5 ms·

Pushing through when no one cares

73 points by thibo_skabgia 3y ago

kfarr 3y ago
+1 to connecting with other founders. Also tried coaching and it can’t quite compare to having casual conversations with others in the trenches
DueDilligence 3y ago
[dead]
dasil003 3y ago
The energy is palpable, and I wouldn’t bet against someone that works this hard. That said, the mindset seems to fundamentally be about recognition and pleasing others versus being obsessed with solving a particular problem. I think it’s hard to break through if you don’t genuinely have an intrinsic orientation around the latter. If you care more about approval then you run more risk of cargo culting or doing things that sound good but don’t actually help your particular business at this point in time.
dzink 3y ago
The recognition-driven founder is vulnerable to manipulation and eventually to losing the company. In the past that could come from over-raising, over spending (size of raise and number of people and press feeds the desire for recognition), VCs then have a blank check to change the leader at first signs of struggle etc. The healthier approach to this would focus on the customers and making the business successful with or without funding. PMF without funding is glorious and reason to go for funding at a much better valuation, or to wait out for better market environment. The people who need to care are you customers. Everyone else doesn’t matter. Especially when the moment you start advertising that you’ve raised money is the moment you wave a juicy steak at the face of your competitors and asking for them to come after your market.
pxmpxm 3y ago
Not my world, but is github stars a business metric of something?
- nadermx 3y ago
  Vanity
  - k__ 3y ago
    Yes, the things people do for investment money...
    - pxmpxm 3y ago
      I somehow doubt that the number of github stars is part of VC due diligence.
      - beckingz 3y ago
        people buy github stars now sometimes because it can be used as one input for fundraising.
- xwdv 3y ago
  A lot of GitHub stars on some popular projects could easily get you credibility when applying for jobs, and even be a deciding factor over other candidates.
- z3t4 3y ago
  Its a good indicator how well the source is advertised. But at soon as its used as a metric it becomes useless as its easily gamed.
- abbadadda 3y ago
  Pretty relevant for an open source project.
  - detaro 3y ago
    Not really. Well, a project making a big deal about how many stars they have is a soft negative flag, but that's about it.
- 3y ago
ada1981 3y ago
[flagged]
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- elbigbad 3y ago
  I had to look this up to make sure this wasn’t some low effort trolling. It does seem real, which raises the question: With regard to getting people to listen to your advice, wouldn’t it have been better if you had created or done something notable in the past 25 years rather than be a self-titled “Visionary” on LinkedIn?
  - ada1981 3y ago
    I don’t really use LinkedInn… and advice is pretty weak magic. Coaching and community however, are some of the most powerful magic I’ve seen. You can see some of the clients I’ve worked at earthpilot.org - including multi year 1:1 coaching and advising some of the most successful founders (from companies like Asana). I’ve had modest successes in a number of things… I created a self help app when I was 10 back in the 90s that sold internationally, it’s was called Virtual Journal and was for the mac. Don’t bother looking for it, I’ve tried, and my own remaining copy vanished when my mom gave away my childhood computer. I got really into ultimate frisbee in 2001, started the countries first online ultimate clothing company, was invited to compete in the world games, and have coached some of the best in the world including pro players. For a while I ran a small company based on a self authored patent I obtained for skins for credit cards. Weird company, everyone from Lady Gaga to Obama had them (with Obama being spotted with one in his hand in a NYTimes photo). I’m credited with being the inspiration and founding co-host of summit.co - I mentored and taught sales and entrepreneurship to Elliot and helped him launch the first event — our first guests included Sam Altman. For fun, I started a (now defunct) blog that was named Top 25 in the World by TIME/CNN in 2009. We were an activist media company and we’re successful at integrating race segregated proms in southern public schools and in ending corporal punishment in New Mexico. I created the first app based on Art Aron’s work (the NYTimes would follow) on the 36 Questions to Fall in Love (Mark Zuckerberg shared the HN listing of the app on his personal home page). Turned it into a card game, did a successful crowdfund, and then rolled it out in every Urban Outfitters store in the country. I was doing psychedelics before they were envouge… running an underground clinic in NYC (I was feature in a PBS docuseries called mysteries of mental illness episode 4, where I openly administer MDMA to a lawyer who has complete PTSD - first time that was done in television); started a non-profit to decriminalize plant medicine in partnership with David Bronner (Doc Bronners). Also have contributed to a book on underground MDMA published by Tucker Max, and have lead hundreds of people through transformational BioMythic.com sessions including entire companies (Bombas) and teams in the Ukraine just after the war started. Maybe some of that’s notable to you, maybe it’s not, it doesn’t much matter to me as much as ensuring visionary people don’t end up dead by suicide or overdose (I just lost a life long friend a couple weeks ago) or otherwise fail to get their visions into the world. Personally I overcame a pretty challenging experience of a decade plus of regular suicidal depression and manic psychosis, which I realized could be navigated successfully outside western psychiatry — and I did so. Psychedelics helped but it also has required a very deep tool set and new ways of approaching the world. My coaching was all word of mouth and referral for many years, only recently did we start to put up some videos and offer things more publicly. When I asked one of my founders why he chose to work with me vs. any of the other people out there, especially when I have never built a billion dollar company before.. he said “the reason I am more successful than most people, is that I know where to look”. Anyhow, I’m not surprised by the hackernews downvotes, people would much rather avoid facing themselves and any real work - but, if we can support people with our (many free) processes, it’s work the negativity and judgement.
