7 ms·

You'll be dead soon - Carpe Diem

215 points by Maro 15y ago

losethos 15y ago
When reality is broken or stubborn, there's nothing you can do. Suffer for long enough and it might turn around. That's the secret.
Mc_Big_G 15y ago
This is where failing a few times gives you the insight to know when you have a winner on your hands. Those of us with a lot of attempts but no winners would kill to have users waiting to pay.
- viscanti 15y ago
  I think that's a big part of it. The more "science" starting a company becomes, the more we'll see "analytical" people drawn to it. When starting a company, you'll never have perfect information. You can make more informed decisions, but at the end of the day, there's still risk. Not everyone is cut out for that. Some people would prefer a safe routine to the risk of a startup. It sounds like this gentleman bought too much into the "science" and process of startups, and wasn't ready to deal with the challenges.
Herring 15y ago
Sounds like he was burnt out. It's not that hard to recognize when you have a good product.
- thesash 15y ago
  It's not hard to recognize when you have a good product when it's feature complete and selling like hotcakes. Recognizing that you have the core of a good product with potential to be great if you slog it out and stick to your vision is hard. Really hard.
  - joelhooks 15y ago
    No doubt, but if you have Steve Blank as a mentor telling you that you have a good product it might be a significant clue.
    - deleted 15y ago
      [deleted]
    - grannyg00se 15y ago
      Also, potential customers flat out telling you that they are ready to pay. That kind of helps.
mrleinad 15y ago
Great advice. I find a bit more interesting the "Memento Mori" motto. Same idea, though.
- davidcollantes 15y ago
  Thanks for the -- new to me -- phrase. It certainly have a stronger meaning for me than carpe diem.
  - corin_ 15y ago
    Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero That's where it comes from, and "have little trust in the future" alludes to death even if it doesn't state it. "Memento mori" is actually used generally to refer to art, while "carpe diem" is solely an idea - and I much prefer the latter for, while it has the same meaning, it is from the positive point of view, not the negative. Personally I can't think of "carpe diem" (a favourite phrase of mine, incidentally) without hearing Robin Williams speech that is shown at the end of this article. - We are food for worms, lads - Believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is going to stop breathing, turn cold and die. - Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they are capable? - These boys are now fertilising daffodils. (If you haven't seen Dead Poets Society.. you should. Wonderful film.)
    - cantbecool 15y ago
      Thank you, corin_, for the name of the movie, i.e., Dead Poets Society. I was about to skim Robin William's IMDB and find it.
      - hsshah 15y ago
        I got intrigued by the video clip as well. FYI. Used "Into_Now" iphone App to find out the movie [Didn't see this comment then] Alas, its not available for streaming on Netflix as of now.
    - happyfeet 15y ago
mechanical_fish 15y ago
I wonder if professional coaches have a vocabulary word for that feeling. The one you get when you watch a student creep right up to the edge of success and then stop dead and start flailing around in apparent desperation. I guess the term for the actual failure is choking, but what's the word for having to sit there and watch a student choke? Either because it's the only way for them to learn, or because it's impossible for you to help? Whatever it should be called, it's painful. My best teachers seem to have been pretty good at it, though.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- Herring 15y ago
  My hunch is it's not really possible to choke like this unless something important in his life has gone seriously wrong.
  - jbigelow76 15y ago
    I blame the B- engineer. How could Bob have been expected to succeed when saddled with what was probably a glorified oDesk coder? You just can't do Insight-as-a-Service unless you have a ninja that dreams in Scala, craps Redis and eats node.js for breakfast.
    - bad_user 15y ago
      The most successful founders in this industry are/were people that could do the job themselves, with very few exceptions. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Steve Wozniak, Steven Jobs, Paul Graham, John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Michael Cowpland, Michael Morhaime and the list can go on. These people also found awesome help, that's true, but you can't be a leader unless you have the capability of fixing other people's screwups. unless you have a ninja that dreams in Scala, craps Redis and eats node.js for breakfast Personally, I am ambivalent about people like that. Curiosity and experimentation defines a smart individual, however crapping Scala, Redis and Node.js all over a project that doesn't need these newer technologies is simply bad engineering that can sink a product faster than a "glorified oDesk coder" could.
gallerytungsten 15y ago
re: "Bob was in the wrong business, not the wrong market. He wanted certainty, comfort and security." This is a key point of difference between those who are cut out for startup life and those who are not.
