15 ms·

Is this what it’s supposed to feel like?

204 points by danielpal 13y ago

zwieback 13y ago
I don't know what it's like to be an entrepreneur nor am I currently on the job hunt but I feel like your post lessened your chances of hiring good people. You're sounding a bit desperate and discouraged. Maybe better to take the afternoon off and try again in the morning.
- porter 13y ago
  I thought his honesty made him more likable and trustworthy.
  - Iterated 13y ago
    Did a little bit of both for me. Made me wish I had the skills to work for him.
  - coffeeyesplease 13y ago
    My thoughts exactly.
  - freyr 13y ago
    I agree. It was honest and raw. People are constantly trying to sweep their problems under the rug, hiding them from customers, investors, employees, and themselves. Smart employees are never fooled by this, and they'll end up viewing leadership as delusional, dishonest, or incompetent. This guy at least recognizes and identifies the problems (or at least the symptoms of underlying problems). That's something.
  - methodover 13y ago
    I completely agree. I went and looked at his hiring page to see what kind of folks he was looking for. He's not hiring in a framework/language I'm familiar with, but if he was, I might consider applying.
- andygcook 13y ago
  I think his honesty about the situation is a smart decision, especially for hiring. What's worse for a startup than having open job positions is to hire someone based on false optimism about the company and invest in training him, only to have that new employee quit after a month when the going gets tough. The best person for a struggling company to hire is someone who believes they can help solve the challenging problems and will work relentlessly until the issues are resolved.
- redblacktree 13y ago
  Why is this guy being downvoted? Isn't that button for people who aren't adding to the conversation? (i.e. not for posts that express an opinion you disagree with)
jkldotio 13y ago
A word to the wise regarding your employment benefits, you say: "Shiny Apple Products Seriously, get whatever you want (PC users may have to justify themselves)." That will simply turn off some people and there is no reason for a self-interested business to do that. Apple computers actually are PCs, and always were but especially now they are PCs, so you should make a distinction regarding Linux. The top machine learning company in the world even has their own distribution of Linux[1](or flavour of Ubuntu, however you want to put it). They and many others who don't make such snarky remarks almost certainly pay more than you and are working on more interesting problems than you, you are just narrowing down your potential employees without any reason. So, even though it's in jest, remove that statement from your hiring page if you are serious. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu
- general_failure 13y ago
  Agree. Unnecessary PC prejudice for a company that has nothing to with PCs.
- kaspm 13y ago
  100% agree, developer here who sees snarky recruiting posts like this and immediately says no thanks. Makes it clear the company is gimmicky and not focused on the true challenges of software development: clarity, focus and rational decision-making
  - _lex 13y ago
    See my answer above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5614106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5614106. It's more rational, and more about focus than it seems.
    - kaspm 13y ago
      Yeah, there are many legitimate reasons to prefer Mac to Linux or Windows, not the least of which is that Ruby gems just work better on a Mac because they are developed there (regardless of whether you will have to figure out those problems when you deploy to your Linux-based production environment in AWS :P). The issue isn't whether you use Mac or PC but in the holier-than-thou attitude about it. You are recruiting a team of (potentially) one-trick ponies who are religious about making judgement calls. Probably a looooooooong stretch from just saying "Justify a PC" to you are building a uncompromising team but I would just say "The Best Equipment (We mostly use Apple)" would accomplish the same goal with less annoying language
kirinan 13y ago
I don't know if you guys allow remote workers (Seattle guy here), but that would be a good start to getting more workers. However, I think you guys are in the stage where a lot of people call it quits, say its hard and just give up. They don't have enough people (does anyone really?), they can't get things done, and the things that they want to get done are out of reach. The key to get through this is work harder (not longer), and just grind it out. Literally, make every wednesday code a thons. No meetings, no chats, just code. Get things done. Heads down time. This will get you through it, and I wish you the best! 42floors is on a mission, and don't you forget it.
- Zimahl 13y ago
  Hate to say it but they are onto the boring stuff. The cleanup after the Superbowl, if you will. People just aren't that interested in coming in and fixing code to run better. It's a really tough sell because it's tedious, un-sexy work.
  - tibbon 13y ago
    Everyone's got their own thing that they like and hate though. I personally love trying to optimize and speed things up. On the flip side, I really hate doing CSS and Javascript front-end things (I can do them, but just prefer not to). Speed/optimization stuff (which I'm still getting better at every day) just feels more quantifiable and is a more interesting problem. If the writer can open themselves to remote people, they've definitely got a better chance at pulling in some good people to help. But the one caution is against someone who wants to some in and do a rewrite of 90% of the stuff- optimize, don't start over.
    - chris_mahan 13y ago
      So do I. I like to gently tear apart the tangled spaghetti code and figure out what data store goes with what process. One thing I absolutely refuse to do is compromise on tools. Telling the factory-trained Mercedes-Benz mechanic at the dealer where you bought your $120K SL550 that you want him to use only a hammer and a screwdriver to service the brakes on your car will get you laughed out of the dealership.
orangethirty 13y ago
Established company has wrong software architecture problems. Which are making scaling difficult. Facing problems with recruiting. Yeah, that's pretty normal. Growth doesn't make things easier. Just harder.
nate 13y ago
