3 ms·

man, 0-20,000 users in less than 3 years? damn. I've been at it for what, seven now? eight? and I've achieved 1/10th that. Even if we only count from the t

by lsc 14y ago

man, 0-20,000 users in less than 3 years? damn. I've been at it for what, seven now? eight? and I've achieved 1/10th that. Even if we only count from the time when I kinda figured out the hardware end of things, 2007 or so, that's still five years.

patio11 14y ago
Congratulations on your success. The overwhelming majority of people will never run a hosting company. Of those that do, many of them will be unable to sustain it to 2k customers and run it profitably for half a decade. With regards to the new knowledge that 20k customers is possible, that just gives you something to shoot for next, right? There's something you can do that starts at 2k users today and gets you to 20k users. You know that is possible, because other people have done it. So work on that. (Knowing from previous conversations that you're rate limited on customer acquisition by processes other than marketing I'd suggest, as the Slicehost guys did, "automating the "%#)(% out of everything" and then focusing on customer acquisition as your primary job, if that is a huge priority for you.) More broadly: philosophically, if we consider ourselves failures for not doing things other people have done, then we'll all be failures essentially all of the time. That strikes me as an unhappy bit of philosophy to adopt then.
- lsc 14y ago
  >With regards to the new knowledge that 20k customers is possible, that just gives you something to shoot for next, right? Well, yes. Mostly I'm just amazed how they did that so quickly. That is admirable. But, I guess most of my growth has been in mad dashes, too... mad dashes followed by lulls where subscriptions keep pace with cancellations. I can see how it'd be possible to keep up those mad dashes, if your automation was better to start with, and if your support was better, and the marketing. All these are things I can improve; but it's admirable how they absolutely nailed all those things in such a short period of time. >I'd suggest, as the Slicehost guys did, "automating the "%#)(% out of everything" and then focusing on customer acquisition as your primary job Yeah. This. I mean, I make the excuse that I'm too busy 'shooting alligators' but you really have to set aside time to drain the swamp (and let's be honest here, I've started a bunch of different projects... time that would have been better spent on draining the swamp by automating more of this stuff.) I did actually make a lot of progress automating the killing of old accounts the night you wrote that. (It's still a manual process, but I wrote some scripts that took it from being an all-day thing to clear out everyone to it being a 10 minute thing to clear out everyone.) >More broadly: philosophically, if we consider ourselves failures for not doing things other people have done, then we'll all be failures essentially all of the time. That strikes me as an unhappy bit of philosophy to adopt then. The balance between arrogance and considering oneself a failure is a tricky one. I mean, I know that the only thing that has come close to destroying me was that confidence. (Well, after getting out of school. That's a long story; but there certainly were plenty of strong voices saying that I can't do it then; they were all, of course, trying to get me to put in the effort to get into a reasonable college, the upshot, of course, being that nearly everyone told me I was going to work at 7-11 if I didn't go to college, and it was obvious that I wasn't going to do so. I think a lot of my arrogance is innate, but a lot of it also comes from just how easy the real world was for me, compared to school.) But yeah, PG wrote about confidence in a way that I related to, perhaps better than anyone else I've read: "But you should treat your optimism the way you'd treat the core of a nuclear reactor: as a source of power that's also very dangerous. You have to build a shield around it, or it will fry you." That line, really, is why I got interested in his writing and in this community. I've gotten burned badly, several times, by raising the control rods too much. I know that for most people I know, their big mistakes usually have to do with hitting the metaphorical SCRAM button before the reactor even gets warm, but for me? The big problems have always been that over-reach; the over confidence. Of course, Graham goes on to say: "The shielding of a reactor is not uniform; the reactor would be useless if it were. It's pierced in a few places to let pipes in. An optimism shield has to be pierced too. I think the place to draw the line is between what you expect of yourself, and what you expect of other people. It's ok to be optimistic about what you can do, but assume the worst about machines and other people." which, of course, I believe is Very Bad Advice if you are a flawed individual. Self-doubt is essential to survival. Personally, I like the control-rod metaphor. When things get too hot? you lower the rods and let things cool down. Need more power? raise the rods. But always be aware that while having no power is a problem, it's easier to clean up after a SCRAM than a meltdown. Of course, much like how it may be best for the military to select fighter pilots with irrational