5 ms·

I'll add something that as a founder is actionable and I haven't seen recommended: work with as few people as possible and if possible with people over 30. A l

by mihaic 5y ago

I'll add something that as a founder is actionable and I haven't seen recommended: work with as few people as possible and if possible with people over 30. A large amount of stress is amplified by mini-dramas that could have been avoided entirely by people with more life experience and fewer human cogs in your processes usually means less mess to cleanup, allowing you to focus more on what's important.

tluyben2 5y ago
Solid advice that; especially in a crazy startup situation, having many people will probably drive you insane. I had all kinds of startups over the decades; from 100s of people to me alone; the best ones were 2 people setups until significant seed (>$1m). Those were the most successful and the least stressful (during the first phase); of course once it grows it is different but at least you are prepared. And yeah, the older I get, the more I appreciate older people; I prefer no-nonsense 35+.
yaseer 5y ago
Strongly agree with this. A lot of founders make the mistake of prematurely scaling, and I've done that in the past. Scaling from a handful of people, to more than a dozen creates a significant jump in stress, and dilutes focus, for a non-commensurate jump in productivity. Any pre-PMF startup should be as small as humanly possible.
duxup 5y ago
I remember after I got older I eventually had some cubes next to mine that were perpetual "new college student hires" cubes. I was / am by no means the best at my job technically, in fact some of those new guys were better out of the gate technically than I was in some ways. But I could get along with the new guys and enjoyed working with them. Over lunches and small talk I would quietly have discussions about "how to pick your battles" / "yeah that's absurd but here's an easy way to get around it rather than fight it" and more generally "amazingly easy things you can do to make your boss happy that cost you nothing at all". These lessons of course weren't me just telling them what to do, just planting ideas that they eventually would discover, hopefully sooner rather than later. They were basically all the things I learned the hard way ;)
- julianlam 5y ago
  Those all sound like life lessons I'd love to read (though I'm well into my 30s now). Hopefully you haven't just stored it all in your brain :-)
  - leaflets2 5y ago
    Yes @duxup please write a blog post and reply to us here, unless you have too much to do already :-)
- phoe18 5y ago
  Do you mind sharing some of your ideas in this thread or as a blog post?
vsareto 5y ago
>work with as few people as possible and if possible with people over 30. Those problems don't get solved by excluding that group; you have to include them or they don't learn. A good amount of maturing comes from being near folks wiser than yourself.
- mihaic 5y ago
  I'm all for mentoring the next generation, I'm just saying thought that it's a much higher burden than people realize, especially for a company that doesn't have product-market fit, and where you can expect a lot of the people you trained to leave for greener pastures. To put it another way: the higher your ARR, the more responsibility you have for others. The first period of a start-up is the riskiest and working with fewer young people significantly reduces that risk, especially in today business environment.
  - leaflets2 5y ago
    I wonder if you know about any personality tests or ways to do soft skill interviews, to find out how team work wise mature someone is (instead of only looking at age :-))
aamederen 5y ago
I agree with the team-size aspect, but the age argument won't always hold. Junior folks bring their own energy, flexibility, hunger for learning and the resilience to unclear future. As folks get more mature, growing egos, stability expectations, tendency to settle down can get in the way. Overall, this boils down to the fact that teams and people are not just head counts and there's a factor of chemistry need to be considered depending on the culture, founders, geography and the business itself.
- yobbo 5y ago
  > Junior folks bring ... ... arrogance, hunger for prestige and one-upmanship which leads to fixation on irrelevant outcomes, laziness in learning "old things", and rejection of instructions. But old folks can also do these things.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

by mihaic 5y ago

tluyben2 5y ago

Solid advice that; especially in a crazy startup situation, having many people will probably drive you insane. I had all kinds of startups over the decades; from 100s of people to me alone; the best ones were 2 people setups until significant seed (>$1m). Those were the most successful and the least stressful (during the first phase); of course once it grows it is different but at least you are prepared. And yeah, the older I get, the more I appreciate older people; I prefer no-nonsense 35+.

yaseer 5y ago

Strongly agree with this. A lot of founders make the mistake of prematurely scaling, and I've done that in the past. Scaling from a handful of people, to more than a dozen creates a significant jump in stress, and dilutes focus, for a non-commensurate jump in productivity. Any pre-PMF startup should be as small as humanly possible.

duxup 5y ago

I remember after I got older I eventually had some cubes next to mine that were perpetual "new college student hires" cubes. I was / am by no means the best at my job technically, in fact some of those new guys were better out of the gate technically than I was in some ways. But I could get along with the new guys and enjoyed working with them. Over lunches and small talk I would quietly have discussions about "how to pick your battles" / "yeah that's absurd but here's an easy way to get around it rather than fight it" and more generally "amazingly easy things you can do to make your boss happy that cost you nothing at all". These lessons of course weren't me just telling them what to do, just planting ideas that they eventually would discover, hopefully sooner rather than later. They were basically all the things I learned the hard way ;)

julianlam 5y ago
Those all sound like life lessons I'd love to read (though I'm well into my 30s now). Hopefully you haven't just stored it all in your brain :-)
- leaflets2 5y ago
  Yes @duxup please write a blog post and reply to us here, unless you have too much to do already :-)
phoe18 5y ago
Do you mind sharing some of your ideas in this thread or as a blog post?

vsareto 5y ago

>work with as few people as possible and if possible with people over 30. Those problems don't get solved by excluding that group; you have to include them or they don't learn. A good amount of maturing comes from being near folks wiser than yourself.

mihaic 5y ago
I'm all for mentoring the next generation, I'm just saying thought that it's a much higher burden than people realize, especially for a company that doesn't have product-market fit, and where you can expect a lot of the people you trained to leave for greener pastures. To put it another way: the higher your ARR, the more responsibility you have for others. The first period of a start-up is the riskiest and working with fewer young people significantly reduces that risk, especially in today business environment.
- leaflets2 5y ago
  I wonder if you know about any personality tests or ways to do soft skill interviews, to find out how team work wise mature someone is (instead of only looking at age :-))

aamederen 5y ago

I agree with the team-size aspect, but the age argument won't always hold. Junior folks bring their own energy, flexibility, hunger for learning and the resilience to unclear future. As folks get more mature, growing egos, stability expectations, tendency to settle down can get in the way. Overall, this boils down to the fact that teams and people are not just head counts and there's a factor of chemistry need to be considered depending on the culture, founders, geography and the business itself.

yobbo 5y ago
> Junior folks bring ... ... arrogance, hunger for prestige and one-upmanship which leads to fixation on irrelevant outcomes, laziness in learning "old things", and rejection of instructions. But old folks can also do these things.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]