With great success comes great expectations. I think a lot of us feel like this. Once we get one thing, there's a million other things to accomplish. There's a great book called Bounce that describes the low people go through once they accomplish something. It's a tangent to this. I've loved working with remote folks. You can hire the best, it's cheaper, there's people that love working remotely and are even more focused and productive because they can work without the typical office distractions. Experiment with some Location: Anywhere job posts?
nopassrecover 13y ago
Really enjoy humanising posts like this - reminds me that doubt is normal. As far as 42Floors, from the outside it certainly seems like they're killing it. I've been keeping my eye on them for a while, and have been impressed by both their app (a likeness can be drawn to Lovely in the residential space - both are awesome) and by how genuine they seem about taking a bunch of awesome people and having a crack at improving a massive outdated industry. If I thought I was a good match [I'm a PC-loving C# fan ;-)] I'd definitely consider working here.
jconley 13y ago
Yup that's normal. The key to get through is priority. What is the most important single thing for each person to be doing? Do that. Repeat. Focus. If its any comfort this isn't even unique to startups. Every software project I've ever done has felt like this. The list of possible tasks to do always far outpaces the resources on hand to do them.
- onemorepassword 13y ago
  > What is the most important single thing for each person to be doing? I figured out the focus and priority part, but that angle, each person, is still an eyeopener. It's something I've been struggling with, I know what the priorities for the product are, but not everyone can contribute (equally) to those priorities, and I don't want to make them feel like their work is less important. I think looking at it from this angle will help a lot.
- tunesmith 13y ago
  And don't forget the other side - the knowledge of what NOT to work on. Otherwise your todo list will be a mile long. Focus is about knowing what not to work on. Identify your core constraint and then work it until something else becomes the constraint.
dancric 13y ago
When considering this type of transparency, there is a spectrum of types of people. Some prefer radical transparency where every possible pitfall and challenge is openly acknowledged and noted. On the other side of the spectrum, a lot of people don't want to have any knowledge of the challenges, and in fact, work most productively in a state of naiveté. Part of hiring is understanding how different people respond to this sort of stress. For me, I really prefer this sort of off-the-record honesty. I know a start-up is challenging, and a failure to acknowledge a reality that I know exists is a huge turnoff. But I can definitely imagine that some hires would find this scary and would find a startup that seems much more "perfect." You attract who you want to attract.
benjaminwootton 13y ago
Refreshingly honest. Do you allow remote workers as this seems like an obvious solution to widening the talent pool.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
jmstout 13y ago
I hate to be 'that guy', but is caching really considered 'premature optimization'?
- redblacktree 13y ago
  This was exactly my thought. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I read that they'd slowed to a crawl due to a lack of caching.
  - benjaminwootton 13y ago
    Varnish FTW.
  - rozap 13y ago
    I'm with you on that one. I wouldn't submit a site to Show HN without at least memcached sitting in front of it. And to run a legitimate service sans cache? That's just asking for trouble.
    - unclebucknasty 13y ago
      I don't know about that when you can simply go horizontal (automatically, even) if the need arises. Building with cache: guaranteed added upfront cost, complexity, and time to ship, without knowing if/where caching will serve you best. Building without cache: Guaranteed upfront savings, faster time to ship, with automatic horizontal scaling as a backstop if the need ever arises, while you work to integrate the cache. And, remember, databases cache too. Throwing extra RAM and tweaking the DB cache config can also be a viable backstop short-term.
- johnrob 13y ago
  If the cache isn't required to provide a good experience to 1 lone user, then I would call it premature optimization.
- ericflo 13y ago
  I absolutely think it is. Why add extra complexity into your system (and complexity which I've seen the smartest of engineers get wrong on the invalidation side just by overlooking one small detail) before you know your macro-level bottlenecks and product questions like "how many users will even use this feature"? Additionally caching can mask more serious systemic performance issues like missing database indices and accidental extra round trips to the database. Better to focus on fundamentals and keep your code simple, then add caching only when it's needed.
josephfung 13y ago
The most accurate part of this is that line near the end... "...nor will I mention the [A], the [Z], and everything else." That feeling of an endless list of responsibilities is a definitive property of launching a startup.
alpb 13y ago
Seems like link is dead, does anybody have a mirror by any chance?
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
nwenzel 13y ago
Just don't forget that you're dealing with problems caused by growth and demand. You're basically being crushed by latent, pent up demand. I feel your pain. But I have to say, having problems for those reasons can't be all bad. And, if high quality photos are your issue, talk to Pete Warden over at Jetpac. He's wicked smart, friendly, in SF, and deals with high quality travel photos on Jetpac. Or (And?), talk to AirBnB. They deal with photos, are in SF, and are also YC alums. Don't you all have each other on speed dial? As a founder, I wish I had your problems. But, I have to say, I also wish I had your level of access to potential solutions and advisors. My YC interview is on Sunday. Hopefully by Monday we'll have each other on speed dial. :)
- jaf12duke 13y ago
  OP here. Contact me today. I'll do a mock-interview with you to prep-- jason at 42floors
  - unclebucknasty 13y ago
    Damn decent offer.
  - iron_ball 13y ago
    Sole OP response in a thread full of questions.
  - nwenzel 13y ago
    Email sent with phone number. Thanks! Can't say how much I appreciate it. But, I'll try. Pumped for Sunday! Pumped for phone call today!
  - nwenzel 13y ago
    Thanks again Jason. Your advice and insights were very helpful. I feel obligated to pass on what I learned: 1) Don't forget what it's like to not have your background in your industry. 2) Be very good at explaining what you do. Succinctly. Clearly. And be able to give that explanation without assuming prior industry knowledge (see point 1). 3) If it takes a long time to explain who your customer is, you're doing it wrong. 4) Don't forget that YC partners are also looking for your potential on demo day.
