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Yesterday, I Went to the American Idol for Startups. It Made Me Want to Die.
- barbs 14y ago>"You can do anything you want with an idea. It can be as big as you want. It doesn’t have to solve a minor problem that nobody ever really realized was a problem. It doesn’t have to fit into something the size of a button crammed into a “folder” the size of a button on a screen the size of a playing card. But everywhere I look, I see tiny little ideas,ideas that are almost petty in their inconsequentiality." This. This sums up how I feel about the whole startup scene. The lack of real innovation is incredible.
- rprasad 14y ago"When the language you employ to communicate your ideas is small and boring, your ideas are going to be small and boring." That's how I felt reading this blog post. A long, pedantic, raging post that does nothing but demonstrate that the author has an inflated sense of his writing prowess. His post is basically one type of Hipster raging against the Hipsterisms of a different type of Hipster.
- qu4z-2 14y agoThat line made me think of the Hemingway quote: “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words? He thinks I don't know the ten-dollar words. I know them all right. But there are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use.”
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- polyfractal 14y agoReally enjoying the author's prose. This had me rolling: >>It’s like watching some sadist work over a baby lamb with a rusty crowbar and a broken gin bottle. The names of these startups sound like the products of an aggressive brain tumor on the frontal lobe. Crowdegy, Placeling, Kouply, QuoteRobot, Appthwack, Makegood, Onthego, Nickler, Kahal, Tanzio, Taskk. They’re all whimsical and unique in exactly the same way.
- trevelyan 14y agoActually, I quite like the name Appthwack.
- sukuriant 14y agoHow do you spell it? (no really, say it to someone on the road and see if they can tell how to spell it)
- LeFever 14y agoThe first time I say it out loud to someone there's often a request to hear it again. If they're a native speaker it generally clicks with an emphasis on "Thwack." If they're not, spelling it clears it up rather quickly. Usually it's because they've never heard the word before. Once people get it they repeat it, likely because it's an entertaining and weird thing to say. I agree with the advice that names should be easy to spell, but I also think it depends on context. Nearly all of our customer acquisition starts visually, either through the site, banners, or press, so it hasn't really been a problem. Who knows if we'll keep it forever, but it's working for now.
- hkmurakami 14y agoDefinitely sounds like a form of brain tumor though.
- luiperd 14y agoI don't mind it, but it sounds like someone with a lisp is trying to say Aflac.
- LeFever 14y agoThe first time we publicly demoed AppThwack it was pointed out. On the other hand, people seem to remember it and generally react positively. Who knows if it will stick, but we agree on it enough for now that it's better to focus on the product and getting customers.
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- dinkumthinkum 14y agoNot to be that guy but it's like the author is writing a novel. What's the tl;dr here?
- polyfractal 14y agoHe went to Startup Riot, saw a bunch of consumer internet startups pitching their product. Complained about the names, the language used to describe the ideas ("content" vs "text", "consume" vs "read", etc) and the ideas themselves. Half of the article sounds like sour grapes, half is legit criticism.
- ojbyrne 14y agoI don't see how you get "sour grapes" out of this unless you know some backstory.
- polyfractal 14y agoAh, yeah, sour grapes was probably the wrong phrase. I was paraphrasing quickly. I just meant a certain amount of pre-conceived, baked in "anti tech startup" mentality. It didn't seem like this guy was going in with a very open mind. So what I meant is basically, half the article is legit criticism (ridiculous names, using ridiculous buzzwords and generally untenable startup ideas) - and half just sounded like some guy going being angsty against tech startups "just because"
- bradleyland 14y agoEh, I don't know. I think it's wise to take a step back and listen to yourself from time to time. When you set out to do something, you start by learning, then by doing, then you recyle that process over and over. You entrench yourself with like-minded individuals, and everything starts to become second nature. This is the exact moment that you should take a step back and read a piece like this. In the process of trying to succeed, there's a very good chance that you're going to pick up some habits from those around you. Some of those habits are good and will contribute to your progress, but many of them are just useless baggage. When I read this piece, I thought to myself, "My god, we sound just like the Six Sigma biz-ops guys we make fun of." That's an insight I wouldn't pass up, even if it means feeling a little sting of broken pride.