levels of confidence, I can see how it would be best for an investor to select founders with irrational levels of confidence. If they try hard and fail? eh, well, there's always another one waiting on the sidelines. And in both cases, there's a supervisor that tries to make sure they don't get in too much trouble. When it's just you, well, you've gotta consider the consequences of failure. And sometimes the consequences are small; if you have a corporation, and the credit is all in the corp's name? sure, take big risks and fold it if you screw up. But, make damn sure ahead of time that is possible. Those mistakes (of overconfidence in cases where the consequences of failure were non-zero) have cost me years. And nearly all of the strategic mistakes I make now are attributable to the same source. Most of my tactical mistakes are attributable to, well, my brain not functioning normally. whatever you want to call it; attention deficit disorder; being lazy, having difficulty focusing? whatever you want to call it. It does respond fairly well to a battery of only moderately unpleasant medications, so I can't complain too much. - but the thing is, I know that about myself. It had a lot to do with why I didn't do well in school. I should be able to include this margin for error in my planning; but no. that confidence takes what I can do on the days that everything is just right and plans using that; forgetting that even with medication, I get maybe three of those days a week, when I'm really paying attention to all the inputs, working out, eating right and sleeping well; Otherwise, three of those days a month is a more realistic estimate. And I really am effective on those days; even if I planned for three of those effective days a month, I seem to still meet bay area sysadmin standards, so with half a decade, I ought to be able to come up with what is maybe ten days of good solid work on this problem. I mean, I personally think that the biggest thing holding prgmr.com back the most right now is the automation, and I think the primary thing holding that back is that I've been spending my good days on other projects... that yeah, are interesting and might be worth something at some point in the future, but ultimately should take a backseat to the butter and guns.
larrys 14y ago
"I've been at it for what, seven now? eight?" Do you have a "business guy" helping you? Have you ever? If not, why not? (Never met one, didn't know you needed one, etc?)
- lsc 14y ago
  I am the business guy; that was kindof the point of this experiment. I don't have some other idiot telling me what to do. (I mean, sometimes I still have an idiot telling me what to do, but it's not some other idiot.) There was one guy that I turned down that I probably shouldn't have turned down. But he was more technical than I am, too. That was probably a mistake, but he's working on his own thing now. The thing is, nobody else would have had the follow through to keep bleeding money on the thing for as long as it took me to figure out what the hell I was doing. I mean, would that have been better? maybe. Almost certainly my lifetime earnings up 'till now would have been greater. Or maybe a business person would have kicked my ass 'till we came up with a solution that kindof worked even though I didn't know what I was doing? Or maybe they would have come with enough money that I could have compressed those lessons into a shorter timeframe? (Most of my early mistakes had to do with hardware and the cheaping out on thereof. With sufficient capital, I could have moved on to making other mistakes earlier.) But really, having a business guy would have been counter to most of the reasons I went into business in the first place. I thought I could do it better. If I really am wrong, I need to accept my place and get a job.
  - larrys 14y ago
    First, I hope you take what I am going to say as a compliment. Since I've heard nothing but good things about your company (specifically from a guy that is very technical that told me about it originally that I highly respect so you get blessed by that association). The thing that is holding you back is that you are very honest and conscientious. All you have to do to determine that is to read your page on "colo" at your site where you are very frank about the fact that the rent might go up. That is very atypical in business. I've seen the same ethics hold many people back. I'm not saying at all that everyone who makes it big is unethical because of course that's not the case. But I've seen many people who haven't made it who are just to damn honest and I've seen many people make it that are just unethical and easily pull the wool over people's eyes. Now of course everyone fibs a bit here and there. It's not like a person is either totally honest or a total cheat. There is a gray area and it's a continuum. Anyway that's my take on things. I can point to the obvious example of Jobs and Woz (of course Woz had no business sense but the fact is he really didn't even know it was possible to be screwed by Jobs so he couldn't even protect against it.) I think you have a great thing going. Personally I feel you should move away from the hacker market and move more mainstream and raise your prices. Or perhaps develop a different site to address that market. If you are interested, I'd get involved in that possibly.

