4 ms·

It’s a torturous chaos until it isn’t

72 points by pors 15y ago

wavephorm 15y ago
He picked some awfully unusual examples to make his point. By the end of the post I'm still not sure what to take away from it. http://asmartbear.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/balsamiq-cashflow.jpeg http://asmartbear.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads... "Torturous chaos for 6 months... before hockey-stick profitability" is the exception. Most startups have to grind it out for years before becoming anything more than ramen profitable.
- erikpukinskis 15y ago
  His point was that even in the best case scenario, there's still a full six months of white-knuckling. That said, I would've enjoyed seein some examples of folks with 1, 2, and 3+ years of fog before they hit liftoff.
  - alexro 15y ago
    amazon?
  - gridspy 15y ago
    We're such an example (3+ years). Of course we haven't got massive lift off yet - but indications thereof.
- mkeblx 15y ago
  Talking about FreshBooks: "As an aside, they mention that "we didn’t have our first paying customers until month 2." How do you think they felt before then? Or even in the six months after?" I don't get it. I mean getting a customer in the first month would be ideal but having revenue in month 2 doesn't sound all that torturous to me. That one of the fastest examples of revenue traction I've ever heard. If he was trying to make the valid point that many startups that on the surface appeared to have overnight success were in fact trucking away for years filled with uncertainty of getting traction it was unmade by the examples presented.
- its_so_on 15y ago
  He's saying, (to paraphrase) "When Google was four servers at Stanford, Google didn't have shit." He wonders if there is any way to tell -- today -- what the next Google would be, by looking back at Google's experience at that time, or knowing if you are currently working on the next Google, based solely on the numbers in front of you and the trend these numbers are taking. Oh, and the false premise which is the mentality around here that making numbers go up is all that counts. The answer he comes to is that no, there is not. Without specifying his false premise, however, he comes to a false conclusions. The truth is that there is more than just making numbers go up, and the truth is that it is easy to tell when you're working on the next Google. (As a rule companies on hn are not). * edit: there's nothing wrong with building a company on numbers, instead of building the next multi $B company
tkiley 15y ago
Sometimes it takes much longer than six months. This is what it looked like for my company: http://i.imgur.com/LE2kK.png http://i.imgur.com/LE2kK.png Even if 2010 and 2011 are ommitted for scale, the first 3 years of those graphs are essentially flat.
patio11 15y ago
I don't know about "torturous chaos", but there is certainly a point early in the life of any business where a) any silver linings are accompanied by big voluminous clouds and b) many well-meaning people tell you to cut your losses (+) and take the job at Google instead. I've gone through that three times. + : n.b. They'll say this even if you have no losses. It's also probably true that, for probably any value of X less than maybe 5 years, there is a business who had a graph substantially identical to mine for day 1 through X and then decided on X to throw in the towel.

72 points by pors 15y ago

He picked some awfully unusual examples to make his point. By the end of the post I'm still not sure what to take away from it. http://asmartbear.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/balsamiq-cashflow.jpeg http://asmartbear.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads... "Torturous chaos for 6 months... before hockey-stick profitability" is the exception. Most startups have to grind it out for years before becoming anything more than ramen profitable.

erikpukinskis 15y ago
His point was that even in the best case scenario, there's still a full six months of white-knuckling. That said, I would've enjoyed seein some examples of folks with 1, 2, and 3+ years of fog before they hit liftoff.
- alexro 15y ago
  amazon?
- gridspy 15y ago
  We're such an example (3+ years). Of course we haven't got massive lift off yet - but indications thereof.
mkeblx 15y ago
Talking about FreshBooks: "As an aside, they mention that "we didn’t have our first paying customers until month 2." How do you think they felt before then? Or even in the six months after?" I don't get it. I mean getting a customer in the first month would be ideal but having revenue in month 2 doesn't sound all that torturous to me. That one of the fastest examples of revenue traction I've ever heard. If he was trying to make the valid point that many startups that on the surface appeared to have overnight success were in fact trucking away for years filled with uncertainty of getting traction it was unmade by the examples presented.
its_so_on 15y ago
He's saying, (to paraphrase) "When Google was four servers at Stanford, Google didn't have shit." He wonders if there is any way to tell -- today -- what the next Google would be, by looking back at Google's experience at that time, or knowing if you are currently working on the next Google, based solely on the numbers in front of you and the trend these numbers are taking. Oh, and the false premise which is the mentality around here that making numbers go up is all that counts. The answer he comes to is that no, there is not. Without specifying his false premise, however, he comes to a false conclusions. The truth is that there is more than just making numbers go up, and the truth is that it is easy to tell when you're working on the next Google. (As a rule companies on hn are not). * edit: there's nothing wrong with building a company on numbers, instead of building the next multi $B company

tkiley 15y ago

Sometimes it takes much longer than six months. This is what it looked like for my company: http://i.imgur.com/LE2kK.png http://i.imgur.com/LE2kK.png Even if 2010 and 2011 are ommitted for scale, the first 3 years of those graphs are essentially flat.

patio11 15y ago

I don't know about "torturous chaos", but there is certainly a point early in the life of any business where a) any silver linings are accompanied by big voluminous clouds and b) many well-meaning people tell you to cut your losses (+) and take the job at Google instead. I've gone through that three times. + : n.b. They'll say this even if you have no losses. It's also probably true that, for probably any value of X less than maybe 5 years, there is a business who had a graph substantially identical to mine for day 1 through X and then decided on X to throw in the towel.