcampbell1 15y ago
  The people willing to pay $10k/month for data are hedgefunds planning to trade shares of Groupon. With the Groupon IPO postponed, it may be hard to retain and attract new subscribers.
  - Woost 15y ago
    What about Groupon paying 10k/month for data on what other deal sites are doing? How much interest there is in, say, food+bar deals would seem to be fairly valuable to their sales force...
  - achompas 15y ago
    Sure, that $10k figure is steep. However, I'm sure there are non-trivial amount of daily deal execs, VCs, and tech analysts who would gladly pay $2k/month to understand the competitive daily deal space.
diolpah 15y ago
Yeah, you're missing something. It's 2011, and we're in the middle of a huge bubble. The only thing that matters to most new startups is "getting funded". Making money is merely a sideshow to the main event, which is growing traffic and conducting round after round of follow-on financing.
- timjahn 15y ago
  So, so true. And so horribly sad.
- chopsueyar 15y ago
  After I read this article, I was wondering why something that took 3 days to build needs $6million in investment? Thank you for the answer.
- cageface 15y ago
  If only we'd gone through something like this before and knew better than to make the same mistakes all over again.
  - pyre 15y ago
    This Time It's Different(tm)

DallaRosa 15y ago

Nice post! I've just had a failing experience but that also served to teach me some of the problems and difficulties involved in creating a startup. I'm happy you guys made it and I'm gonna keep trying till I find my place there too.

Omnipresent 15y ago

How do you guys make money from being in the deal aggregating business.

vacanti 15y ago
affiliate revenue, advertising revenue, data licensing revenue
- ohyes 15y ago
  Your 'about' says that you learned Django and Python, is that what you are using for Yipit? What does your technology stack look like?
  - AdamN 15y ago
    The stack is all Python (2.7) using Django (1.3) on Ubuntu (11.04) and it works great. Python is fantastically easy to program and Django does plenty of heavy lifting. We use the ORM in about 95% of the queries and raw SQL in the other 5% (The Django ORM doesn't handle all m2m queries very well). We use Celery for asynchronous processing and everything is running on Amazon Web Services. We use ec2, RDS, S3, SQS, CloudFront, Route53, and ELB so we are heavily invested on that front.
  - vacanti 15y ago
    Yeah. I built the first version using Django but my code has been re-written by our engineers. I'll have our CTO chime-in on the stack.

dr_ 15y ago

This is really inspirational for people who are working at it, hard, but don't get traction immediately, and all the while are reading about others whose businesses just skyrocketed right away. It's not always a launch to the moon, sometimes you have to orbit for a while.

danmaz74 15y ago

Very good post, I especially liked that they built the winning minimum available product so fast: It would have been most likely impossible without all the learning and failed attempts. Unfortunately, some things you can only learn by doing.

iamclovin 15y ago

The hardest question which I battle with is knowing when is the right time to fold and start afresh. PG's 'Relentlessly Resourceful' post ties in very well this - http://paulgraham.com/relres.html http://paulgraham.com/relres.html Great story, very inspiring!

collinalexander 15y ago
I agree. I remember reading Seth Godin's book "The Dip" and the same conundrum is presented: when do you push through the dip and when do you quit? He says you should quit when you're in a cul-de-sac or heading towards a dead end, both ultimately ending unfavourably. A dip, on the other hand, has a low point that feels like a dead end but inevitably gets better the longer you persist. A good, short read that gives some suggestions to deciphering which is which if you're interested.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]

ArbitraryLimits 15y ago

Mostly the lesson I'm getting from this post is not to quit your day job until you have some evidence of traction.

jjmaxwell4 15y ago

I think the most important advancements in history were done with a Long Grind before a huge success. Einstein worked away in mediocrity, living what to most people must have looked like a sub-par life on the surface. He toiled away on his own for years, then came his stratospherical rise to the upper echelons of human thought. Kant is another example; he spent 10 years alone in thought, publishing nothing in that time, before coming out with what turned out the be (arguably) the most influential philosophical work ever. It seems that the hardest part is not losing faith as you're grinding away. However corny/lame it sounds, people who believe in you are the most important thing during the grind. How many people did you guys (yipit) have that had your back as you were working away for 2+ years? I'm not in the Valley, but I've heard that this might be the best part about the it; you don't get judged for working on some random project full time(like this article says happened in New York).

