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86 points by dmor 13y ago

mkrecny 13y ago
I really empathize with you Danielle, but this: "If you stop working on your startup, it dies." Is certainly not applicable to certain types of startups. If you provide a valuable tool, such as one that positively impacts a businesses' bottom line, they'll keep using it (and keep paying you) regardless of whether or not you update your site or email them.
- dmor 13y ago
  Maybe I should say it dies eventually?
  - obviouslygreen 13y ago
    Maybe you should avoid generalizations that need to be carefully qualified just to become less wrong. This is such a broad statement about a type of business that can be almost any business that even before you try to make a statement about it you've almost certainly made yourself incorrect. You have an experience that's valuable and you're presenting it to people; that's good and helpful. Stick with that. There's no need to try and apply it to a much wider audience than is actually relevant.
    - GuiA 13y ago
      >Maybe you should avoid generalizations that need to be carefully qualified just to become less wrong. But that's what 90% of startup blogging is about! :)
  - diego 13y ago
    Everything dies eventually, whether you work on it or not. That statement would carry no information. In contrast, it is possible to build businesses that scale and work for a long time without much intervention on the part of the founder.
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  I think the keyword here is startup. Having a significant number of enterprise/business customers whose bottom line is impacted by your product/service would probably mean you're out of the startup phase. At a minimum, it's at least out of the early startup phase to which the OP is likely referring.
  - ahoyhere 13y ago
    We neglected our new, just-a-few-months-old SaaS for a few (3? 4?) months at a time and it was fine until we came back to it. We lost opportunities to grow faster but it kept making money, it still grew (albeit slower), etc. By any stretch of the imagination, that was a "startup". In the early phase. It's not about age, or stage, it's about durability of your business / value delivered.
    - unclebucknasty 13y ago
      Give it a little more time and ramp up the "degree of neglect". You'll find the point where yours begins to die. You just haven't tried hard / long enough. It's not just about the durability of your business / value delivered. It's also about the number of people who know or can learn about your offering, competition, etc. Neglect can make you very vulnerable in those areas. But, on second thought, I do agree about it not being about age or stage for different reasons. That is, neglect at any stage can ruin your business. It just tends to evidence itself more harshly and more quickly in startups--particularly those that have yet to gain traction.
      - ahoyhere 13y ago
        Of course, a certain extreme degree of neglect can kill anything at any time. But that wasn't the author's point. And I've been running this business for the better part of 5 years now so if it was going to die from months of total neglect, it would have already.
        unclebucknasty 13y ago
mbesto 13y ago
> It’s all spam. The scary thing is you could have easily continued Refer.ly, exited, sold it, and it would then turn into someone else's zombie problem. As much as we all hate spam, there is a simple reason that it exists - it works. Kudos to the founders for "doing the right thing" instead of just another pump 'n dump. @dmor - remember this convo a couple of months back :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4655905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4655905
- jonathanjaeger 13y ago
  Define exited/solid it? Selling to a medium-sized or big company or selling it on a marketplace like Flippa? Depending on the value of your site and company, selling it might be more troublesome or costly in time and money than it's worth to the potential buyer.
birken 13y ago
I don't mean to pile on, but just one point about the data representation: I wouldn't add the cumulative lines to any of these graphs. It's almost never the right way to visualize data concerning growth, and just makes the data look better than it is.
- lifeisstillgood 13y ago
  Thank you. It took me sometime to go beyond the initial "up, to the right, better than linear" impression which the glance at a nice redline gives you
rattray 13y ago
Gotta respect that kind of biting honesty. Thanks, dmor.
qeorge 13y ago
I respect the honesty of this post, but I didn't like that dig at The Four Hour Work Week! 4HWW is about putting systems in place that remove you and thus allow your company to scale. Until you remove yourself you don't have a real business. Of course when you walk away it dies. Ironically, that seems to be the existential problem Refer.ly had/has - its only compelling content is the founder's blog.
- callmeed 13y ago
  First of all, that's not at all how I interpret the 4HWW book. That's subjective, of course, but I personally didn't like the book or find it useful. Second, I challenge you to find any founder/hacker of a fast-growing, successful startup who lives out the philosophy in that book. They aren't compatible. Look for blog posts about when Tim Ferriss spoke at RailsConf a few years back (spoiler alert: it wasn't well received).
  - jmduke 13y ago
    Second, I challenge you to find any founder/hacker of a fast-growing, successful startup who lives out the philosophy in that book. They aren't compatible. Look for blog posts about when Tim Ferriss spoke at RailsConf a few years back (spoiler alert: it wasn't well received). You aren't really addressing his point though. Dmor made a dig at the 'idea' of a four hour work week (that is, the idea that you can just succeed as a founder without putting in massive hours.) The comment to which you're replying is that, hey, Four Hour Work Week isn't saying that its an obvious instant option -- it's a goal to which you can work towards.
    - orofino 13y ago
      I think, that you're actually missing the point. 4HWW (at least to me) is about finding a business you don't necessarily care about, that can be easily automated, and provides an ongoing income stream. That's it. I don't read it as a story about founding a successful company, I read it as a story about finding a income delivery mechanism that lets you spend your time on things you'd rather be doing.
- deleted 13y ago
uptown 13y ago
I'm curious - Why would a startup, that apparently was struggling, acquire another company just two months ago? "YC-Backed Referly Acquires LaunchGram, Eyes Ramen Profitability" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5251196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5251196
- ricardobeat 13y ago
  Interesting, what happened to LaunchGram?
- GuiA 13y ago
  Because a lot of decisions in Silicon Valley aren't rational, despite what people would like you to think– it's mostly political based on who's buddy with who.
saumil07 13y ago
I'll disagree with the top commenter - I enjoyed the four hour workweek dig. Regardless, as a fellow founder with a startup of a roughly similar age and an office literally across the street from Referly this post makes me profoundly sad and more determined. I can't imagine what it's like to walk into an empty office with cleaned-out desks. I walk through our office late at night sometimes, so happy to see the standing desks filled with monitor mounts and noise-canceling headphones and post-it notes and Mac power cords snaking over cheap Ikea particle board. On my more morbid evenings, I wonder if I'll ever have to walk down the aisle and stare at a pile of empty desks...and it makes me double down and work harder than ever before. Hats off to @dmor for sharing so candidly. I don't think I could do it if I were in her position.
ahoyhere 13y ago
Not even close to universally true. About 4 months after we launched our first SaaS, we fell off the face of the planet for months (long annoying story). It didn't grow… much. But it also didn't shrink. It was pulling in several grand a month on idle. We did it again a couple years later when it was a 5-figure amount, although we (mostly) kept answering support emails this time. No big deal. Now in the last 18 mos, for 6-9 mos we had total coverage on customer support, but zero new features and just one marketing push etc and again, it grew, but slowly. Would I RECOMMEND it? No. I'm not telling you this story to encourage you to make the same mistakes we did (and no longer do). But did it kill us? Hardly. We still grew, except at the very end, and the "contraction" then was miniscule… a few hundred dollars out of $20k+/mo. (Now >$30k.) Social startups require more more more more more more more more more more, always more. They're baby birds forever, mouths open, shrieking. Startups delivering measurable value to even the tiniest of businesses are not, do not. Business value is self-perpetuating. Your app is not less valuable next month if there are no new features; it is just as valuable as it was last month. You get to choose which path you take.
ujsfdo 13y ago
hi dmor, i know you catch flak from neckbeards on here, but one thing i noticed two weeks ago was the revenue numbers you post in your header. i find that so brave -- if it were to reopen as a communal blogging platform i would be MORE likely to sign up, not less, due to that openness.