31reasons 13y ago
Hard = Time / Interest.
thesash 13y ago
One of the things I think about on long runs while training for a marathon is precisely how not fun running often is while training. Running through pain, heat, cold, rain exhaustion, etc. is not fun and certainly not easy, but it's precisely those difficulties that makes crossing the finish line such a triumphant moment. All those moments of struggle are like little deposits towards an immense payoff; the sum of everything you've endured. There's something satisfying about doing things the hard way. If this stuff were easy or fun all the time, it would get boring. The difficult part is maintaining that drive to do things the hard way. When hard things get harder, and then impossible, its hard not to start to feel depleted. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance[1] calls this reservoir of inner strength "gumption" and points out that you have to make an effort to keep the tank full. I see it as a kind of faith, not in God, but in yourself; faith that you can and will overcome whatever insurmountable obstacle you face. I try to keep that tank topped off by running, reading, and, despite how hard it is, taking regular vacations where I step away to disconnect altogether. That way, I can feel anticipation in the face of a challenge rather than fear or despair; anticipation of a journey that won't be easy, but will certainly be rewarding. [1]http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry/dp/0061673730 http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry... - I read this book every 5 years and each time I find something completely new. It's a remarkable work.
slater 13y ago
A design comment on 42 floors: - The grey-on-grey of the overview map is an odd choice - why not use the green for the markers? - Listings without a price should either be removable, or otherwise marked. Feels kinda scammy, and just introduces unnecessary friction - Google is probably a partner for the listings images, but is it also a requirement for you to show a "y we have no imagery f" image with Google logos?
chintan 13y ago
Once you have revenue/cost numbers, things with auto-prioritze themselves. Quick SEO nitpick (and one more #ToDo item for you ;) On bottom of home page, you have direct links to City/Neighborhood listings with relevant anchor text but all target pages (Search results) have just the title "Office Space Search" I would make them "<City/Neighborhood>+Office Spaces"
tenpoundhammer 13y ago
It is simple supply and demand, you either need a bigger market for the labor you are seeking or you need to offer more money to "purchase" the employment you desire. This is kind of an insane problem to have, with a clear solution. I'm not sure what it is about startups that makes them think that basic economics don't apply to them?
- scrozier 13y ago
  Have to agree. As soon as I read the first paragraph, I said, "capital-starved."
MattRogish 13y ago
"I just got an email from an engineering prospect who has decided to turn down our offer. We put so much time and effort and passion into recruiting him. He decided he wants to go off and start his own company right now." I think more and more startup CEOs are figuring this out. At least, I'm telling every one I meet - for technical talent, you are not competing against the other startups in your neighborhood. Or even ones doing the same thing. Or startups in general. You're competing against the awesome developer doing their own thing. The cost of booting a startup is trending to zero. 10 years ago you'd need massive capital investment (servers, networking, etc.). I can spin up a Heroku server for free (or a series of AWS for nearly-free). I have super-powerful development environments (Ruby/Rails, Clojure/Lighttable, whatever) that are free or nearly so. Great infrastructure (Postgres, Unicorn, whatever) - free! All I need is a product idea and a vision and I can bootstrap my company. I can charge money on day one without needing a business checking account, LLC, and all that. What does this mean for you? As a startup founder, you are competing against a person owning 100% and running the show as they see fit. This is a completely different power dynamic and one that is going to be the new normal. You really need to have your stuff completely together in order to get the best people. It's very hard, but possible (I advise founders how to do that all the time). I'd also caution against "this person needs to be passionate about my idea or we won't" hire them. I see that all the time, too. Look, it's your baby; it's going to be very difficult to get them to love it as much as you do. Figure out what this person wants out of life (their career, whatever) that you can provide that they alone cannot (work from home, presenting/attending conferences, learning new technologies, mentoring, leading a team, education, building their personal brand, whatever). THAT'S how you get them. Constant tending to their needs and giving them opportunities to further their growth is how you KEEP them. What value are YOU bringing to the table other than an idea and some cash? Those are table stakes now. Good luck! :D
- abstractbill 13y ago
  Out of every startup advertising jobs right now, I think 500friends gets this better than anyone else: They simply acknowledge that their best hires are likely to want to start something of their own, and actually offer to fund it: http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/10/founders-beware-500friends-will-catch-your-developers-with-seed-capital-bait/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/10/founders-beware-500friends...
tempaccount9473 13y ago
> PC users may have to justify themselves > Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? Yes, this is exactly what you should feel like if you compete for a limited pool of hipster developers in San Francisco. I know three different guys who can come in and clean up someone else's shit, but they aren't in San Francisco, and they all currently have jobs, so none of them would come cheap. But if you offer a ton of money to someone with 10 years of experience architecting and deploying web apps with 1M+ users, they will do the boring work of fixing your scalability problems.
lcusack 13y ago
I'm really surprised by the number of people trying to solve the author's problems. I don't think he posted this because he didn't have any good ideas on how to hire someone or wanted copy help on his hiring page. I think he posted it because sometimes the most helpful thing is knowing that you're not the only one who wakes in the middle of night thinking about payroll and customer acquisition. I think he's wondering if other people have doubts and struggles. And anyone trying to start a company right now would know that as soon as they read it. So, yes Jason, this is how it's suppose to feel and it's okay that it sucks. Just remember, you're more important than your work.