abbadadda 3y ago
A fine article. Really appreciated the candor. However, the last bit here left me thinking: > “ So, this is what I think about when I need to push through. I am at the right place because it minimizes future regrets.” What is the point of it all? There is probably a reason that the “pursuit of happiness” resonates with people more than a saying such as “minimize future regrets.” I’m not saying the author is wrong - minimizing future regrets may indeed maximize long-term happiness - but I can’t help but feel a little bit of hollowness in the proclamation “minimize future regrets.” But if I’m honest with myself, this may be a projection of my negative mood as I deal with a major current regret (divorce). So maybe there’s something to this idea after all? I suppose my point is that avoiding pain or regret, while perhaps a necessary precondition, is not necessarily the same as the pursuit of happiness or the pursuit of a meaningful life or life well lived.
- gsabo 3y ago
  I agree with you. Regret minimization strikes me as a futile endeavor and not a wise way to make life decisions.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
e1g 3y ago
Every individual struggle is unique and personal, but if we zoom out, there seems to be an interesting emerging pattern in startup comms. I've recently seen many similar "public vulnerability" essays come from similar elite business school-graduated, McKinsey-trained, YC-backed, VC-funded young founders framing their experience as an "underdog". I'm genuinely curious about the origin of this style - they are almost pitch-perfect and frequently follow the same playbook echoing the "trauma essay" that overtook college applications in the last decade (eloquently and succinctly described by a practitioner at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyD0m7JXgjA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyD0m7JXgjA).
- angarg12 3y ago
  The "self-made person" and "pulled by bootstraps" narrative is very American. People love to frame their success as the outcome of their own effort rather than from a source of privilege. If you read accounts from entrepreneurs, almost all of them will tell such a story, mostly glossing over attending elite schools, having connections, or receiving large amounts of funding. Even Cal Newport normalizes this in "so good they can't ignore you" by saying that "small breaks" such as connections to a VC are relatively common. I guess I must live in a different planet.
  - kashyapc 3y ago
    On "framing personal success", Michael Sandel puts it very well[0], when he says: "Meritocratic hubris reflects the tendency of winners to inhale too deeply of their success, to forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way. It is the smug conviction of those who land on top that they deserve their fate, and that those on the bottom deserve theirs, too. This attitude is the moral companion of technocratic politics." * * * PS: I wouldn't give much weight to Newport's words—he's a clever marketer[1][2] and repeats the same few points ad nauseam in endless "books". The antidote to Newport is the classic originals that he's poorly paraphrasing from. I mentioned a few here[1] in the past. [0] In his book, The Tyranny of Merit — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374289980/thetyrannyofmerit https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374289980/thetyrannyofmer... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29035998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29035998 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082125
taylorhughes 3y ago
I appreciate the honest description of what it feels like to do something where nobody cares. With all the glamour surrounding successful startups, it’s easy to think your journey will feel like a movie montage followed by rewards relatively quickly. In reality it’s usually lonely and quiet, and you have to figure out how to keep yourself going to build something meaningful.
syngrog66 3y ago
I like the takeaway from the OA of "by default, nobody will care." and the life rubric of "regret minimization." I try to apply both in my own planning. I've done a lot of creative projects over the years, to varying success, and tried building a product startup or two. Overall my own biggest learnings have been: 1. marketing/advertising is king 2. fundraising/pitching is king Why? because nobody cares, by default. Nobody even KNOWS about you or your new thing by default. And if, once knowing about it, they CLEARLY dont want it, THEN you should move on. however: 3. minimize life regrets 4. persistence is crucial So I still try doing what I think would make the world better, even if only by a little. But dayum it takes persistence! Because there is no (well, almost never) such thing as an overnight success. For example, I've been building a new game [5], and I put the lion's share of my effort lately into, effectively, either pitching/advertising it, or getting feedback. Both at scale and in rapid cycles. Because if it never takes off then I should cut bait and eat the loss. But... in meantime MUST be persistent, must keep faith, and grind thru all the little slings and arrows of sheer human indifference. Knowing when (if ever) to give up is a challenge... possibly a roll of the dice to "get right." ----- 5. Slartboz -- see my bio if curious
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

