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So many armchair commentators… Nobody here has the data about Oink that Milk do. The data required to tell if this venture was something worth doubling-down on

by eoghan 15y ago

So many armchair commentators… Nobody here has the data about Oink that Milk do. The data required to tell if this venture was something worth doubling-down on or moving on from. Business is an art. And great artists know that moving forward often requires you to say "this didn't work, let's start again." "If you want to live your life ... as an artist, you have to not look back too much. You have to be willing to take whatever you’ve done and whoever you were and throw them away." — Steve Jobs

newobj 15y ago
You can also paint (no pun intended) metaphors about artists dedicating their whole lives to something, seeing through their vision to the point of insanity, dying broke and starving only to be appreciated for their genius later on. "____ is an art" is often used as an excuse when ____ is being approached with a total lack of discipline...
- mikemoka 15y ago
  I second that
- barkingcat 15y ago
  But within that perserverence is the willingness to scap everything and restart again. Some authors rewrite their books over and over again. I know in the crafting of a story that held firm to my vision, I had over 30 or 40 rough drafts that went into /dev/null. I will never know if any of those drafts were better than my final story, but my art is is in holding strong to my vision, and to be willing to discard, rewrite, ruthlessly edit, and endlessly revisit every single one of my assumptions about the plot, characters, mood, structure. That is art, and no amount of armchair commentation will capture the beauty, frustration, and joy within this process. Yes. It is possible for an artist to spend an entirety of his/her life reworking one single piece. and yes - it is true that within this work, he/she would have said no a million times to a million possible decisions, and restarted from scratch a million times.
stephenapple 15y ago
Also if return on investment is Milk's primary goal then killing a product that's not working to push 100% of their resources to their next thing is the best thing they could do for investors. If the signs are there (which they obviously are internally) then better kill it now and start on the next thing earlier than draw it out longer. I think people are getting Oink and Milk confused. Milk received the capital which makes killing Oink more of an internal decision. I think it's a wise. Also it's a little interesting people are commenting about the effort behind the product. Sure the timeline is short, but I feel it's the effort that really makes Oink stand out and fall harder.
IsaacL 15y ago
Agreed. I'm really struggling to see how people here can be so negative. The whole idea of Milk was to try lots of things and see which stuck. People are saying "you need to stick things out to build a business" -- but Milk is sticking to their original strategy, and is in the process of searching for a truly big business. People are calling Kevin Rose and his team a bunch of hipsters, but I'd rather that than the nerdy meta-hipsters who are everywhere online these days. I really like the Milk model. It's another twist on the incubator/accelerator concept, alongside stuff like YC or the Samwers' Rocket Internet. A startup that looks like an investment firm -- instead of risking it all on one product, they're looking for a portfolio of products, to better increase the chances of finding that one breakout hit. And like VCs, they're not interested in small successes. Sure, you can point out their model is unproven and might not work. But there's no need to hate them for trying something new.
- dotBen 15y ago
  he whole idea of Milk was to try lots of things and see which stuck. Maybe it's because most HN'ers don't have that kind of luxury of scope with their own startup endeavors, which understandably causes a level of resentment? Sure, as a founder you can pivot, but that's not the same as launching discrete apps/businesses, being able to test them out and then shut them down if they are not popular. Most people only get one bite of the cherry.
  - IsaacL 15y ago
    I think we can. I had the idea recently of starting a small web/mobile consulting shop, and using that to build a stable income stream and also a strong team (technical, product, business guys). Once that's established, you slowly move towards trying novel ideas. It's a common model in the games industry.

by eoghan 15y ago

newobj 15y ago

You can also paint (no pun intended) metaphors about artists dedicating their whole lives to something, seeing through their vision to the point of insanity, dying broke and starving only to be appreciated for their genius later on. "____ is an art" is often used as an excuse when ____ is being approached with a total lack of discipline...

mikemoka 15y ago
I second that
barkingcat 15y ago
But within that perserverence is the willingness to scap everything and restart again. Some authors rewrite their books over and over again. I know in the crafting of a story that held firm to my vision, I had over 30 or 40 rough drafts that went into /dev/null. I will never know if any of those drafts were better than my final story, but my art is is in holding strong to my vision, and to be willing to discard, rewrite, ruthlessly edit, and endlessly revisit every single one of my assumptions about the plot, characters, mood, structure. That is art, and no amount of armchair commentation will capture the beauty, frustration, and joy within this process. Yes. It is possible for an artist to spend an entirety of his/her life reworking one single piece. and yes - it is true that within this work, he/she would have said no a million times to a million possible decisions, and restarted from scratch a million times.

stephenapple 15y ago

Also if return on investment is Milk's primary goal then killing a product that's not working to push 100% of their resources to their next thing is the best thing they could do for investors. If the signs are there (which they obviously are internally) then better kill it now and start on the next thing earlier than draw it out longer. I think people are getting Oink and Milk confused. Milk received the capital which makes killing Oink more of an internal decision. I think it's a wise. Also it's a little interesting people are commenting about the effort behind the product. Sure the timeline is short, but I feel it's the effort that really makes Oink stand out and fall harder.

IsaacL 15y ago

Agreed. I'm really struggling to see how people here can be so negative. The whole idea of Milk was to try lots of things and see which stuck. People are saying "you need to stick things out to build a business" -- but Milk is sticking to their original strategy, and is in the process of searching for a truly big business. People are calling Kevin Rose and his team a bunch of hipsters, but I'd rather that than the nerdy meta-hipsters who are everywhere online these days. I really like the Milk model. It's another twist on the incubator/accelerator concept, alongside stuff like YC or the Samwers' Rocket Internet. A startup that looks like an investment firm -- instead of risking it all on one product, they're looking for a portfolio of products, to better increase the chances of finding that one breakout hit. And like VCs, they're not interested in small successes. Sure, you can point out their model is unproven and might not work. But there's no need to hate them for trying something new.

dotBen 15y ago
he whole idea of Milk was to try lots of things and see which stuck. Maybe it's because most HN'ers don't have that kind of luxury of scope with their own startup endeavors, which understandably causes a level of resentment? Sure, as a founder you can pivot, but that's not the same as launching discrete apps/businesses, being able to test them out and then shut them down if they are not popular. Most people only get one bite of the cherry.
- IsaacL 15y ago
  I think we can. I had the idea recently of starting a small web/mobile consulting shop, and using that to build a stable income stream and also a strong team (technical, product, business guys). Once that's established, you slowly move towards trying novel ideas. It's a common model in the games industry.