by lsc 14y ago

patio11 14y ago

Congratulations on your success. The overwhelming majority of people will never run a hosting company. Of those that do, many of them will be unable to sustain it to 2k customers and run it profitably for half a decade. With regards to the new knowledge that 20k customers is possible, that just gives you something to shoot for next, right? There's something you can do that starts at 2k users today and gets you to 20k users. You know that is possible, because other people have done it. So work on that. (Knowing from previous conversations that you're rate limited on customer acquisition by processes other than marketing I'd suggest, as the Slicehost guys did, "automating the "%#)(% out of everything" and then focusing on customer acquisition as your primary job, if that is a huge priority for you.) More broadly: philosophically, if we consider ourselves failures for not doing things other people have done, then we'll all be failures essentially all of the time. That strikes me as an unhappy bit of philosophy to adopt then.

lsc 14y ago
>With regards to the new knowledge that 20k customers is possible, that just gives you something to shoot for next, right? Well, yes. Mostly I'm just amazed how they did that so quickly. That is admirable. But, I guess most of my growth has been in mad dashes, too... mad dashes followed by lulls where subscriptions keep pace with cancellations. I can see how it'd be possible to keep up those mad dashes, if your automation was better to start with, and if your support was better, and the marketing. All these are things I can improve; but it's admirable how they absolutely nailed all those things in such a short period of time. >I'd suggest, as the Slicehost guys did, "automating the "%#)(% out of everything" and then focusing on customer acquisition as your primary job Yeah. This. I mean, I make the excuse that I'm too busy 'shooting alligators' but you really have to set aside time to drain the swamp (and let's be honest here, I've started a bunch of different projects... time that would have been better spent on draining the swamp by automating more of this stuff.) I did actually make a lot of progress automating the killing of old accounts the night you wrote that. (It's still a manual process, but I wrote some scripts that took it from being an all-day thing to clear out everyone to it being a 10 minute thing to clear out everyone.) >More broadly: philosophically, if we consider ourselves failures for not doing things other people have done, then we'll all be failures essentially all of the time. That strikes me as an unhappy bit of philosophy to adopt then. The balance between arrogance and considering oneself a failure is a tricky one. I mean, I know that the only thing that has come close to destroying me was that confidence. (Well, after getting out of school. That's a long story; but there certainly were plenty of strong voices saying that I can't do it then; they were all, of course, trying to get me to put in the effort to get into a reasonable college, the upshot, of course, being that nearly everyone told me I was going to work at 7-11 if I didn't go to college, and it was obvious that I wasn't going to do so. I think a lot of my arrogance is innate, but a lot of it also comes from just how easy the real world was for me, compared to school.) But yeah, PG wrote about confidence in a way that I related to, perhaps better than anyone else I've read: "But you should treat your optimism the way you'd treat the core of a nuclear reactor: as a source of power that's also very dangerous. You have to build a shield around it, or it will fry you." That line, really, is why I got interested in his writing and in this community. I've gotten burned badly, several times, by raising the control rods too much. I know that for most people I know, their big mistakes usually have to do with hitting the metaphorical SCRAM button before the reactor even gets warm, but for me? The big problems have always been that over-reach; the over confidence. Of course, Graham goes on to say: "The shielding of a reactor is not uniform; the reactor would be useless if it were. It's pierced in a few places to let pipes in. An optimism shield has to be pierced too. I think the place to draw the line is between what you expect of yourself, and what you expect of other people. It's ok to be optimistic about what you can do, but assume the worst about machines and other people." which, of course, I believe is Very Bad Advice if you are a flawed individual. Self-doubt is essential to survival. Personally, I like the control-rod metaphor. When things get too hot? you lower the rods and let things cool down. Need more power? raise the rods. But always be aware that while having no power is a problem, it's easier to clean up after a SCRAM than a meltdown. Of course, much like how it may be best for the military to select fighter pilots with irrational levels of confidence, I can see how it would be best for an investor to select founders with irrational levels of confidence. If they try hard and fail? eh, well, there's always another one waiting on the sidelines. And in both cases, there's a supervisor that tries to make sure they don't get in too much trouble. When it's just you, well, you've gotta consider the consequences of failure. And sometimes the consequences are small; if you have a corporation, and the credit is all in the corp's name? sure, take big risks and fold it if you screw up. But, make damn sure ahead of time that is possible. Those mistakes (of overconfidence in cases where the consequences of failure were non-zero) have cost me years. And nearly all of the strategic mistakes I make now are attributable to the same source. Most of my tactical mistakes are attributable to, well, my brain not functioning normally. whatever you want to call it; attention deficit disorder; being lazy, having difficulty focusing? whatever you want to call it. It does respond fairly well to a battery of only moderately unpleasant medications, so I can't complain too much. - but the thing is, I know that about myself. It had a lot to do with why I didn't do well in school. I should be able to include this margin for error in my planning; but no. that confidence takes what I can do on the days that everything is just right and plans using that; forgetting that even with medication, I get maybe three of those days a week, when I'm really paying attention to all the inputs, working out, eating right and sleeping well; Otherwise, three of those days a month is a more realistic estimate. And I really am effective on those days; even if I planned for three of those effective days a month, I seem to still meet bay area sysadmin standards, so with half a decade, I ought to be able to come up with what is maybe ten days of good solid work on this problem. I mean, I personally think that the biggest thing holding prgmr.com back the most right now is the automation, and I think the primary thing holding that back is that I've been spending my good days on other projects... that yeah, are interesting and might be worth something at some point in the future, but ultimately should take a backseat to the butter and guns.

