5 ms·

The only validation that matters for the success of your startup is validation from your customers. And the list of things customers want is endless. Reporters,

by sskates 14y ago

michaelochurch 14y ago
The only validation that matters for the success of your startup is validation from your customers. And the list of things customers want is endless. Reporters, investors, bloggers, commenters on HN are second order at best, and most of the time don't really matter. There's no fixed pie you're competing for in startups. There's VC-istan and then there's the ideal of the customer-focused, lifestyle-business. I think you're conflating the two, which is not unreasonable because almost everyone does. VC-istan is a system in which most people can't really play. You don't just decide to be a Founder and get sit-down pitches with Peter Thiel. You can't even get a real reason for a rejection (much less a decent chance at a timely acceptance) until you know people. It's an introduction-based guild system. That's probably inevitable and not the primary evil. The primary evil is that most of these VC-istan companies use "be a real founder some day" as a carrot they dangle in front of clueless 22-year-olds, who fail to realize that as subordinate engineers, they're getting absolutely no progress toward what they were promised. VC-istan is a postmodern corporation, but it's effectively one company. The VCs talk to each other in all kinds of inappropriate ways, and they decide as a group whether you're hot (or not). If you're hot, you get the resources to hire 10 engineers. Or 25. If you're either lucky or a really good judge and hire good ones, you have a shot at something big. "Founder" is just a mid-level PM position in VC-istan. If you're playing the VC-istan career game, you end up caring more about investors and press than customers. Why? Because you're a selfish careerist (you have to be) and your investors will continue to have influence over your success or failure at your next venture. Your customers won't. VC-istan, for businesses, is get-big-or-die. You're competing for scarce resources, whether they be "eyeballs" or investor attention, because if you aren't growing at 100% per year, you're "walking dead", which means yesterday's dogshit. The postmodern corporation of VC-istan treats companies themselves as disposable (which isn't right or wrong, just a different approach). What you're describing, where customers are king, is a different world: slow-growing businesses that are often decried as "lifestyle businesses", but actually comprise the silent majority of new economic activity. These firms might define success as growth at 20% per year instead of 150%. These businesses don't turn into billion-dollar concerns quickly, and they're hard to sell, but if you don't mind being there for 10+ years, they're probably a better option. You're not going to have to sell your soul to remain "in" with the VCs and cool kids, and you can set up shop in a low-COL location like Madison or Portland. The difficulty in starting lifestyle businesses is that you have to put personal savings on the line, and our generation (as a whole) neither has that nor is likely to get there-- ever. You put a lot more on the line when you start one of those than you do when you take a check from a VC. Additionally, the danger, and it's what gives VCs power, is that your lifestyle business ends up having to compete with a VC-funded machine-gunner.
- lsc 14y ago
  >Additionally, the danger, and it's what gives VCs power, is that your lifestyle business ends up having to compete with a VC-funded machine-gunner. Really? You fear VC? I fear my established competitors coming down on price faster. I fear the new entrants (who are cheaper than I am) developing a better reputation. Most of all, I fear screwing it up myself; really, that's the only thing that will kill me fast. VC funded companies are not even on the radar. If you have offices on castro street, or university ave? as far as I am concerned? you may as well be on another planet entirely. It's like companies that sell to big corporations, you know? Yeah, they can marshal huge resources... but they also have the pricing power to take absolutely tremendous margins. The people I know how to sell to? they don't even want to look at. The markets that I want to dominate? they are so small, that nobody real cares about them. (I mean, I would like the wider market, too, but if I really earn the market I want most? even though it's tiny, it's absolutely huge compared to my needs.) Generally speaking? VC and sole proprietors go after different markets. We want different things. And we are good at different things. >The difficulty in starting lifestyle businesses is that you have to put personal savings on the line, and our generation (as a whole) neither has that nor is likely to get there-- ever. You put a lot more on the line when you start one of those than you do when you take a check from a VC. Maybe? either way, you are going to be putting years of your life into something that is probably going to fail. I guess with VC, you have a better chance of getting paid something, and you have a better chance of not having the debt follow you after the thing does fail, but eh, the real cost in both situations is the years of your life you spend. Really, maybe there is something to the VC "fail fast" attitude, rather than what I describe as "the slog" - long years of living on sustenance wages, pouring the difference into your company. If I had the last 10 years of my own life back? My slog, the time I spent pouring all my excess effort into this sort of thing? I don't know if I would do it. I might just stick with a dayjob, and get a hobby or something. Or, maybe I'd do a VC-style "fail fast" - try an idea for a few months, then write it off as a failure if it doesn't come up during that time. I mean, I don't have those 10 years to do over; I have the result. A bunch of servers, a bunch of contracts, a bunch of customers. A living wage, (but still like 1/3rd what google would pay me) and a bunch of contacts. I am in a state where the only option is forward; I can't quit now or I lose 10 years of work (and a company with north of a quarter million in revenue isn't nothing... I mean, if I sold it? yeah, it's nothing. but it's a point from which I can try other things.) So yeah. I am moving forward, (and I have made dramatic changes; other people (not VC, technical people that I know and trust) now own parts of my company. This is /huge/ - a big part of why I went into business for myself was to be my own boss, and I'm still the majority shareholder? but for the first time in a long time, I answer to other people. It is.... very different.) But, you know what? after those ten years? I am not so sure I agree with your statement that starting a business with your own resources is better than taking some idiot's money. It's certainly not easier, and worst of all, there is nothing to say "You have failed, go home, get some sleep, and go get a real job." which is the real danger. With a reasonable lifestyle business, assuming you can create value with your labour, well, you can keep going at this half-success level, really, forever. There really is such thing as being too persistent.
dxbydt 14y ago
>correlation of external validation and success is zero. I think you mean minus one, not zero. If its zero we have learnt nothing interesting.