73 points by thibo_skabgia 3y ago

+1 to connecting with other founders. Also tried coaching and it can’t quite compare to having casual conversations with others in the trenches

DueDilligence 3y ago

[dead]

dasil003 3y ago

The energy is palpable, and I wouldn’t bet against someone that works this hard. That said, the mindset seems to fundamentally be about recognition and pleasing others versus being obsessed with solving a particular problem. I think it’s hard to break through if you don’t genuinely have an intrinsic orientation around the latter. If you care more about approval then you run more risk of cargo culting or doing things that sound good but don’t actually help your particular business at this point in time.

dzink 3y ago

The recognition-driven founder is vulnerable to manipulation and eventually to losing the company. In the past that could come from over-raising, over spending (size of raise and number of people and press feeds the desire for recognition), VCs then have a blank check to change the leader at first signs of struggle etc. The healthier approach to this would focus on the customers and making the business successful with or without funding. PMF without funding is glorious and reason to go for funding at a much better valuation, or to wait out for better market environment. The people who need to care are you customers. Everyone else doesn’t matter. Especially when the moment you start advertising that you’ve raised money is the moment you wave a juicy steak at the face of your competitors and asking for them to come after your market.

pxmpxm 3y ago

Not my world, but is github stars a business metric of something?

nadermx 3y ago
Vanity
- k__ 3y ago
  Yes, the things people do for investment money...
  - pxmpxm 3y ago
    I somehow doubt that the number of github stars is part of VC due diligence.
    - beckingz 3y ago
      people buy github stars now sometimes because it can be used as one input for fundraising.
xwdv 3y ago
A lot of GitHub stars on some popular projects could easily get you credibility when applying for jobs, and even be a deciding factor over other candidates.
z3t4 3y ago
Its a good indicator how well the source is advertised. But at soon as its used as a metric it becomes useless as its easily gamed.
abbadadda 3y ago
Pretty relevant for an open source project.
- detaro 3y ago
  Not really. Well, a project making a big deal about how many stars they have is a soft negative flag, but that's about it.
3y ago

ada1981 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
elbigbad 3y ago
I had to look this up to make sure this wasn’t some low effort trolling. It does seem real, which raises the question: With regard to getting people to listen to your advice, wouldn’t it have been better if you had created or done something notable in the past 25 years rather than be a self-titled “Visionary” on LinkedIn?
- ada1981 3y ago
  I don’t really use LinkedInn… and advice is pretty weak magic. Coaching and community however, are some of the most powerful magic I’ve seen. You can see some of the clients I’ve worked at earthpilot.org - including multi year 1:1 coaching and advising some of the most successful founders (from companies like Asana). I’ve had modest successes in a number of things… I created a self help app when I was 10 back in the 90s that sold internationally, it’s was called Virtual Journal and was for the mac. Don’t bother looking for it, I’ve tried, and my own remaining copy vanished when my mom gave away my childhood computer. I got really into ultimate frisbee in 2001, started the countries first online ultimate clothing company, was invited to compete in the world games, and have coached some of the best in the world including pro players. For a while I ran a small company based on a self authored patent I obtained for skins for credit cards. Weird company, everyone from Lady Gaga to Obama had them (with Obama being spotted with one in his hand in a NYTimes photo). I’m credited with being the inspiration and founding co-host of summit.co - I mentored and taught sales and entrepreneurship to Elliot and helped him launch the first event — our first guests included Sam Altman. For fun, I started a (now defunct) blog that was named Top 25 in the World by TIME/CNN in 2009. We were an activist media company and we’re successful at integrating race segregated proms in southern public schools and in ending corporal punishment in New Mexico. I created the first app based on Art Aron’s work (the NYTimes would follow) on the 36 Questions to Fall in Love (Mark Zuckerberg shared the HN listing of the app on his personal home page). Turned it into a card game, did a successful crowdfund, and then rolled it out in every Urban Outfitters store in the country. I was doing psychedelics before they were envouge… running an underground clinic in NYC (I was feature in a PBS docuseries called mysteries of mental illness episode 4, where I openly administer MDMA to a lawyer who has complete PTSD - first time that was done in television); started a non-profit to decriminalize plant medicine in partnership with David Bronner (Doc Bronners). Also have contributed to a book on underground MDMA published by Tucker Max, and have lead hundreds of people through transformational BioMythic.com sessions including entire companies (Bombas) and teams in the Ukraine just after the war started. Maybe some of that’s notable to you, maybe it’s not, it doesn’t much matter to me as much as ensuring visionary people don’t end up dead by suicide or overdose (I just lost a life long friend a couple weeks ago) or otherwise fail to get their visions into the world. Personally I overcame a pretty challenging experience of a decade plus of regular suicidal depression and manic psychosis, which I realized could be navigated successfully outside western psychiatry — and I did so. Psychedelics helped but it also has required a very deep tool set and new ways of approaching the world. My coaching was all word of mouth and referral for many years, only recently did we start to put up some videos and offer things more publicly. When I asked one of my founders why he chose to work with me vs. any of the other people out there, especially when I have never built a billion dollar company before.. he said “the reason I am more successful than most people, is that I know where to look”. Anyhow, I’m not surprised by the hackernews downvotes, people would much rather avoid facing themselves and any real work - but, if we can support people with our (many free) processes, it’s work the negativity and judgement.