- john_b 13y ago
  You might be right, but he did post it to a community that leans toward the hyper-male-minded-problem-solving side of the spectrum, so it shouldn't be surprising.
mattmaroon 13y ago
Yep. Startups are like a shark, they have to keep moving forward or they die.
meerita 13y ago
I personally would look to mount another office outside US. Make it in Spain, Argentina or elsewhere, put 10 good engineers to work in there with a good product manager and your engineer problems will be solved.
billpaydici 13y ago
Good on you Jason, for an anti-fairy-tale post. It's good to hear we aren't the only ones! Keep prioritizing well and working with attention. Keep your cool and most of all: stick with it.
noomerikal 13y ago
Didn't these guys have one of those over-the-top programming challenges about a year ago?
jtreminio 13y ago
Can't find new talent? How about not limiting your search to people in your immediate geographical area?
Shorel 13y ago
Do you want to hire? Hire remotely. I know right now in CL and BG there are good and not very expensive developers. And they would love to work for you. I can't recommend IN developers, as they want to climb the corporate ladder more than coding. And, no, I'm not interested, I'm in CO and I don't care about Ruby. The slowest framework I'm contemplating right now is Node.js, the other two are written in Lua and C++.
padseeker 13y ago
Why did a perfectly interesting question about startups turn into a OS/Hardware pissing contest between Macs and Windows? For the record I develop my startup on a shitty 5 year old Compaq that dual boots with Vista and Ubuntu 10.4, and Ruby/Rails/Gems all work great!
Yhippa 13y ago
I read the "Jobs" page and ran across something that I have a question about: what exactly is a "no assholes policy"? While the page looks great to me there seems to be a lot of unprofessional text there. For me personally that's a red flag. I have no idea if that's an indicator of anything but unless I have a close friend who works there who can tell me otherwise I don't know if I'd trust a part of my career to a company that comes across the way it is portrayed on that page.
andrewljohnson 13y ago
My chairman once said to me "You feel like you are driving along at 60mph, while everyone around you is going 90." I've come to accept that is a perennial feeling if you start a company in the valley. If you aren't one of the bright shining stars like DropBox or Facebook, you can't help but wonder how you could be. I think that feeling might still nag Zuckerberg a little bit too, and it's even that feeling that helps make decisions like "we need to buy Instagram right now for a cool bill." It's not all bad to want a bit more. Greed is good as they say.
ameister14 13y ago
I noticed something on their jobs section. All the descriptions on the left are about coding, and yet 5/7 open jobs have nothing to do with programming at all. I've actually started to notice this a lot; companies focus on engineering to the exclusion of other sections. I know, he's having engineering problems. But he's also having physical issues and clearly problems with the business plan and expansion model. In this specific case there doesn't seem to be a working triage model. Find the things that are simplest to fix and do them first. Someone needs to keep organized and make sure the problems are being worked on in the right order and keep everyone motivated, without losing any ground in the day to day operations of the company.
chris_mahan 13y ago
Elon Musk said "Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death." (see http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/elon-musk-on-the-best-way-to-eat-glass-video/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/elon-musk-on-the-best-way-t... ) So yes, it's supposed to feel like that.
bdickason 13y ago
Just to chime in with the 'this is normal' crew, I work at Shapeways, where from the outside we (probably) appear to be crushing it. We just raised a big rouf from A16Z and have been written up in tons of blogs/etc. For the past two years (since I joined), we've all been feeling the same thing. Scaling, running out of disk space, needing that one Product hire terribly, hearing from investors about that one feature we discussed back in Dec 2010 that is still 'a few releases away.' I have fallen into this trap a few times as the dirextor of product. However what I've realized, is one thing that helps me sleep at night: Despite feeling like we're losing the race and not making progress, we've overhauled our architecture, revamped our entire consumer and internal software to be much more user friendly, built a strong release heartbeat to crank out one solid feature a week, rebranded the company, and built confidence in our org that people's ideas will be heard. We've made great progress, and even though there are things that our CEO and investors still want us to build, I'm damn proud of how far we've come. I'm still scared shitless about conpetitors and hitting our goals for the year... And it drives me nuts when I see another company launch something that I'm excited about, but then I look back to our product 2 years ago, and I can't help but smile at how far we've come. The only advice I can give you (apart from saying thst this is totally normal!) is to continue to focus on what's most important, not most urgent. Sure, many of the fires you described today sound terrible, but what is the #1 most important thing today? Is it revenue? Is it growth? Once you've identified that, pick the single most significant thing you can do to make an impact, and do it. Then re-evaluate. If you find yourself fixing the most urgent thing constantly (I.e. servers are slow, investor is calling), you will just run in circles and constantly feel like you're behind and not making progress. If you as a company can agree on the most important thing at any time and run towards it at 200% velocity, that momentum will always make you feel like you're making forward progress. Good luck, and feel free to email me (address in my profile) if you have questions or need a pep talk :P
grimtrigger 13y ago
I have no advice, just wanted to say the honesty was appreciated. Its easy for startups to get into the "fake it till you make it" bs. Thank you. Not currently looking for a job, but if I do find myself looking in the future, 42floors will be near the top of my list.