86 points by dmor 13y ago

I really empathize with you Danielle, but this: "If you stop working on your startup, it dies." Is certainly not applicable to certain types of startups. If you provide a valuable tool, such as one that positively impacts a businesses' bottom line, they'll keep using it (and keep paying you) regardless of whether or not you update your site or email them.

dmor 13y ago
Maybe I should say it dies eventually?
- obviouslygreen 13y ago
  Maybe you should avoid generalizations that need to be carefully qualified just to become less wrong. This is such a broad statement about a type of business that can be almost any business that even before you try to make a statement about it you've almost certainly made yourself incorrect. You have an experience that's valuable and you're presenting it to people; that's good and helpful. Stick with that. There's no need to try and apply it to a much wider audience than is actually relevant.
  - GuiA 13y ago
    >Maybe you should avoid generalizations that need to be carefully qualified just to become less wrong. But that's what 90% of startup blogging is about! :)
- diego 13y ago
  Everything dies eventually, whether you work on it or not. That statement would carry no information. In contrast, it is possible to build businesses that scale and work for a long time without much intervention on the part of the founder.
unclebucknasty 13y ago
I think the keyword here is startup. Having a significant number of enterprise/business customers whose bottom line is impacted by your product/service would probably mean you're out of the startup phase. At a minimum, it's at least out of the early startup phase to which the OP is likely referring.
- ahoyhere 13y ago
  We neglected our new, just-a-few-months-old SaaS for a few (3? 4?) months at a time and it was fine until we came back to it. We lost opportunities to grow faster but it kept making money, it still grew (albeit slower), etc. By any stretch of the imagination, that was a "startup". In the early phase. It's not about age, or stage, it's about durability of your business / value delivered.
  - unclebucknasty 13y ago
    Give it a little more time and ramp up the "degree of neglect". You'll find the point where yours begins to die. You just haven't tried hard / long enough. It's not just about the durability of your business / value delivered. It's also about the number of people who know or can learn about your offering, competition, etc. Neglect can make you very vulnerable in those areas. But, on second thought, I do agree about it not being about age or stage for different reasons. That is, neglect at any stage can ruin your business. It just tends to evidence itself more harshly and more quickly in startups--particularly those that have yet to gain traction.
    - ahoyhere 13y ago
      Of course, a certain extreme degree of neglect can kill anything at any time. But that wasn't the author's point. And I've been running this business for the better part of 5 years now so if it was going to die from months of total neglect, it would have already.
      - unclebucknasty 13y ago

mbesto 13y ago

> It’s all spam. The scary thing is you could have easily continued Refer.ly, exited, sold it, and it would then turn into someone else's zombie problem. As much as we all hate spam, there is a simple reason that it exists - it works. Kudos to the founders for "doing the right thing" instead of just another pump 'n dump. @dmor - remember this convo a couple of months back :) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4655905 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4655905

jonathanjaeger 13y ago
Define exited/solid it? Selling to a medium-sized or big company or selling it on a marketplace like Flippa? Depending on the value of your site and company, selling it might be more troublesome or costly in time and money than it's worth to the potential buyer.