- TenJack 14y agoHere's the author's bio and picture if it helps put this article in context: http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/paul-constant/Author?oid=17693 http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/paul-constant/Author?oid=...
- hkmurakami 14y ago>He became the 2009 I.D. Spring Roll Eating Champion after consuming 23 deep-fried spring rolls in two minutes. Pretty impressive if I may say so.
- theorique 14y agoSo he's a hipster twat? Not too surprised.
- zalew 14y agoI bet these dudes were there http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6507690/hardly-working-start-up-guys http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6507690/hardly-working-sta...
- ojbyrne 14y ago"tiny little ideas" - for me the best startup ideas are those that start with some small idea, but it is actually a trojan horse to get something into the market that is actually very large.
- chickfilacowboy 14y agoI've been to the original StartupRiot in Atlanta and can agree that the author brings up some valid points. The "American Idol" for startups is a pretty good metaphor as well.
- artursapek 14y agoA very pleasant surprise seeing The Stranger on HN today.
- jboggan 14y ago"These women and men have come together to do brutal violence to the English language, to leave the spoken and written word bloodied and victimized on a cold cement floor, wishing for the sweet relief of death." I will read anything this author writes. Thanks for spotlighting this blog. Tip: if you want your blog READ instead of skimmed for buzzwords and facts, make sweet love to the English language. Then worry about your content.
- sp332 14y agoI think you should figure out what content you want to convey first; throwing pretty descriptive words at a page with no content is a good way to get garbage.
- jboggan 14y agoI understand this sentiment. e e cummings and James Joyce might be interesting counter-examples, but then again they were not tech writers. I suppose that I mean incisive and beautiful prose will keep me coming back and paying attention to what you say (because it is a pleasure to read) rather than being lost in the flotsam and jetsam of articles bobbing to the surface of HN every day.
- mischov 14y agoAnything worth writing is worth writing well. But not everything is worth writing. I would not even begin to disagree with you about the merits of beautiful prose, but would the article have been anything more than a collection of entertaining images and vitriol if the author hadn't been skewering a very real and obvious and silly trend? Most of us have probably shaken our heads at some startup name or another, or rolled our eyes at a particularly unbearable lump of marketing-speak. So underneath all those pretty words and images lies a sentiment we understand and can sympathize with. If you want your blog READ instead of skimmed for buzzwords and facts, write things worth writing.
- Nowyouknow 14y ago"...smart people I consider to be excellent writers—are unironically using the word “SPOTLIGHT” as a verb in an Hacker News thread."
- MIT_Hacker 14y agoWoah. How did this drop from #2? There are articles above this on HN that have less points and were submitted at an earlier time...
- aaronbrethorst 14y agoI can't say I ever expected to see a Slog post on here. Slog's where I go for my daily dose of adorable animal videos at lunch, sex advice from Dan Savage, and Seattle/Washington state political news. All that said, Paul Constant is a fantastic writer, and I'm glad to see he's found an audience here.
- jason3 14y agoGreat writing, reminds me of David Foster Wallace's work.
- thinkingisfun 14y agoTwo quotes from George Orwell spring to mind: "The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one’s real and one’s declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink." "If people cannot write well, they cannot think well, and if they cannot think well, others will do their thinking for them." nuff said...?
- iblaine 14y agoInvestors are so desperate to find the next homerun that they'll cater to the ridiculous that is speed dating for startup ideas.
