4 ms·

1 year ago: living with no heat, no electricity - in the middle of a crime scene

38 points by tomasien 14y ago

noonespecial 14y ago
That's harsh. I thought "don't die" was strictly metaphorical. You did it most literally as well. I'd like to hear more about your troubles with ABC. Stay strong.
- tomasien 14y ago
  Thanks man, we will!
iopuy 14y ago
Seeing how this is Ycombinator, I should have expected this to be about a start up; however, I can't help but feel I was slightly mislead by the title. Why was there no electricity? What about the crimes? Those sound darn interesting and I'm willing to wager that's the reason most people clicked on the link.
- tomasien 14y ago
  I'm sorry if you feel misled: that story is, in and of itself, pretty damn interesting. It may seem short sighted and even a little crazy, but when I think about all that stuff, I really do think about it in the context of "what did it mean for me as a founder" as much as "what did it tell me about life".
  - iopuy 14y ago
    Fair enough, point taken. :-)
- dkersten 14y ago
  Why was there no electricity? What about the crimes? Those sound darn interesting I, too, would like to hear about this stuff!
  - Retric 14y ago
    Umm, did we read the same thing? It said in the robbery... his roommate was shot leading to blood on the walls and his apartment becoming a crime scene. no electricity or heat was from having no money.
  - tomasien 14y ago
    retric is largely right. I tried not to just write the sob story and get to the lesson, but maybe I should have included more details. I'll write that whole story out one day, but honestly that would be a book and would take a better writer than me to tell it. The depths of everything that happened in October 2011 to The City Swig guys are just. They are fucking shocking. It was quite a time.
- asciimo 14y ago
  Yeah, I feel let down. There are plenty of stories on HN about struggling start-ups. I hoped that this one--featuring a crime scene!--would be more interesting. But it's just another "keep your chin up" tale despite its potential.
nicholassmith 14y ago
Came for gory details, stayed for the warm and fuzzies. For every startup that has a nice clear run at it I imagine there's a dozen swimming in poop. In some cases, like this one, going through the worst possible circumstances that can happen, and you either sink or swim.
- tomasien 14y ago
  I think I wrote this badly, but you got exactly the point I was going for: for every Airbnb there's someone exactly as resilient that is NOT Airbnb. However, not dying has its own merits and has huge upside, so I recommend adopting it as a philosophy and constantly doing everything you can to turn "not dying" into "living large".
  - kstenerud 14y ago
    Absolutely. Falling to the deepest depths and surviving has the side effect of making you more fearless, and thus stronger.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
batgaijin 14y ago
What did PG mean when he said "go to your users"?
eric_bullington 14y ago
Do you think that ABC boards in other states will come to the same conclusion about the concept behind CitySwig (helping connect bar and store owners with stock to sell at discount with customers)? I commented on what on your previous posts that I think CitySwig a really good idea, and I still think so. I'm curious what direction you are taking now.
- tomasien 14y ago
  1. No. There are about 35 states where TCS could work relatively uninhibited. Our flash deals model is something bars want very badly and I believe strongly someone will get it right. 2. We built too many features. The app was too feature rich and we couldn't iterate fast enough. That said, with a solid seed round we would move into other states and start killing it with the news apps we've finished (but haven't released). However, investors don't care about that, it's too unknown and our model would take a long time to scale. I fully support and understand their perspective, and I wish we could have done what we needed to do in Virginia to prove them wrong. We couldn't, and now we're going to move on with something else we're really excited about.
sk5t 14y ago
There's no lesson here... people already work hard to stay alive, and serious tenacity is a well-known component to getting a business off the ground.
mirkules 14y ago
Can you describe exactly what is "Virginia's ABC"? And how were they able to shut you down? That part of the story was completely lost on me - I feel like there is some context that I might have missed.

38 points by tomasien 14y ago

That's harsh. I thought "don't die" was strictly metaphorical. You did it most literally as well. I'd like to hear more about your troubles with ABC. Stay strong.

tomasien 14y ago
Thanks man, we will!

iopuy 14y ago

Seeing how this is Ycombinator, I should have expected this to be about a start up; however, I can't help but feel I was slightly mislead by the title. Why was there no electricity? What about the crimes? Those sound darn interesting and I'm willing to wager that's the reason most people clicked on the link.

tomasien 14y ago
I'm sorry if you feel misled: that story is, in and of itself, pretty damn interesting. It may seem short sighted and even a little crazy, but when I think about all that stuff, I really do think about it in the context of "what did it mean for me as a founder" as much as "what did it tell me about life".
- iopuy 14y ago
  Fair enough, point taken. :-)
dkersten 14y ago
Why was there no electricity? What about the crimes? Those sound darn interesting I, too, would like to hear about this stuff!
- Retric 14y ago
  Umm, did we read the same thing? It said in the robbery... his roommate was shot leading to blood on the walls and his apartment becoming a crime scene. no electricity or heat was from having no money.
- tomasien 14y ago
  retric is largely right. I tried not to just write the sob story and get to the lesson, but maybe I should have included more details. I'll write that whole story out one day, but honestly that would be a book and would take a better writer than me to tell it. The depths of everything that happened in October 2011 to The City Swig guys are just. They are fucking shocking. It was quite a time.
asciimo 14y ago
Yeah, I feel let down. There are plenty of stories on HN about struggling start-ups. I hoped that this one--featuring a crime scene!--would be more interesting. But it's just another "keep your chin up" tale despite its potential.

nicholassmith 14y ago

Came for gory details, stayed for the warm and fuzzies. For every startup that has a nice clear run at it I imagine there's a dozen swimming in poop. In some cases, like this one, going through the worst possible circumstances that can happen, and you either sink or swim.

tomasien 14y ago
I think I wrote this badly, but you got exactly the point I was going for: for every Airbnb there's someone exactly as resilient that is NOT Airbnb. However, not dying has its own merits and has huge upside, so I recommend adopting it as a philosophy and constantly doing everything you can to turn "not dying" into "living large".
- kstenerud 14y ago
  Absolutely. Falling to the deepest depths and surviving has the side effect of making you more fearless, and thus stronger.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

batgaijin 14y ago

What did PG mean when he said "go to your users"?

eric_bullington 14y ago

Do you think that ABC boards in other states will come to the same conclusion about the concept behind CitySwig (helping connect bar and store owners with stock to sell at discount with customers)? I commented on what on your previous posts that I think CitySwig a really good idea, and I still think so. I'm curious what direction you are taking now.

tomasien 14y ago
1. No. There are about 35 states where TCS could work relatively uninhibited. Our flash deals model is something bars want very badly and I believe strongly someone will get it right. 2. We built too many features. The app was too feature rich and we couldn't iterate fast enough. That said, with a solid seed round we would move into other states and start killing it with the news apps we've finished (but haven't released). However, investors don't care about that, it's too unknown and our model would take a long time to scale. I fully support and understand their perspective, and I wish we could have done what we needed to do in Virginia to prove them wrong. We couldn't, and now we're going to move on with something else we're really excited about.

sk5t 14y ago

There's no lesson here... people already work hard to stay alive, and serious tenacity is a well-known component to getting a business off the ground.

mirkules 14y ago

Can you describe exactly what is "Virginia's ABC"? And how were they able to shut you down? That part of the story was completely lost on me - I feel like there is some context that I might have missed.