4 ms·

How to kickstart and scale a consumer business by doing things that don’t scale

100 points by cpeterso 4y ago

fxtentacle 4y ago
I'm quite surprised that recently there are so many articles on HN that sound like postmortems, except that the person writing them never actually did any of it themselves. That kinda reminds me of the TropicalMBA crowd from a few years ago who were selling a course on how to become an entrepreneur (by selling a course on entrepreneurship).
- jedberg 4y ago
  FWIW the author of this blog post has launched multiple products including one that was acquired by AirBnB (where he went on to launch more products). He's also one of the most sought after advisors. So while you do have a point about a recent uptick in a certain type of article, this isn't one of them.
- motoxpro 4y ago
  huh? The article is info condensed from interviewing people that "did it" Thank you to Alexa Mateen Abdi and Jonathan Badeen (Tinder) Alyssa Ravasio (Hipcamp), Andrew Chen (Uber), Casey Winters (Grubhub), Cem Kansu (Duolingo), Devon Townsend (Cameo), Emily Castor Warren (Lyft), Evan Moore (DoorDash), Gagan Biyani (Udemy), Georg Bauser (Airbnb), Gilad Horev (Eventbrite), Gokul Rajaram (Caviar), Hamish McKenzie (Substack), Joey Grassia (Shef), Max Mullen (Instacart), Michael Horvath (Strava), Nickey Skarstad and Dan McKinley (Etsy), Nikhil Jhunjhnuwala (Noom), Rahul Vohra (Superhuman), Russel Simmons (Yelp), Ryan Hoover (Product Hunt), Sander Daniels (Thumbtack), Scott Belsky (Behance), Sriram Krishnan (Spotify), Stefan Heinrich Henriquez (TikTok), and Steve Chen (YouTube) for sharing your stories with me for this post
- marban 4y ago
  HN is having its Eternal September moment where universal feel-good content is upvoted by entrepreneurial newcomers. Nothing wrong with that, but there are better places to find that kind of content.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Keyframe 4y ago
  Lots of stuff recently reeks of linkedIn self-help bullshit and vapid insights. Add to that people who were never engaged with the site promoting their BS as well. It's still a fun place to visit; For how long, we'll see.
lelanthran 4y ago
What a good read! I went back and started reading from the first of the series. From the first entry in the series, we have this data on how the founders came up with their ideas: > Pay attention to your own problems, and solve them (~30%) > Pay attention to your curiosity, and tinker (~20%) > Pay attention to what’s already working, and double down (~18%) > Pay attention to paradigm shifts, and work backward (~15%) > Brainstorm with friends, and pay attention to the four points above (~15%) Those all (roughly) add up to 100% (2% is not accounted for). I'm curious about what is in that 2%. It might be me more self-aware if I can detect that I am going down a road less travelled.
- ozim 4y ago
  don't let good be the enemy of perfect - learn to overlook last 2% is in my opinion last 2% :)
- darylteo 4y ago
  Steal/Copy it from someone else :D

100 points by cpeterso 4y ago

I'm quite surprised that recently there are so many articles on HN that sound like postmortems, except that the person writing them never actually did any of it themselves. That kinda reminds me of the TropicalMBA crowd from a few years ago who were selling a course on how to become an entrepreneur (by selling a course on entrepreneurship).

jedberg 4y ago
FWIW the author of this blog post has launched multiple products including one that was acquired by AirBnB (where he went on to launch more products). He's also one of the most sought after advisors. So while you do have a point about a recent uptick in a certain type of article, this isn't one of them.
motoxpro 4y ago
huh? The article is info condensed from interviewing people that "did it" Thank you to Alexa Mateen Abdi and Jonathan Badeen (Tinder) Alyssa Ravasio (Hipcamp), Andrew Chen (Uber), Casey Winters (Grubhub), Cem Kansu (Duolingo), Devon Townsend (Cameo), Emily Castor Warren (Lyft), Evan Moore (DoorDash), Gagan Biyani (Udemy), Georg Bauser (Airbnb), Gilad Horev (Eventbrite), Gokul Rajaram (Caviar), Hamish McKenzie (Substack), Joey Grassia (Shef), Max Mullen (Instacart), Michael Horvath (Strava), Nickey Skarstad and Dan McKinley (Etsy), Nikhil Jhunjhnuwala (Noom), Rahul Vohra (Superhuman), Russel Simmons (Yelp), Ryan Hoover (Product Hunt), Sander Daniels (Thumbtack), Scott Belsky (Behance), Sriram Krishnan (Spotify), Stefan Heinrich Henriquez (TikTok), and Steve Chen (YouTube) for sharing your stories with me for this post
marban 4y ago
HN is having its Eternal September moment where universal feel-good content is upvoted by entrepreneurial newcomers. Nothing wrong with that, but there are better places to find that kind of content.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
Keyframe 4y ago
Lots of stuff recently reeks of linkedIn self-help bullshit and vapid insights. Add to that people who were never engaged with the site promoting their BS as well. It's still a fun place to visit; For how long, we'll see.

lelanthran 4y ago

What a good read! I went back and started reading from the first of the series. From the first entry in the series, we have this data on how the founders came up with their ideas: > Pay attention to your own problems, and solve them (~30%) > Pay attention to your curiosity, and tinker (~20%) > Pay attention to what’s already working, and double down (~18%) > Pay attention to paradigm shifts, and work backward (~15%) > Brainstorm with friends, and pay attention to the four points above (~15%) Those all (roughly) add up to 100% (2% is not accounted for). I'm curious about what is in that 2%. It might be me more self-aware if I can detect that I am going down a road less travelled.

ozim 4y ago
don't let good be the enemy of perfect - learn to overlook last 2% is in my opinion last 2% :)
darylteo 4y ago
Steal/Copy it from someone else :D