- michaelbarton 15y ago
  I think comfort can be provided in some measure by having savings or at least being dept-free. Also being relatively employable, should things go bad, may also provide a degree of security. Perhaps certainty is the only thing that can't be hedged?
  - alexro 15y ago
    Been debt-free, employable I have gone through the painful experience of failing. It isn't about your mechanical abilities being challenged, i.e. skills and ability to pay the bills, it's more about the astounding realization that "I cannot make it" thing. To be disappointed with yourself is much more painful than slavery IMO and is usually the cause of depression.
    - beachgeek 15y ago
      Me too, all of the above. How did you get over it?
      - alexro 15y ago
        Nothing special - got employed, needed to feed the family. Started to plan on the next action :)
        beachgeek 15y ago
        The very first startup I was in (as an early employee) went IPO in the late 90s. My next startup (where I was a founder) crashed and burned in the tech bust that followed. The crash was beyond my control, however failure was incredibly hard to deal with for the reason you mentioned. I did the obvious thing, got a real job, saved cash etc. Things have obviously changed dramatically since then in terms of ease of starting one's own project, so I've been plugging away at mine for a while. I have to admit though that I do find myself thinking like "Bob" sometimes because I want desperately to avoid another f-up. I've gotten around it by having a key team of advisers/mentors that have done startups successfully. I challenge their opinions sometimes, but generally listen to what they say. Its also very easy to over-analyze something until you don't know what's up or down.
herdrick 15y ago
I wonder what the product / prototype was.
- robfitz 15y ago
  This is now my new failure mantra: "At least I haven't personally disappointed and been individually called out as a nontrepreneur by Steve Blank" ;)
pghimire 15y ago
I think this is where proper mentorship is extremely valuable. If the student was consistently coached from the get-go he might have pulled it off. On that note, is there a community online where one can seek out mentorship. It doesn;t have to be a community of who's who - just some decent nice people with common sense and desire to succeed should suffice. I am at a stage where I could use some advice as well.
- itmag 15y ago
  We should build it: http://ideashower.posterous.com/urgent-an-idea-i-have-for-a-startup http://ideashower.posterous.com/urgent-an-idea-i-have-for-a-... http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-multi-modal-coaching-site http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-multi-modal-coaching-si... http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-crowdsourced-lifecoaches http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-crowdsourced-lifecoache...
- o1iver 15y ago
  How about right here?
- cmos 15y ago
  Bob was taught by and getting advice from one of the best teachers of entrepreneurship, if such a thing can be taught, and he was still falling short. Not only was Bob unable to get away from himself, he wasn't able to take advice from a seasoned entrepreneur and do a 'leap of faith'. I'm sorry, but if Steve Blank gave me valuable advice and I was starting my first company you had better bet I'd do more than stare blankly at him. Bob will never start his own company.
  - ams6110 15y ago
    Some people just have to learn some things the hard way. You can coach, advise, mentor all you want and they will just stubbornly do what they are going to do until they figure out for themselves that it's not working. My 15 year old is like that. It's quite frustrating.
mapster 15y ago
It is one thing to learn engineering, but one also needs to study leadership first hand for a while before attempting it themselves. Bob couldn't find it within him to pull the trigger when he should have. Or he is more risk averse than he considered himself to be.
brd 15y ago
Sounds like a victim of his own fear of failure. Knowing you're about to start an endeavor that will truly test you is overwhelmingly scary for someone who isn't ready to be tested. I've watched a lot of people (myself included) give up before starting instead of risking a chance of actually failing and facing their own limitations.
dean 15y ago
I wonder how bad a developer you have to be in order to get someone, who is only following along in "bits and pieces", really concerned for the startup that hired you.
- viandante 15y ago
  I find people rating people extremely annoying. Especially when you apply a rate (B) to the overall performance. I mean, those people must not even be people, they are monkeys. A monkey can be said to be an overall B compared to humans (as monkeys don't seem to code to well...).
capdiz 15y ago
You only live once. So make it count.
Jach 15y ago
"Remembering that I’ll live forever is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in face of endless time, leaving only what is truly important." --The immortal Steve Mobs We shouldn't need death as a pretty bad excuse to seize the day.