204 points by danielpal 13y ago

I don't know what it's like to be an entrepreneur nor am I currently on the job hunt but I feel like your post lessened your chances of hiring good people. You're sounding a bit desperate and discouraged. Maybe better to take the afternoon off and try again in the morning.

porter 13y ago
I thought his honesty made him more likable and trustworthy.
- Iterated 13y ago
  Did a little bit of both for me. Made me wish I had the skills to work for him.
- coffeeyesplease 13y ago
  My thoughts exactly.
- freyr 13y ago
  I agree. It was honest and raw. People are constantly trying to sweep their problems under the rug, hiding them from customers, investors, employees, and themselves. Smart employees are never fooled by this, and they'll end up viewing leadership as delusional, dishonest, or incompetent. This guy at least recognizes and identifies the problems (or at least the symptoms of underlying problems). That's something.
- methodover 13y ago
  I completely agree. I went and looked at his hiring page to see what kind of folks he was looking for. He's not hiring in a framework/language I'm familiar with, but if he was, I might consider applying.
andygcook 13y ago
I think his honesty about the situation is a smart decision, especially for hiring. What's worse for a startup than having open job positions is to hire someone based on false optimism about the company and invest in training him, only to have that new employee quit after a month when the going gets tough. The best person for a struggling company to hire is someone who believes they can help solve the challenging problems and will work relentlessly until the issues are resolved.
redblacktree 13y ago
Why is this guy being downvoted? Isn't that button for people who aren't adding to the conversation? (i.e. not for posts that express an opinion you disagree with)

jkldotio 13y ago

A word to the wise regarding your employment benefits, you say: "Shiny Apple Products Seriously, get whatever you want (PC users may have to justify themselves)." That will simply turn off some people and there is no reason for a self-interested business to do that. Apple computers actually are PCs, and always were but especially now they are PCs, so you should make a distinction regarding Linux. The top machine learning company in the world even has their own distribution of Linux[1](or flavour of Ubuntu, however you want to put it). They and many others who don't make such snarky remarks almost certainly pay more than you and are working on more interesting problems than you, you are just narrowing down your potential employees without any reason. So, even though it's in jest, remove that statement from your hiring page if you are serious. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goobuntu

general_failure 13y ago
Agree. Unnecessary PC prejudice for a company that has nothing to with PCs.
kaspm 13y ago
100% agree, developer here who sees snarky recruiting posts like this and immediately says no thanks. Makes it clear the company is gimmicky and not focused on the true challenges of software development: clarity, focus and rational decision-making
- _lex 13y ago
  See my answer above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5614106 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5614106. It's more rational, and more about focus than it seems.
  - kaspm 13y ago
    Yeah, there are many legitimate reasons to prefer Mac to Linux or Windows, not the least of which is that Ruby gems just work better on a Mac because they are developed there (regardless of whether you will have to figure out those problems when you deploy to your Linux-based production environment in AWS :P). The issue isn't whether you use Mac or PC but in the holier-than-thou attitude about it. You are recruiting a team of (potentially) one-trick ponies who are religious about making judgement calls. Probably a looooooooong stretch from just saying "Justify a PC" to you are building a uncompromising team but I would just say "The Best Equipment (We mostly use Apple)" would accomplish the same goal with less annoying language

kirinan 13y ago

I don't know if you guys allow remote workers (Seattle guy here), but that would be a good start to getting more workers. However, I think you guys are in the stage where a lot of people call it quits, say its hard and just give up. They don't have enough people (does anyone really?), they can't get things done, and the things that they want to get done are out of reach. The key to get through this is work harder (not longer), and just grind it out. Literally, make every wednesday code a thons. No meetings, no chats, just code. Get things done. Heads down time. This will get you through it, and I wish you the best! 42floors is on a mission, and don't you forget it.

Zimahl 13y ago
Hate to say it but they are onto the boring stuff. The cleanup after the Superbowl, if you will. People just aren't that interested in coming in and fixing code to run better. It's a really tough sell because it's tedious, un-sexy work.
- tibbon 13y ago
  Everyone's got their own thing that they like and hate though. I personally love trying to optimize and speed things up. On the flip side, I really hate doing CSS and Javascript front-end things (I can do them, but just prefer not to). Speed/optimization stuff (which I'm still getting better at every day) just feels more quantifiable and is a more interesting problem. If the writer can open themselves to remote people, they've definitely got a better chance at pulling in some good people to help. But the one caution is against someone who wants to some in and do a rewrite of 90% of the stuff- optimize, don't start over.
  - chris_mahan 13y ago
    So do I. I like to gently tear apart the tangled spaghetti code and figure out what data store goes with what process. One thing I absolutely refuse to do is compromise on tools. Telling the factory-trained Mercedes-Benz mechanic at the dealer where you bought your $120K SL550 that you want him to use only a hammer and a screwdriver to service the brakes on your car will get you laughed out of the dealership.

orangethirty 13y ago

Established company has wrong software architecture problems. Which are making scaling difficult. Facing problems with recruiting. Yeah, that's pretty normal. Growth doesn't make things easier. Just harder.

nate 13y ago

With great success comes great expectations. I think a lot of us feel like this. Once we get one thing, there's a million other things to accomplish. There's a great book called Bounce that describes the low people go through once they accomplish something. It's a tangent to this. I've loved working with remote folks. You can hire the best, it's cheaper, there's people that love working remotely and are even more focused and productive because they can work without the typical office distractions. Experiment with some Location: Anywhere job posts?