birken 13y ago

I don't mean to pile on, but just one point about the data representation: I wouldn't add the cumulative lines to any of these graphs. It's almost never the right way to visualize data concerning growth, and just makes the data look better than it is.

lifeisstillgood 13y ago
Thank you. It took me sometime to go beyond the initial "up, to the right, better than linear" impression which the glance at a nice redline gives you

rattray 13y ago

Gotta respect that kind of biting honesty. Thanks, dmor.

qeorge 13y ago

I respect the honesty of this post, but I didn't like that dig at The Four Hour Work Week! 4HWW is about putting systems in place that remove you and thus allow your company to scale. Until you remove yourself you don't have a real business. Of course when you walk away it dies. Ironically, that seems to be the existential problem Refer.ly had/has - its only compelling content is the founder's blog.

callmeed 13y ago
First of all, that's not at all how I interpret the 4HWW book. That's subjective, of course, but I personally didn't like the book or find it useful. Second, I challenge you to find any founder/hacker of a fast-growing, successful startup who lives out the philosophy in that book. They aren't compatible. Look for blog posts about when Tim Ferriss spoke at RailsConf a few years back (spoiler alert: it wasn't well received).
- jmduke 13y ago
  Second, I challenge you to find any founder/hacker of a fast-growing, successful startup who lives out the philosophy in that book. They aren't compatible. Look for blog posts about when Tim Ferriss spoke at RailsConf a few years back (spoiler alert: it wasn't well received). You aren't really addressing his point though. Dmor made a dig at the 'idea' of a four hour work week (that is, the idea that you can just succeed as a founder without putting in massive hours.) The comment to which you're replying is that, hey, Four Hour Work Week isn't saying that its an obvious instant option -- it's a goal to which you can work towards.
  - orofino 13y ago
    I think, that you're actually missing the point. 4HWW (at least to me) is about finding a business you don't necessarily care about, that can be easily automated, and provides an ongoing income stream. That's it. I don't read it as a story about founding a successful company, I read it as a story about finding a income delivery mechanism that lets you spend your time on things you'd rather be doing.
deleted 13y ago

uptown 13y ago

I'm curious - Why would a startup, that apparently was struggling, acquire another company just two months ago? "YC-Backed Referly Acquires LaunchGram, Eyes Ramen Profitability" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5251196 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5251196

ricardobeat 13y ago
Interesting, what happened to LaunchGram?
GuiA 13y ago
Because a lot of decisions in Silicon Valley aren't rational, despite what people would like you to think– it's mostly political based on who's buddy with who.

saumil07 13y ago

I'll disagree with the top commenter - I enjoyed the four hour workweek dig. Regardless, as a fellow founder with a startup of a roughly similar age and an office literally across the street from Referly this post makes me profoundly sad and more determined. I can't imagine what it's like to walk into an empty office with cleaned-out desks. I walk through our office late at night sometimes, so happy to see the standing desks filled with monitor mounts and noise-canceling headphones and post-it notes and Mac power cords snaking over cheap Ikea particle board. On my more morbid evenings, I wonder if I'll ever have to walk down the aisle and stare at a pile of empty desks...and it makes me double down and work harder than ever before. Hats off to @dmor for sharing so candidly. I don't think I could do it if I were in her position.

ahoyhere 13y ago

Not even close to universally true. About 4 months after we launched our first SaaS, we fell off the face of the planet for months (long annoying story). It didn't grow… much. But it also didn't shrink. It was pulling in several grand a month on idle. We did it again a couple years later when it was a 5-figure amount, although we (mostly) kept answering support emails this time. No big deal. Now in the last 18 mos, for 6-9 mos we had total coverage on customer support, but zero new features and just one marketing push etc and again, it grew, but slowly. Would I RECOMMEND it? No. I'm not telling you this story to encourage you to make the same mistakes we did (and no longer do). But did it kill us? Hardly. We still grew, except at the very end, and the "contraction" then was miniscule… a few hundred dollars out of $20k+/mo. (Now >$30k.) Social startups require more more more more more more more more more more, always more. They're baby birds forever, mouths open, shrieking. Startups delivering measurable value to even the tiniest of businesses are not, do not. Business value is self-perpetuating. Your app is not less valuable next month if there are no new features; it is just as valuable as it was last month. You get to choose which path you take.

ujsfdo 13y ago

hi dmor, i know you catch flak from neckbeards on here, but one thing i noticed two weeks ago was the revenue numbers you post in your header. i find that so brave -- if it were to reopen as a communal blogging platform i would be MORE likely to sign up, not less, due to that openness.