mdoerneman 15y ago

As a 31 year old with a full-time job to pay the bills and a family to raise, I feel like there is not enough time to act on my ideas so they just continue to collect dust. Stories like this give me motivation but I still haven't found the answer to the question: "how can I focus on my ideas full-time and still pay the bills and support my growing family?". In other words, I don't have the savings for two and half years of hustling on no salary and I don't see that changing anytime soon. I will continue searching for the answer. Thanks for the story!

DeusExMachina 15y ago
Mine is to do freelance job in between to support myself in building my own ideas. If you are good and find the appropriate clients, freelancing can give you a good amount of money to have some runway before getting anther contract.
- aliston 15y ago
  Any suggestions on how to find the "appropriate clients"?
jkeel 15y ago
I hear ya! I have lots of ideas that are collecting dust. I found that having a partner helps. Not only to bounce around ideas and build the product with but also for mutual dependence. Just like the author stated he didn't want to give up because of his loyalty to his co-founder, I find the same loyalty to my co-founder is what keeps me working nights and weekends... even when I'm exhausted from working all day and putting my 4 kids to sleep in the evenings. It's definitely difficult but rewarding.
fabiandesimone 15y ago
As someone who is somewhat in your position and I'm now in my third start-up (last two failed miserably but taught me SO much)I think you are asking the wrong question: "how can I focus on my ideas full-time and still pay the bills and support my growing family?" I think you should focus on picking one of the hundreds of ideas you might have and set a reasonable time-frame and strip your apps functionality to the core. Once you arrive at that point, just set aside one hour, even half an hour a day to work on your new start-up. Before you know it you have a product and are up and running and at least have the opportunity to see what happens. This gives you the experience and the opportunity to fail many times (if you decide to do it more than once) so you get the hang of it and still be able to support your family. Don't regret not trying.

lallouz 15y ago

Great post Vin! A great story and inspiration for everyone who is grinding hard in the startup life. We all need a little reminder that its a slogfest before you make it.

collinalexander 15y ago

This post reminds me of a philosophy held by Seymour Schulich, Canadian businessman and philanthropist. His philosophy: "Your twenties are not a time to make money, they are a time to build your foundation; your thirties are when you make money." The exact ages are peripheral, but the idea is sound: incur personal strength and experience and external success will (be more likely to) follow. Mark Suster's post about a time to learn and a time to earn hints at this same idea: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/04/is-it-time-for-you-to-earn-or-to-learn/ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/11/04/is-it-time-for...

mahyarm 15y ago
Making money building your foundation is usually better than not making money doing so.

jsvd 15y ago

I remember a very nice 2d chart of success vs time with an exponential curve, with a vertical line near the high rise, showing what people see vs what really happens. Can anyone find it?

toblender 15y ago

One can not plant a seed and expect fruit the next day.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

alexkearns 15y ago

I would have enjoyed this post a lot more if at the end they had not simply created yet another bloody coupon site. I can understand going through two and half years of no money, pain and self-doubt if you were working on something world-changing. But just another bloody coupon site... I don't want to be down on these guys. They sound like really nice guys; intelligent, persistent and bright. But, please, no, not another bloody coupon site