larrys 14y ago

"I've been at it for what, seven now? eight?" Do you have a "business guy" helping you? Have you ever? If not, why not? (Never met one, didn't know you needed one, etc?)

lsc 14y ago
I am the business guy; that was kindof the point of this experiment. I don't have some other idiot telling me what to do. (I mean, sometimes I still have an idiot telling me what to do, but it's not some other idiot.) There was one guy that I turned down that I probably shouldn't have turned down. But he was more technical than I am, too. That was probably a mistake, but he's working on his own thing now. The thing is, nobody else would have had the follow through to keep bleeding money on the thing for as long as it took me to figure out what the hell I was doing. I mean, would that have been better? maybe. Almost certainly my lifetime earnings up 'till now would have been greater. Or maybe a business person would have kicked my ass 'till we came up with a solution that kindof worked even though I didn't know what I was doing? Or maybe they would have come with enough money that I could have compressed those lessons into a shorter timeframe? (Most of my early mistakes had to do with hardware and the cheaping out on thereof. With sufficient capital, I could have moved on to making other mistakes earlier.) But really, having a business guy would have been counter to most of the reasons I went into business in the first place. I thought I could do it better. If I really am wrong, I need to accept my place and get a job.
- larrys 14y ago
  First, I hope you take what I am going to say as a compliment. Since I've heard nothing but good things about your company (specifically from a guy that is very technical that told me about it originally that I highly respect so you get blessed by that association). The thing that is holding you back is that you are very honest and conscientious. All you have to do to determine that is to read your page on "colo" at your site where you are very frank about the fact that the rent might go up. That is very atypical in business. I've seen the same ethics hold many people back. I'm not saying at all that everyone who makes it big is unethical because of course that's not the case. But I've seen many people who haven't made it who are just to damn honest and I've seen many people make it that are just unethical and easily pull the wool over people's eyes. Now of course everyone fibs a bit here and there. It's not like a person is either totally honest or a total cheat. There is a gray area and it's a continuum. Anyway that's my take on things. I can point to the obvious example of Jobs and Woz (of course Woz had no business sense but the fact is he really didn't even know it was possible to be screwed by Jobs so he couldn't even protect against it.) I think you have a great thing going. Personally I feel you should move away from the hacker market and move more mainstream and raise your prices. Or perhaps develop a different site to address that market. If you are interested, I'd get involved in that possibly.