215 points by Maro 15y ago

When reality is broken or stubborn, there's nothing you can do. Suffer for long enough and it might turn around. That's the secret.

Mc_Big_G 15y ago

This is where failing a few times gives you the insight to know when you have a winner on your hands. Those of us with a lot of attempts but no winners would kill to have users waiting to pay.

viscanti 15y ago
I think that's a big part of it. The more "science" starting a company becomes, the more we'll see "analytical" people drawn to it. When starting a company, you'll never have perfect information. You can make more informed decisions, but at the end of the day, there's still risk. Not everyone is cut out for that. Some people would prefer a safe routine to the risk of a startup. It sounds like this gentleman bought too much into the "science" and process of startups, and wasn't ready to deal with the challenges.

Herring 15y ago

Sounds like he was burnt out. It's not that hard to recognize when you have a good product.

thesash 15y ago
It's not hard to recognize when you have a good product when it's feature complete and selling like hotcakes. Recognizing that you have the core of a good product with potential to be great if you slog it out and stick to your vision is hard. Really hard.
- joelhooks 15y ago
  No doubt, but if you have Steve Blank as a mentor telling you that you have a good product it might be a significant clue.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - grannyg00se 15y ago
    Also, potential customers flat out telling you that they are ready to pay. That kind of helps.

mrleinad 15y ago

Great advice. I find a bit more interesting the "Memento Mori" motto. Same idea, though.

davidcollantes 15y ago
Thanks for the -- new to me -- phrase. It certainly have a stronger meaning for me than carpe diem.
- corin_ 15y ago
  Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero That's where it comes from, and "have little trust in the future" alludes to death even if it doesn't state it. "Memento mori" is actually used generally to refer to art, while "carpe diem" is solely an idea - and I much prefer the latter for, while it has the same meaning, it is from the positive point of view, not the negative. Personally I can't think of "carpe diem" (a favourite phrase of mine, incidentally) without hearing Robin Williams speech that is shown at the end of this article. - We are food for worms, lads - Believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is going to stop breathing, turn cold and die. - Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they are capable? - These boys are now fertilising daffodils. (If you haven't seen Dead Poets Society.. you should. Wonderful film.)
  - cantbecool 15y ago
    Thank you, corin_, for the name of the movie, i.e., Dead Poets Society. I was about to skim Robin William's IMDB and find it.
    - hsshah 15y ago
      I got intrigued by the video clip as well. FYI. Used "Into_Now" iphone App to find out the movie [Didn't see this comment then] Alas, its not available for streaming on Netflix as of now.
  - happyfeet 15y ago

mechanical_fish 15y ago

I wonder if professional coaches have a vocabulary word for that feeling. The one you get when you watch a student creep right up to the edge of success and then stop dead and start flailing around in apparent desperation. I guess the term for the actual failure is choking, but what's the word for having to sit there and watch a student choke? Either because it's the only way for them to learn, or because it's impossible for you to help? Whatever it should be called, it's painful. My best teachers seem to have been pretty good at it, though.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Herring 15y ago
My hunch is it's not really possible to choke like this unless something important in his life has gone seriously wrong.
- jbigelow76 15y ago
  I blame the B- engineer. How could Bob have been expected to succeed when saddled with what was probably a glorified oDesk coder? You just can't do Insight-as-a-Service unless you have a ninja that dreams in Scala, craps Redis and eats node.js for breakfast.
  - bad_user 15y ago
    The most successful founders in this industry are/were people that could do the job themselves, with very few exceptions. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, Steve Wozniak, Steven Jobs, Paul Graham, John Warnock, Charles Geschke, Michael Cowpland, Michael Morhaime and the list can go on. These people also found awesome help, that's true, but you can't be a leader unless you have the capability of fixing other people's screwups. unless you have a ninja that dreams in Scala, craps Redis and eats node.js for breakfast Personally, I am ambivalent about people like that. Curiosity and experimentation defines a smart individual, however crapping Scala, Redis and Node.js all over a project that doesn't need these newer technologies is simply bad engineering that can sink a product faster than a "glorified oDesk coder" could.

gallerytungsten 15y ago

re: "Bob was in the wrong business, not the wrong market. He wanted certainty, comfort and security." This is a key point of difference between those who are cut out for startup life and those who are not.

