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then the question just becomes recursive doesnt it - if you have no experience or are a nobody, how do you get these experienced senior people to come work for

by swyx 4y ago

then the question just becomes recursive doesnt it - if you have no experience or are a nobody, how do you get these experienced senior people to come work for you? why dont they just take your idea and run off with it?

andrewstuart 4y ago
>> why dont they just take your idea and run off with it? There is a very, very small number of people in the world with the willingness, resources and drive to build something. This is such a trivial concern it can be dismissed entirely.
Centigonal 4y ago
I have thoughts about this one! > why dont they just take your idea and run off with it? I think the concept of the "million dollar idea" that someone could steal is overplayed. Disrupting an industry (or even just creating an industry niche) is extremely stressful and usually involves beating long odds. Most of the good ideas are obvious to everyone in the industry, so you'll have to compete with the incumbent giants and newer fast-followers (think Zoom vs. Teams vs. Google Meet, or MySpace vs. Facebook vs Google+). I think execution matters much more than the original idea in these cases. Most of the remaining ideas are non-obvious, and people won't see the value until you succeed and the value has been realized (e.g. EVs were a stupid idea until they suddenly weren't). I also think that if a career industry exec wanted to start their own company, they'd have a stack of their own ideas to start with. Finally, I think it's a misconception that successful products always start with one clear "winning idea." The process of developing a product and reaching product-market fit involves creating a thesis, testing it against the market, and iterating. Your idea can change into something completely different by the time you find a match. > how do you get these experienced senior people to come work for you? This is a tougher question, and one that we're thinking about a lot right now, given some of the advice in this thread. I think hiring a senior industry person as an inexperienced nobody would be extremely difficult, but if you're a team with experience and resources in a separate field (e.g. tech), then there are situations where it could work. An mid-level exec might want to get hands-on again and experience an environment with more excitement and direct autonomy. Someone in a different industry might want the opportunity to teach and learn from software folks. If you have a meaningful mission, I think that can be a real motivator for some people. Finally, if hiring a senior person from another industry will let you break into a lucrative market, you're going to try and compensate them financially for that (to the extent that a smaller company can).
catchnear4321 4y ago
Would it surprise you to learn that there are folks with seniority and experience in all manner of fields that have really really good ideas that are never leaving their skulls? Simply because life is sufficiently complex and difficult for them that pursuing such an idea may never even occur to them? If you think you understand a vertical so well that you have a killer idea, but you need a foot in the door via internal or external expertise because you don’t know the people or the language, your biggest problem is that you are lying to yourself.

by swyx 4y ago

andrewstuart 4y ago

>> why dont they just take your idea and run off with it? There is a very, very small number of people in the world with the willingness, resources and drive to build something. This is such a trivial concern it can be dismissed entirely.

Centigonal 4y ago

I have thoughts about this one! > why dont they just take your idea and run off with it? I think the concept of the "million dollar idea" that someone could steal is overplayed. Disrupting an industry (or even just creating an industry niche) is extremely stressful and usually involves beating long odds. Most of the good ideas are obvious to everyone in the industry, so you'll have to compete with the incumbent giants and newer fast-followers (think Zoom vs. Teams vs. Google Meet, or MySpace vs. Facebook vs Google+). I think execution matters much more than the original idea in these cases. Most of the remaining ideas are non-obvious, and people won't see the value until you succeed and the value has been realized (e.g. EVs were a stupid idea until they suddenly weren't). I also think that if a career industry exec wanted to start their own company, they'd have a stack of their own ideas to start with. Finally, I think it's a misconception that successful products always start with one clear "winning idea." The process of developing a product and reaching product-market fit involves creating a thesis, testing it against the market, and iterating. Your idea can change into something completely different by the time you find a match. > how do you get these experienced senior people to come work for you? This is a tougher question, and one that we're thinking about a lot right now, given some of the advice in this thread. I think hiring a senior industry person as an inexperienced nobody would be extremely difficult, but if you're a team with experience and resources in a separate field (e.g. tech), then there are situations where it could work. An mid-level exec might want to get hands-on again and experience an environment with more excitement and direct autonomy. Someone in a different industry might want the opportunity to teach and learn from software folks. If you have a meaningful mission, I think that can be a real motivator for some people. Finally, if hiring a senior person from another industry will let you break into a lucrative market, you're going to try and compensate them financially for that (to the extent that a smaller company can).

catchnear4321 4y ago

Would it surprise you to learn that there are folks with seniority and experience in all manner of fields that have really really good ideas that are never leaving their skulls? Simply because life is sufficiently complex and difficult for them that pursuing such an idea may never even occur to them? If you think you understand a vertical so well that you have a killer idea, but you need a foot in the door via internal or external expertise because you don’t know the people or the language, your biggest problem is that you are lying to yourself.