3 ms·

> I don't think that anyone thinks it's more moral or good or right to start a VC backed company or a non-VC backed company. I don't think this is an actual deb

by lijok 3y ago

> I don't think that anyone thinks it's more moral or good or right to start a VC backed company or a non-VC backed company. I don't think this is an actual debate. Show of hands HN, who here thinks it's more moral or good or right to start a non-VC backed company?

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
I wrote about morality here and business in another thread, but the gist is: The stories that you hear with hard work, finding a niche, product market fit, build a great product are all lies. The true secret is what I think of as "dirty business". Think: spam, sex, gambling, money making, scraping data, connections (which are not dirty per se but often not mentioned in stories). Examples: LinkedIn: spam Snapchat: sex Google: money making Facebook: sex, spam Slack: connections Uber: connections, money making Airbnb: spam I can go on and on and almost any large scale success (over $10 million ARR) have had these things. The only time these can be broken is when a new paradigm starts: Examples: PC Internet Mobile LLM These usually happen every decade or so and you have ~2 years to make it (Dirty business also helps here to go really fast). The other key insight is the way the capitalism system works, if you achieve the initial growth, you almost always will succeed. To go from $10 million ARR to $100 million ARR is easy as pie. So, the bottom line is if you are a normal, moral person, who is righteous and thinking I will make something to help others and disrupt the world, you will fail. The alternative is small tech businesses which at the most you can sell for a few million dollars. That is still achievable and easy. You must hyper focus on a location and a niche and just sell to them. But I don't think of them as a startup. They are more like your local salons and restaurants. A mom and pop shop which is instead dealing in software. For B2B software you need to have at least 3 - 5 customers willing to sign $10,000 and above contracts before you write a single line of code. This is still possible but you need the connections and the deep insight of the industry to make something meaningful. I do not know why so much of the literature and teaching stuff discounts that initial spark which causes startups to grow. They are all lies. Focus on connections with local politicians (donate $10,000 to the up and coming politician?), movers and shakers, buying large amount of scraped data etc. Think dirty business and then maybe you will have a chance of succeeding. Would love any counter arguments and comments. This is from a very long, over a decade research into why some businesses succeed and others fail.

by lijok 3y ago

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

I wrote about morality here and business in another thread, but the gist is: The stories that you hear with hard work, finding a niche, product market fit, build a great product are all lies. The true secret is what I think of as "dirty business". Think: spam, sex, gambling, money making, scraping data, connections (which are not dirty per se but often not mentioned in stories). Examples: LinkedIn: spam Snapchat: sex Google: money making Facebook: sex, spam Slack: connections Uber: connections, money making Airbnb: spam I can go on and on and almost any large scale success (over $10 million ARR) have had these things. The only time these can be broken is when a new paradigm starts: Examples: PC Internet Mobile LLM These usually happen every decade or so and you have ~2 years to make it (Dirty business also helps here to go really fast). The other key insight is the way the capitalism system works, if you achieve the initial growth, you almost always will succeed. To go from $10 million ARR to $100 million ARR is easy as pie. So, the bottom line is if you are a normal, moral person, who is righteous and thinking I will make something to help others and disrupt the world, you will fail. The alternative is small tech businesses which at the most you can sell for a few million dollars. That is still achievable and easy. You must hyper focus on a location and a niche and just sell to them. But I don't think of them as a startup. They are more like your local salons and restaurants. A mom and pop shop which is instead dealing in software. For B2B software you need to have at least 3 - 5 customers willing to sign $10,000 and above contracts before you write a single line of code. This is still possible but you need the connections and the deep insight of the industry to make something meaningful. I do not know why so much of the literature and teaching stuff discounts that initial spark which causes startups to grow. They are all lies. Focus on connections with local politicians (donate $10,000 to the up and coming politician?), movers and shakers, buying large amount of scraped data etc. Think dirty business and then maybe you will have a chance of succeeding. Would love any counter arguments and comments. This is from a very long, over a decade research into why some businesses succeed and others fail.