by sskates 14y ago

michaelochurch 14y ago

The only validation that matters for the success of your startup is validation from your customers. And the list of things customers want is endless. Reporters, investors, bloggers, commenters on HN are second order at best, and most of the time don't really matter. There's no fixed pie you're competing for in startups. There's VC-istan and then there's the ideal of the customer-focused, lifestyle-business. I think you're conflating the two, which is not unreasonable because almost everyone does. VC-istan is a system in which most people can't really play. You don't just decide to be a Founder and get sit-down pitches with Peter Thiel. You can't even get a real reason for a rejection (much less a decent chance at a timely acceptance) until you know people. It's an introduction-based guild system. That's probably inevitable and not the primary evil. The primary evil is that most of these VC-istan companies use "be a real founder some day" as a carrot they dangle in front of clueless 22-year-olds, who fail to realize that as subordinate engineers, they're getting absolutely no progress toward what they were promised. VC-istan is a postmodern corporation, but it's effectively one company. The VCs talk to each other in all kinds of inappropriate ways, and they decide as a group whether you're hot (or not). If you're hot, you get the resources to hire 10 engineers. Or 25. If you're either lucky or a really good judge and hire good ones, you have a shot at something big. "Founder" is just a mid-level PM position in VC-istan. If you're playing the VC-istan career game, you end up caring more about investors and press than customers. Why? Because you're a selfish careerist (you have to be) and your investors will continue to have influence over your success or failure at your next venture. Your customers won't. VC-istan, for businesses, is get-big-or-die. You're competing for scarce resources, whether they be "eyeballs" or investor attention, because if you aren't growing at 100% per year, you're "walking dead", which means yesterday's dogshit. The postmodern corporation of VC-istan treats companies themselves as disposable (which isn't right or wrong, just a different approach). What you're describing, where customers are king, is a different world: slow-growing businesses that are often decried as "lifestyle businesses", but actually comprise the silent majority of new economic activity. These firms might define success as growth at 20% per year instead of 150%. These businesses don't turn into billion-dollar concerns quickly, and they're hard to sell, but if you don't mind being there for 10+ years, they're probably a better option. You're not going to have to sell your soul to remain "in" with the VCs and cool kids, and you can set up shop in a low-COL location like Madison or Portland. The difficulty in starting lifestyle businesses is that you have to put personal savings on the line, and our generation (as a whole) neither has that nor is likely to get there-- ever. You put a lot more on the line when you start one of those than you do when you take a check from a VC. Additionally, the danger, and it's what gives VCs power, is that your lifestyle business ends up having to compete with a VC-funded machine-gunner.

lsc 14y ago
>Additionally, the danger, and it's what gives VCs power, is that your lifestyle business ends up having to compete with a VC-funded machine-gunner. Really? You fear VC? I fear my established competitors coming down on price faster. I fear the new entrants (who are cheaper than I am) developing a better reputation. Most of all, I fear screwing it up myself; really, that's the only thing that will kill me fast. VC funded companies are not even on the radar. If you have offices on castro street, or university ave? as far as I am concerned? you may as well be on another planet entirely. It's like companies that sell to big corporations, you know? Yeah, they can marshal huge resources... but they also have the pricing power to take absolutely tremendous margins. The people I know how to sell to? they don't even want to look at. The markets that I want to dominate? they are so small, that nobody real cares about them. (I mean, I would like the wider market, too, but if I really earn the market I want most? even though it's tiny, it's absolutely huge compared to my needs.) Generally speaking? VC and sole proprietors go after different markets. We want different things. And we are good at different things. >The difficulty in starting lifestyle businesses is that you have to put personal savings on the line, and our generation (as a whole) neither has that nor is likely to get there-- ever. You put a lot more on the line when you start one of those than you do when you take a check from a VC. Maybe? either way, you are going to be putting years of your life into something that is probably going to fail. I guess with VC, you have a better chance of getting paid something, and you have a better chance of not having the debt follow you after the thing does fail, but eh, the real cost in both situations is the years of your life you spend. Really, maybe there is something to the VC "fail fast" attitude, rather than what I describe as "the slog" - long years of living on sustenance wages, pouring the difference into your company. If I had the last 10 years of my own life back? My slog, the time I spent pouring all my excess effort into this sort of thing? I don't know if I would do it. I might just stick with a dayjob, and get a hobby or something. Or, maybe I'd do a VC-style "fail fast" - try an idea for a few months, then write it off as a failure if it doesn't come up during that time. I mean, I don't have those 10 years to do over; I have the result. A bunch of servers, a bunch of contracts, a bunch of customers. A living wage, (but still like 1/3rd what google would pay me) and a bunch of contacts. I am in a state where the only option is forward; I can't quit now or I lose 10 years of work (and a company with north of a quarter million in revenue isn't nothing... I mean, if I sold it? yeah, it's nothing. but it's a point from which I can try other things.) So yeah. I am moving forward, (and I have made dramatic changes; other people (not VC, technical people that I know and trust) now own parts of my company. This is /huge/ - a big part of why I went into business for myself was to be my own boss, and I'm still the majority shareholder? but for the first time in a long time, I answer to other people. It is.... very different.) But, you know what? after those ten years? I am not so sure I agree with your statement that starting a business with your own resources is better than taking some idiot's money. It's certainly not easier, and worst of all, there is nothing to say "You have failed, go home, get some sleep, and go get a real job." which is the real danger. With a reasonable lifestyle business, assuming you can create value with your labour, well, you can keep going at this half-success level, really, forever. There really is such thing as being too persistent.

dxbydt 14y ago

>correlation of external validation and success is zero. I think you mean minus one, not zero. If its zero we have learnt nothing interesting.