abbadadda 3y ago

A fine article. Really appreciated the candor. However, the last bit here left me thinking: > “ So, this is what I think about when I need to push through. I am at the right place because it minimizes future regrets.” What is the point of it all? There is probably a reason that the “pursuit of happiness” resonates with people more than a saying such as “minimize future regrets.” I’m not saying the author is wrong - minimizing future regrets may indeed maximize long-term happiness - but I can’t help but feel a little bit of hollowness in the proclamation “minimize future regrets.” But if I’m honest with myself, this may be a projection of my negative mood as I deal with a major current regret (divorce). So maybe there’s something to this idea after all? I suppose my point is that avoiding pain or regret, while perhaps a necessary precondition, is not necessarily the same as the pursuit of happiness or the pursuit of a meaningful life or life well lived.

gsabo 3y ago
I agree with you. Regret minimization strikes me as a futile endeavor and not a wise way to make life decisions.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

e1g 3y ago

Every individual struggle is unique and personal, but if we zoom out, there seems to be an interesting emerging pattern in startup comms. I've recently seen many similar "public vulnerability" essays come from similar elite business school-graduated, McKinsey-trained, YC-backed, VC-funded young founders framing their experience as an "underdog". I'm genuinely curious about the origin of this style - they are almost pitch-perfect and frequently follow the same playbook echoing the "trauma essay" that overtook college applications in the last decade (eloquently and succinctly described by a practitioner at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyD0m7JXgjA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyD0m7JXgjA).

angarg12 3y ago
The "self-made person" and "pulled by bootstraps" narrative is very American. People love to frame their success as the outcome of their own effort rather than from a source of privilege. If you read accounts from entrepreneurs, almost all of them will tell such a story, mostly glossing over attending elite schools, having connections, or receiving large amounts of funding. Even Cal Newport normalizes this in "so good they can't ignore you" by saying that "small breaks" such as connections to a VC are relatively common. I guess I must live in a different planet.
- kashyapc 3y ago
  On "framing personal success", Michael Sandel puts it very well[0], when he says: "Meritocratic hubris reflects the tendency of winners to inhale too deeply of their success, to forget the luck and good fortune that helped them on their way. It is the smug conviction of those who land on top that they deserve their fate, and that those on the bottom deserve theirs, too. This attitude is the moral companion of technocratic politics." * * * PS: I wouldn't give much weight to Newport's words—he's a clever marketer[1][2] and repeats the same few points ad nauseam in endless "books". The antidote to Newport is the classic originals that he's poorly paraphrasing from. I mentioned a few here[1] in the past. [0] In his book, The Tyranny of Merit — https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374289980/thetyrannyofmerit https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374289980/thetyrannyofmer... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29035998 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29035998 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082125 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20082125

taylorhughes 3y ago

I appreciate the honest description of what it feels like to do something where nobody cares. With all the glamour surrounding successful startups, it’s easy to think your journey will feel like a movie montage followed by rewards relatively quickly. In reality it’s usually lonely and quiet, and you have to figure out how to keep yourself going to build something meaningful.

syngrog66 3y ago

I like the takeaway from the OA of "by default, nobody will care." and the life rubric of "regret minimization." I try to apply both in my own planning. I've done a lot of creative projects over the years, to varying success, and tried building a product startup or two. Overall my own biggest learnings have been: 1. marketing/advertising is king 2. fundraising/pitching is king Why? because nobody cares, by default. Nobody even KNOWS about you or your new thing by default. And if, once knowing about it, they CLEARLY dont want it, THEN you should move on. however: 3. minimize life regrets 4. persistence is crucial So I still try doing what I think would make the world better, even if only by a little. But dayum it takes persistence! Because there is no (well, almost never) such thing as an overnight success. For example, I've been building a new game [5], and I put the lion's share of my effort lately into, effectively, either pitching/advertising it, or getting feedback. Both at scale and in rapid cycles. Because if it never takes off then I should cut bait and eat the loss. But... in meantime MUST be persistent, must keep faith, and grind thru all the little slings and arrows of sheer human indifference. Knowing when (if ever) to give up is a challenge... possibly a roll of the dice to "get right." ----- 5. Slartboz -- see my bio if curious

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]