- GnarlinBrando 14y agoI think that is a point missed by this article and many others. People are going after what they think they can get funded in large part. In the comments on the post there is a nice Peter Thiel quote about innovation in the physical world basically getting outlawed (his libertarian bent shows strongly here) driving innovation to software. And while I don't really agree with all of it, I really think that to a certain extent, be it through patents, super dominant companies, government prohibition, or even just cultural forces, it is really hard to go big.
- kstenerud 14y ago"Hell, as I check my e-mail, I notice with a resigned shame that my coworkers—smart people I consider to be excellent writers—are unironically using the word “spearhead” as a verb in an e-mail thread." Aaaaand this is where I dismiss the author as simply looking for things to complain about. Complaining about names (as if that even matters). Complaining about the way they dress. Complaining about the way they talk. Might as well end it with "get off my lawn!"
- BadassFractal 14y agoThe naming part was a bit annoying. There's a very specific and calculated reason why startups go with uniformly butchered names like those: 1) domain names and branding you don't have to fight over (you have no money to do that as a scrappy startup) 2) you also don't bucket yourself into one specific function "UsefulSpreadsheets.com" can never become a food catering company, whereas "Xorgzyx.com" (or Google/Yelp/Amazon/Zynga and so on) can be whatever they want to be without having to rename themselves.
- GlennS 14y agoIt's pretty naked snobbery. That's all.
- Apocryphon 14y agoBuzzwords must die.
- samstave 14y agoI feel like you and I have synergy on that opinion.
- mamoswined 14y ago"The women have it tougher. Their business casual is neither business-minded nor all that casual, a confusing melange of sundresses and sensible slacks, gossamer sweaters tossed over spaghetti straps." That seems weirdly sexist to me. I guess I really like working in tech because I can wear generally what I want, and often in the summer, that means sundresses, instead of a stifling business suit. And I guess I always assumed the tech world, particularly the start-up scene, wasn't judging me as less business-like because of it. TLDR: yes, a lot of the startup world is full of shallow business-speak, but don't you dare insult my sundresses.
- awakeasleep 14y agoI think you have it backwards. The sundress is overly-dressy. The shoes are designed to be looked at and to impress, rather than for comfort. I think that sort of misrepresentation (not you specifically, the event) is what the author resenting. Read me out. Brute utility defines romance of 'startup culture'. Humans understanding their world, and interacting with it in a straight-forward way. I'm modifying the code to do this. These effects will alter this part of our business. You're attempting to account for everything. Money has definite purposes. Your time has value measured in the sort of excitement that makes your brain burn like you were lifting weights with it. Those conditions do not include men spending their money on jeans, and women spending self control on culturally approved foot torture. At that point the focus has moved from interacting with the business to something about social status. Buzzwords really give things away. I'm only now learning that buzzwords are the most important part of modern established businesses. They're fucking amazing. A buzzword represents an abstract concept. Abstract concepts come in two flavors. Those that represent something very specific/complex in concise terms, and those which represent something very vague/simple in bombastic terms. In use, they are the guardians of understanding and agreement. Secrecy and manipulation and power with publicly spoken words. A stark contrast to the liberal sharing of knowledge and honest curiosity of the startup dream.
- mamoswined 14y agoI suspect neither you nor the original author have worn many women's clothing or shoes. Sometimes things look uncomfortable that are not. And why does it matter anyway if my clothing accurately reflects some abstract startup ethos? Startups talk about attracting women, but what happens when women get criticized for doing things a lot of us legitimately enjoy like wearing pretty clothes? Either way, nothing is less business-like than judging a tech event by the attire of the participants. In tech, it's a lose-lose situation. Dress in a baggy Defcon t-shirt and don't brush your hair...you are too ugly and you must not be a "people person." Dress nicely...oh you must have just chosen those clothes to impress people, so you must be superficial.
- lukejduncan 14y agoAnyone else have a bunch of pop-up ads when browsing there?