nopassrecover 13y ago

Really enjoy humanising posts like this - reminds me that doubt is normal. As far as 42Floors, from the outside it certainly seems like they're killing it. I've been keeping my eye on them for a while, and have been impressed by both their app (a likeness can be drawn to Lovely in the residential space - both are awesome) and by how genuine they seem about taking a bunch of awesome people and having a crack at improving a massive outdated industry. If I thought I was a good match [I'm a PC-loving C# fan ;-)] I'd definitely consider working here.

jconley 13y ago

Yup that's normal. The key to get through is priority. What is the most important single thing for each person to be doing? Do that. Repeat. Focus. If its any comfort this isn't even unique to startups. Every software project I've ever done has felt like this. The list of possible tasks to do always far outpaces the resources on hand to do them.

onemorepassword 13y ago
> What is the most important single thing for each person to be doing? I figured out the focus and priority part, but that angle, each person, is still an eyeopener. It's something I've been struggling with, I know what the priorities for the product are, but not everyone can contribute (equally) to those priorities, and I don't want to make them feel like their work is less important. I think looking at it from this angle will help a lot.
tunesmith 13y ago
And don't forget the other side - the knowledge of what NOT to work on. Otherwise your todo list will be a mile long. Focus is about knowing what not to work on. Identify your core constraint and then work it until something else becomes the constraint.

dancric 13y ago

When considering this type of transparency, there is a spectrum of types of people. Some prefer radical transparency where every possible pitfall and challenge is openly acknowledged and noted. On the other side of the spectrum, a lot of people don't want to have any knowledge of the challenges, and in fact, work most productively in a state of naiveté. Part of hiring is understanding how different people respond to this sort of stress. For me, I really prefer this sort of off-the-record honesty. I know a start-up is challenging, and a failure to acknowledge a reality that I know exists is a huge turnoff. But I can definitely imagine that some hires would find this scary and would find a startup that seems much more "perfect." You attract who you want to attract.

benjaminwootton 13y ago

Refreshingly honest. Do you allow remote workers as this seems like an obvious solution to widening the talent pool.

deleted 13y ago
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jmstout 13y ago

I hate to be 'that guy', but is caching really considered 'premature optimization'?

redblacktree 13y ago
This was exactly my thought. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I read that they'd slowed to a crawl due to a lack of caching.
- benjaminwootton 13y ago
  Varnish FTW.
- rozap 13y ago
  I'm with you on that one. I wouldn't submit a site to Show HN without at least memcached sitting in front of it. And to run a legitimate service sans cache? That's just asking for trouble.
  - unclebucknasty 13y ago
    I don't know about that when you can simply go horizontal (automatically, even) if the need arises. Building with cache: guaranteed added upfront cost, complexity, and time to ship, without knowing if/where caching will serve you best. Building without cache: Guaranteed upfront savings, faster time to ship, with automatic horizontal scaling as a backstop if the need ever arises, while you work to integrate the cache. And, remember, databases cache too. Throwing extra RAM and tweaking the DB cache config can also be a viable backstop short-term.
johnrob 13y ago
If the cache isn't required to provide a good experience to 1 lone user, then I would call it premature optimization.
ericflo 13y ago
I absolutely think it is. Why add extra complexity into your system (and complexity which I've seen the smartest of engineers get wrong on the invalidation side just by overlooking one small detail) before you know your macro-level bottlenecks and product questions like "how many users will even use this feature"? Additionally caching can mask more serious systemic performance issues like missing database indices and accidental extra round trips to the database. Better to focus on fundamentals and keep your code simple, then add caching only when it's needed.

josephfung 13y ago

The most accurate part of this is that line near the end... "...nor will I mention the [A], the [Z], and everything else." That feeling of an endless list of responsibilities is a definitive property of launching a startup.

alpb 13y ago

Seems like link is dead, does anybody have a mirror by any chance?

deleted 13y ago

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nwenzel 13y ago

Just don't forget that you're dealing with problems caused by growth and demand. You're basically being crushed by latent, pent up demand. I feel your pain. But I have to say, having problems for those reasons can't be all bad. And, if high quality photos are your issue, talk to Pete Warden over at Jetpac. He's wicked smart, friendly, in SF, and deals with high quality travel photos on Jetpac. Or (And?), talk to AirBnB. They deal with photos, are in SF, and are also YC alums. Don't you all have each other on speed dial? As a founder, I wish I had your problems. But, I have to say, I also wish I had your level of access to potential solutions and advisors. My YC interview is on Sunday. Hopefully by Monday we'll have each other on speed dial. :)

jaf12duke 13y ago
OP here. Contact me today. I'll do a mock-interview with you to prep-- jason at 42floors
- unclebucknasty 13y ago
  Damn decent offer.
- iron_ball 13y ago
  Sole OP response in a thread full of questions.
- nwenzel 13y ago
  Email sent with phone number. Thanks! Can't say how much I appreciate it. But, I'll try. Pumped for Sunday! Pumped for phone call today!
- nwenzel 13y ago
  Thanks again Jason. Your advice and insights were very helpful. I feel obligated to pass on what I learned: 1) Don't forget what it's like to not have your background in your industry. 2) Be very good at explaining what you do. Succinctly. Clearly. And be able to give that explanation without assuming prior industry knowledge (see point 1). 3) If it takes a long time to explain who your customer is, you're doing it wrong. 4) Don't forget that YC partners are also looking for your potential on demo day.