michaelbarton 15y ago
I think comfort can be provided in some measure by having savings or at least being dept-free. Also being relatively employable, should things go bad, may also provide a degree of security. Perhaps certainty is the only thing that can't be hedged?
- alexro 15y ago
  Been debt-free, employable I have gone through the painful experience of failing. It isn't about your mechanical abilities being challenged, i.e. skills and ability to pay the bills, it's more about the astounding realization that "I cannot make it" thing. To be disappointed with yourself is much more painful than slavery IMO and is usually the cause of depression.
  - beachgeek 15y ago
    Me too, all of the above. How did you get over it?
    - alexro 15y ago
      Nothing special - got employed, needed to feed the family. Started to plan on the next action :)
      - beachgeek 15y ago
        The very first startup I was in (as an early employee) went IPO in the late 90s. My next startup (where I was a founder) crashed and burned in the tech bust that followed. The crash was beyond my control, however failure was incredibly hard to deal with for the reason you mentioned. I did the obvious thing, got a real job, saved cash etc. Things have obviously changed dramatically since then in terms of ease of starting one's own project, so I've been plugging away at mine for a while. I have to admit though that I do find myself thinking like "Bob" sometimes because I want desperately to avoid another f-up. I've gotten around it by having a key team of advisers/mentors that have done startups successfully. I challenge their opinions sometimes, but generally listen to what they say. Its also very easy to over-analyze something until you don't know what's up or down.

herdrick 15y ago

I wonder what the product / prototype was.

robfitz 15y ago
This is now my new failure mantra: "At least I haven't personally disappointed and been individually called out as a nontrepreneur by Steve Blank" ;)

pghimire 15y ago

I think this is where proper mentorship is extremely valuable. If the student was consistently coached from the get-go he might have pulled it off. On that note, is there a community online where one can seek out mentorship. It doesn;t have to be a community of who's who - just some decent nice people with common sense and desire to succeed should suffice. I am at a stage where I could use some advice as well.

itmag 15y ago
We should build it: http://ideashower.posterous.com/urgent-an-idea-i-have-for-a-startup http://ideashower.posterous.com/urgent-an-idea-i-have-for-a-... http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-multi-modal-coaching-site http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-multi-modal-coaching-si... http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-crowdsourced-lifecoaches http://ideashower.posterous.com/idea-crowdsourced-lifecoache...
o1iver 15y ago
How about right here?
cmos 15y ago
Bob was taught by and getting advice from one of the best teachers of entrepreneurship, if such a thing can be taught, and he was still falling short. Not only was Bob unable to get away from himself, he wasn't able to take advice from a seasoned entrepreneur and do a 'leap of faith'. I'm sorry, but if Steve Blank gave me valuable advice and I was starting my first company you had better bet I'd do more than stare blankly at him. Bob will never start his own company.
- ams6110 15y ago
  Some people just have to learn some things the hard way. You can coach, advise, mentor all you want and they will just stubbornly do what they are going to do until they figure out for themselves that it's not working. My 15 year old is like that. It's quite frustrating.

mapster 15y ago

It is one thing to learn engineering, but one also needs to study leadership first hand for a while before attempting it themselves. Bob couldn't find it within him to pull the trigger when he should have. Or he is more risk averse than he considered himself to be.

brd 15y ago

Sounds like a victim of his own fear of failure. Knowing you're about to start an endeavor that will truly test you is overwhelmingly scary for someone who isn't ready to be tested. I've watched a lot of people (myself included) give up before starting instead of risking a chance of actually failing and facing their own limitations.

dean 15y ago

I wonder how bad a developer you have to be in order to get someone, who is only following along in "bits and pieces", really concerned for the startup that hired you.

viandante 15y ago
I find people rating people extremely annoying. Especially when you apply a rate (B) to the overall performance. I mean, those people must not even be people, they are monkeys. A monkey can be said to be an overall B compared to humans (as monkeys don't seem to code to well...).

capdiz 15y ago

You only live once. So make it count.

Jach 15y ago

"Remembering that I’ll live forever is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in face of endless time, leaving only what is truly important." --The immortal Steve Mobs We shouldn't need death as a pretty bad excuse to seize the day.