- njx 14y agoWhen the dust settles, we all will remember those crazy startup euphoria days and this article would be one of it. Pretty soon we might need to ammend the Dictionary with new words or spelling corrections
- SCdF 14y agoSo those names were indeed terrible. But how the hell do you name things well? It's really hard. The second you write some code you have to call it something, and I imagine that's the point where people think up janky cute names, and then it's in the codebase and that's that. I know for me I think up something stupid and then roll with that, presuming that if it ever makes it out of localhost it will be renamed to something sensible. These people are just pitching, no wonder there names are like AwesomeSaucr and CakeBacon and what-not.
- jefecoon 14y agoJeff @ MakeGood; I pitched yesterday at StartupRiot. For what it's worth, 'makegoods' are old ad-industry jargon for extra ads which have to be run to literally 'make good' on what you've sold to an advertiser... plus a half-way decent play on words. Our target clients instantly get what we do, and want a t-shirt = mission accomplished. The article has exceptional wordcraft, that's true. However, of all the potential angles or stories he could have written, he simply phoned in this bashing of the attendees for wearing khakis and using "TPS Report" industry jargon. If he'd actually bothered to talk to any of these companies he could have written so much more. I'm going to dust off my khakis and get back to coding up our solution for our clients who love us now. PS: i hadn't looked at the author's bio until I saw the comment of someone who did and called the author a "hipster twat." Thanks for that, our office was rolling.
- smsm42 14y agoNames don't matter. Google is a terrible name. Yahoo is a terrible name. Do you think Facebook became what it is because of their name? Do you think MicroSoft got where it is because of the name? Do you think Linux and Apache took sizable chunk of their market afterward because their names were better? Names are insignificant. You can pay millions for most awesome name on the planet and flop, and you can choose name like "git" and create awesome software that everybody uses. People would use anything under any name if they like it.
- chris_wot 14y agoPossibly the worst names for the most popular software are git and gimp. Nobody cares. They use them, because they are awesome!
- akoumjian 14y agoThe Stranger disappoints, as usual. Easier to poke fun at people's clothes and other shallow topics than provide something of substance. Don't get me wrong, I love the occasional quip, but the author has put zero effort into understanding the culture before casually ridiculing it.
- LeFever 14y agoI was there yesterday, and we actually presented and ended up tied for second place. AppThwack (Not to be confused with a "brain tumor") is a rapid, automated QA service for testing Android apps on real, non-emulated devices in a massively parallel and fast way. I realize it's not a world-changingly noble mission, but I also don't think it's trivial or inconsequential. Regardless, here are my thoughts. I posted a bit more in the article comment, but thought I'd paste part of my comment here. "This article is definitely entertaining. It's vapid and catty and well written, and accurately portrays an event from an outsider's perspective. Of course there are lots of things that look like "bad ideas" on their face. On the other hand, there are lots of ideas that seem dumb at first that grow into interesting companies that end up solving legitimate problems. Overall I think the event was very well run and I met a lot of great people. I was there with the goal of getting something out of it, though, and that something was connections, potential partners/customers, and some more pitch experience. Obviously the author got what he was looking for as well. I think it's important that the "startup community" (I hate that that's a thing people say) gets kicked in the balls every now and then. For example, this look at TechCrunch Disrupt: http://www.buzzfeed.com/jackstuef/scenes-from-the-pounding-heart-of-a-tech-bubble http://www.buzzfeed.com/jackstuef/scenes-from-the-pounding-h...
- petitmiam 14y agoSome of the photos for 'Stranger Personals' that appear on the right of the article aren't really safe for work.
- cindywu123 14y agoI was one of the presenters at Startup Riot. Events like Startup Riot give early stage founders the opportunity to showcase their products and it is extremely important to keep this a safe place for newbies and encourage entrepreneurs to keep at it! Two cents from a presenter at the event: http://www.moonsovermyhammy.com/post/29112090592/if-youre-a-little-person-sharing-a-big-idea-do-it http://www.moonsovermyhammy.com/post/29112090592/if-youre-a-...