31reasons 13y ago

Hard = Time / Interest.

thesash 13y ago

One of the things I think about on long runs while training for a marathon is precisely how not fun running often is while training. Running through pain, heat, cold, rain exhaustion, etc. is not fun and certainly not easy, but it's precisely those difficulties that makes crossing the finish line such a triumphant moment. All those moments of struggle are like little deposits towards an immense payoff; the sum of everything you've endured. There's something satisfying about doing things the hard way. If this stuff were easy or fun all the time, it would get boring. The difficult part is maintaining that drive to do things the hard way. When hard things get harder, and then impossible, its hard not to start to feel depleted. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance[1] calls this reservoir of inner strength "gumption" and points out that you have to make an effort to keep the tank full. I see it as a kind of faith, not in God, but in yourself; faith that you can and will overcome whatever insurmountable obstacle you face. I try to keep that tank topped off by running, reading, and, despite how hard it is, taking regular vacations where I step away to disconnect altogether. That way, I can feel anticipation in the face of a challenge rather than fear or despair; anticipation of a journey that won't be easy, but will certainly be rewarding. [1]http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry/dp/0061673730 http://www.amazon.com/Zen-Art-Motorcycle-Maintenance-Inquiry... - I read this book every 5 years and each time I find something completely new. It's a remarkable work.

slater 13y ago

A design comment on 42 floors: - The grey-on-grey of the overview map is an odd choice - why not use the green for the markers? - Listings without a price should either be removable, or otherwise marked. Feels kinda scammy, and just introduces unnecessary friction - Google is probably a partner for the listings images, but is it also a requirement for you to show a "y we have no imagery f" image with Google logos?

chintan 13y ago

Once you have revenue/cost numbers, things with auto-prioritze themselves. Quick SEO nitpick (and one more #ToDo item for you ;) On bottom of home page, you have direct links to City/Neighborhood listings with relevant anchor text but all target pages (Search results) have just the title "Office Space Search" I would make them "<City/Neighborhood>+Office Spaces"

tenpoundhammer 13y ago

It is simple supply and demand, you either need a bigger market for the labor you are seeking or you need to offer more money to "purchase" the employment you desire. This is kind of an insane problem to have, with a clear solution. I'm not sure what it is about startups that makes them think that basic economics don't apply to them?

scrozier 13y ago
Have to agree. As soon as I read the first paragraph, I said, "capital-starved."

MattRogish 13y ago

"I just got an email from an engineering prospect who has decided to turn down our offer. We put so much time and effort and passion into recruiting him. He decided he wants to go off and start his own company right now." I think more and more startup CEOs are figuring this out. At least, I'm telling every one I meet - for technical talent, you are not competing against the other startups in your neighborhood. Or even ones doing the same thing. Or startups in general. You're competing against the awesome developer doing their own thing. The cost of booting a startup is trending to zero. 10 years ago you'd need massive capital investment (servers, networking, etc.). I can spin up a Heroku server for free (or a series of AWS for nearly-free). I have super-powerful development environments (Ruby/Rails, Clojure/Lighttable, whatever) that are free or nearly so. Great infrastructure (Postgres, Unicorn, whatever) - free! All I need is a product idea and a vision and I can bootstrap my company. I can charge money on day one without needing a business checking account, LLC, and all that. What does this mean for you? As a startup founder, you are competing against a person owning 100% and running the show as they see fit. This is a completely different power dynamic and one that is going to be the new normal. You really need to have your stuff completely together in order to get the best people. It's very hard, but possible (I advise founders how to do that all the time). I'd also caution against "this person needs to be passionate about my idea or we won't" hire them. I see that all the time, too. Look, it's your baby; it's going to be very difficult to get them to love it as much as you do. Figure out what this person wants out of life (their career, whatever) that you can provide that they alone cannot (work from home, presenting/attending conferences, learning new technologies, mentoring, leading a team, education, building their personal brand, whatever). THAT'S how you get them. Constant tending to their needs and giving them opportunities to further their growth is how you KEEP them. What value are YOU bringing to the table other than an idea and some cash? Those are table stakes now. Good luck! :D

abstractbill 13y ago
Out of every startup advertising jobs right now, I think 500friends gets this better than anyone else: They simply acknowledge that their best hires are likely to want to start something of their own, and actually offer to fund it: http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/10/founders-beware-500friends-will-catch-your-developers-with-seed-capital-bait/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/10/founders-beware-500friends...

tempaccount9473 13y ago

> PC users may have to justify themselves > Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? Yes, this is exactly what you should feel like if you compete for a limited pool of hipster developers in San Francisco. I know three different guys who can come in and clean up someone else's shit, but they aren't in San Francisco, and they all currently have jobs, so none of them would come cheap. But if you offer a ton of money to someone with 10 years of experience architecting and deploying web apps with 1M+ users, they will do the boring work of fixing your scalability problems.

lcusack 13y ago

I'm really surprised by the number of people trying to solve the author's problems. I don't think he posted this because he didn't have any good ideas on how to hire someone or wanted copy help on his hiring page. I think he posted it because sometimes the most helpful thing is knowing that you're not the only one who wakes in the middle of night thinking about payroll and customer acquisition. I think he's wondering if other people have doubts and struggles. And anyone trying to start a company right now would know that as soon as they read it. So, yes Jason, this is how it's suppose to feel and it's okay that it sucks. Just remember, you're more important than your work.