zazerr 15y ago
Well, at least it's an aggregator ... of all the other bloody coupon sites.
jjmaxwell4 15y ago
There not just another run of the mill coupon site. Check out what there actually doing. Aggregating all of that info, much like Hipmunk has done for airlines, and providing only stuff that is interesting/useful for you.
- Hisoka 15y ago
  This whole thing about "Hipmunk is sexy! It's named Hipmunk! From guys who made Reddit! A YC company!" needs to stop. Yipit is just as boring as Hipmunk is. Please.
lionhearted 15y ago
(I didn't downvote you) I think it's important to make a distinction between businesses that are aesthetically pleasing and appealing to you, and business-in-general that's successful. Lessons from business-in-general can be very useful even if you wouldn't patronize them yourself and it's always nice when people open up about their experience. Unless a business is actively knowingly hurting people, I think it's good to celebrate business-in-general even if the aesthetics/offers don't appeal to you.
- jayliew 15y ago
  Yup. It's kind of like being a web developer and building a startup. You have to be clear that you're trying to build a business, not a web site. In business, you don't get points for being creative/sexy and win by getting the most points. You win by simply winning. At business. Seriously, there is no reason to be so negative towards anybody's startup, no matter how "bloody" you think it is. Be happy for other people.

johnrob 15y ago

This is a pretty good case against the notion that "ideas don't matter". They absolutely matter; how else can 3 days so drastically change the prospects of a company?

vacanti 15y ago
I've actually come to believe that, with what I know now, I could have gotten traction with a few of my earlier ideas. Impossible to know for sure.
Helianthus 15y ago
They don't matter because having one at the right time in the right place is entirely out of your control. It is much better to build a system capable of handling an idea then to spend a lot of time waiting on the 'right' idea.
leon_ 15y ago
Would you have bought that idea for $1 million? No one says ideas don't matter. Without a good idea even the best execution will yield nothing. Ideas alone are just not that much worth. (Other way round this is true too.) I'm sure that if 100 teams would have tried to execute this specific idea many of them would have failed. Don't be just the idea guy and don't be just the execution guy. Try to be both :)
- gfodor 15y ago
  "No one says ideas don't matter." This is patently false. People say "Ideas are nothing, execution is everything" all. the. time. and it's just as wrong every time they do.
  - sdrinf 15y ago
    What they really mean by that, is ideas are on the critical 1%. You can mess up a lot on the execution, and still have a viable business; but if you're building the wrong thing, no amount of execution will save you. But! In terms of energy spent, ideation consumes less, than a percent of the total investment: hence, a guy with an idea (even if it's the right one) can't claim to have invested much effort into the business as the one researching / custdeving / building it.

rglover 15y ago

Really inspiring article. It's great to attach positives to what you're doing not only to keep your morale up, but also to remind yourself that if what you're working on now doesn't pan out, it's not the end. Crazy to learn, though, that they managed to turn around their business in a matter of three days. Impressive that they kept with it and had the focus to transition to another idea (and make it successful).

suurvarik 15y ago

Awesome post. I really liked the instructions about getting inital press. I'am sure it will help me along the way. Thanks.

larrys 15y ago

WSJ has taken to calling them a research firm "According to estimates from research firm Yipit Data" in an article about groupon http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904265504576566804156893080.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405311190426550457656...

bootload 15y ago

"... In all honesty, I probably would have given up earlier. The only reason why I didn’t was out of loyalty to my co-founder, Jim, who had also quit his finance job. He had passed up many amazing job opportunities to work alongside me and I wasn’t going to quit on him. ..." Interesting observation. The advantage of having multiple founders is shown here where "accountability to comrades", "bonding", and "mutual surveillance" [0] means the founders stuck at the task long after a solo founder might quit in despair. [0] David Grossman, P21, "Defeating the Enemy’s Will: The Psychological Foundations of Maneuver Warfare" ~ http://killology.com/defeating_the_enemys_will.pdf http://killology.com/defeating_the_enemys_will.pdf

tled 15y ago

What is the differences, advantages that you guys (Yipit) have over other competitors (e.g 8coupons.com)?

astrofinch 15y ago

As cheesy as it may sound I find this song helps me keep in mind that I should expect things to take a lot of time and effort. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1iR2Wi3u5o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1iR2Wi3u5o

cousin_it 15y ago

Okay, how do I tell the kind of long grind that leads to overnight success from the kind of long grind that leads to nothing?

robjohnson 15y ago
And that's the difficult thing. It's inspiring to hear about how a team's long-running lack of constructive feedback finally led to success, but what about the 20 other teams who have gone 3 years and still haven't found it? Don't get me wrong, I like reading stories like this, but there is a lot more at play.