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The bombastic tone of this article obscures some nuggets of truth. The most promising startup founders I know have 5-10 years of experience in an industry, enou
by jacoblyles 14y ago
The bombastic tone of this article obscures some nuggets of truth. The most promising startup founders I know have 5-10 years of experience in an industry, enough to have some domain expertise and insight into the needs of that industry. This contrasts with people who move here to "do a startup" - largely producing clones of the latest consumer success story (in my time in the valley, the cycle of clones has been Foursquare, Groupon, Zynga, and Instagram, respectively). I was in that second group when I moved here, embarrassingly working on a SoLoMo consumer app in an industry where I had zero competitive advantage. (SoLoMoPho = social local mobile photo)
A little shakeout is a good thing. It will free up talent and make the valley feel less trivial.
- antr 14y agoI personally think you hit the nail on the head when you say " The most promising startup founders I know have 5-10 years of experience in an industry". Yes, there are exceptions, like any other thing in life, but experience in a sector is underrated by many of the recent graduates I meet who want to start a company. The problem I think is that youngsters only read TechCrunch and other similar blogs, which to me is like Warren Buffet trying to read insurance/risk management news on Seventeen magazine - flashy headlines with irrelevant information, in a world fuelled by cotton candy and hairstyles.