john_b 13y ago
You might be right, but he did post it to a community that leans toward the hyper-male-minded-problem-solving side of the spectrum, so it shouldn't be surprising.

mattmaroon 13y ago

Yep. Startups are like a shark, they have to keep moving forward or they die.

meerita 13y ago

I personally would look to mount another office outside US. Make it in Spain, Argentina or elsewhere, put 10 good engineers to work in there with a good product manager and your engineer problems will be solved.

billpaydici 13y ago

Good on you Jason, for an anti-fairy-tale post. It's good to hear we aren't the only ones! Keep prioritizing well and working with attention. Keep your cool and most of all: stick with it.

noomerikal 13y ago

Didn't these guys have one of those over-the-top programming challenges about a year ago?

jtreminio 13y ago

Can't find new talent? How about not limiting your search to people in your immediate geographical area?

Shorel 13y ago

Do you want to hire? Hire remotely. I know right now in CL and BG there are good and not very expensive developers. And they would love to work for you. I can't recommend IN developers, as they want to climb the corporate ladder more than coding. And, no, I'm not interested, I'm in CO and I don't care about Ruby. The slowest framework I'm contemplating right now is Node.js, the other two are written in Lua and C++.

padseeker 13y ago

Why did a perfectly interesting question about startups turn into a OS/Hardware pissing contest between Macs and Windows? For the record I develop my startup on a shitty 5 year old Compaq that dual boots with Vista and Ubuntu 10.4, and Ruby/Rails/Gems all work great!

Yhippa 13y ago

I read the "Jobs" page and ran across something that I have a question about: what exactly is a "no assholes policy"? While the page looks great to me there seems to be a lot of unprofessional text there. For me personally that's a red flag. I have no idea if that's an indicator of anything but unless I have a close friend who works there who can tell me otherwise I don't know if I'd trust a part of my career to a company that comes across the way it is portrayed on that page.

andrewljohnson 13y ago

My chairman once said to me "You feel like you are driving along at 60mph, while everyone around you is going 90." I've come to accept that is a perennial feeling if you start a company in the valley. If you aren't one of the bright shining stars like DropBox or Facebook, you can't help but wonder how you could be. I think that feeling might still nag Zuckerberg a little bit too, and it's even that feeling that helps make decisions like "we need to buy Instagram right now for a cool bill." It's not all bad to want a bit more. Greed is good as they say.

ameister14 13y ago

I noticed something on their jobs section. All the descriptions on the left are about coding, and yet 5/7 open jobs have nothing to do with programming at all. I've actually started to notice this a lot; companies focus on engineering to the exclusion of other sections. I know, he's having engineering problems. But he's also having physical issues and clearly problems with the business plan and expansion model. In this specific case there doesn't seem to be a working triage model. Find the things that are simplest to fix and do them first. Someone needs to keep organized and make sure the problems are being worked on in the right order and keep everyone motivated, without losing any ground in the day to day operations of the company.

chris_mahan 13y ago

Elon Musk said "Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death." (see http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/elon-musk-on-the-best-way-to-eat-glass-video/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/05/elon-musk-on-the-best-way-t... ) So yes, it's supposed to feel like that.

bdickason 13y ago

Just to chime in with the 'this is normal' crew, I work at Shapeways, where from the outside we (probably) appear to be crushing it. We just raised a big rouf from A16Z and have been written up in tons of blogs/etc. For the past two years (since I joined), we've all been feeling the same thing. Scaling, running out of disk space, needing that one Product hire terribly, hearing from investors about that one feature we discussed back in Dec 2010 that is still 'a few releases away.' I have fallen into this trap a few times as the dirextor of product. However what I've realized, is one thing that helps me sleep at night: Despite feeling like we're losing the race and not making progress, we've overhauled our architecture, revamped our entire consumer and internal software to be much more user friendly, built a strong release heartbeat to crank out one solid feature a week, rebranded the company, and built confidence in our org that people's ideas will be heard. We've made great progress, and even though there are things that our CEO and investors still want us to build, I'm damn proud of how far we've come. I'm still scared shitless about conpetitors and hitting our goals for the year... And it drives me nuts when I see another company launch something that I'm excited about, but then I look back to our product 2 years ago, and I can't help but smile at how far we've come. The only advice I can give you (apart from saying thst this is totally normal!) is to continue to focus on what's most important, not most urgent. Sure, many of the fires you described today sound terrible, but what is the #1 most important thing today? Is it revenue? Is it growth? Once you've identified that, pick the single most significant thing you can do to make an impact, and do it. Then re-evaluate. If you find yourself fixing the most urgent thing constantly (I.e. servers are slow, investor is calling), you will just run in circles and constantly feel like you're behind and not making progress. If you as a company can agree on the most important thing at any time and run towards it at 200% velocity, that momentum will always make you feel like you're making forward progress. Good luck, and feel free to email me (address in my profile) if you have questions or need a pep talk :P

grimtrigger 13y ago

I have no advice, just wanted to say the honesty was appreciated. Its easy for startups to get into the "fake it till you make it" bs. Thank you. Not currently looking for a job, but if I do find myself looking in the future, 42floors will be near the top of my list.