4 ms·

The problem is that when you are a startup founder, most of the things you deal with on a daily basis are confidential. You're doing it wrong. Either you're to

by diego 13y ago

The problem is that when you are a startup founder, most of the things you deal with on a daily basis are confidential. You're doing it wrong. Either you're too paranoid, or you're focusing too much on confidential stuff. It's not like your company develops stealth technology for the military ("Swedish one stop bargain shop on the web"). There must be an infinite number of industry insights that you can share. As a CEO, one good reason to blog is to be perceived as a thought leader in your space. One of the reasons Silicon Valley is a successful technology hub is all the shared knowledge. Many successful entrepreneurs here may not blog that much, but they do share insights through interviews or talks. Others (like Paul Graham) enjoy writing, and they share unique knowledge. Are you keeping this kind of knowledge to yourself because you believe it's a competitive advantage?

GuiA 13y ago
Startups are small, and so is the startup world. Personal lives and professional lives are very much meshed together, and as business is a purely social occupation, burning bridges is pretty much the worst thing you can do. So if you blog about how you solved a conflict with employee X, or how your talks with fellow entrepreneur Y went, chances are a) they read your blog/twitter/HN comments/etc. and b) they'll realize you're talking about them, and most won't appreciate it. This is typically undesirable. So no, you're not developing military grade technology, but it's not about paranoia either. Similarly, if you blog about how you're having problems {growing your userbase|scaling your product|etc.}, it pretty much guarantees that your investors will get scared. "Hey, you're telling the world you're encountering problem P, but your competitors aren't! [it's just because they were smarter than you about that] Why should we trust you with our dollars?" Conversely if you blog about how awesome your company is and how everything is peachy, no one will care, so what's the point? I agree with the general premise of your last paragraph; that being said, you'll notice that a lot of entrepreneurs giving talks do so after they made it big, and that people like Paul Graham aren't CEOs, so they don't share the same incentives and fears.
- yuhong 13y ago
  Personally I'd like the problems be fixed if possible.
- mindcrime 13y ago
  I don't think anybody is saying that there isn't some confidential stuff that you shouldn't blog about. But if most of what you are dealing with is so confidential you can't talk about it (even if you have to redact some details), I agree that that sounds a bit dodgy. Besides, what are the chances that anybody really wants to read about the mundane day to day operational stuff anyway? Unless there's some bit of salacious gossip in there... but us humans get get our fix of salacious gossip from People or Us or somewhere else. Similarly, if you blog about how you're having problems {growing your userbase|scaling your product|etc.}, it pretty much guarantees that your investors will get scared. "Hey, you're telling the world you're encountering problem P, but your competitors aren't! [it's just because they were smarter than you about that] Why should we trust you with our dollars?" Feh... your competitors probably are having the same problem, and being more open about things shows that you have the confidence to be open, which - to my way of thinking - inspires more confidence, not less. If people are keeping secrets, I wonder what they're hiding. If they're being open and transparent, I can see what's going on, see what progress they're making, etc. The guys from PMRobot made a really fascinating post[1] a while back, touching on the whole transparency thing. It inspired us to do the same thing[2], and I have to say, it felt good and I think it's the right thing to do in the long run. Besides, anybody who might want to invest in us, but chooses not to because of a blog post, was an investor we didn't want to begin with (disclaimer: We have no outside investors at this time and aren't seeking any). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5540545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5540545 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5540986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5540986
- diego 13y ago
  You obviously did not read my blog while I was CEO of IndexTank, a funded startup acquired by LinkedIn. I found plenty to blog about, and many of my posts were on the front page of this site. All the petty things that you mentioned happen to most startups, and don't usually make for interesting posts. That's my point about the OP.

by diego 13y ago

GuiA 13y ago

Startups are small, and so is the startup world. Personal lives and professional lives are very much meshed together, and as business is a purely social occupation, burning bridges is pretty much the worst thing you can do. So if you blog about how you solved a conflict with employee X, or how your talks with fellow entrepreneur Y went, chances are a) they read your blog/twitter/HN comments/etc. and b) they'll realize you're talking about them, and most won't appreciate it. This is typically undesirable. So no, you're not developing military grade technology, but it's not about paranoia either. Similarly, if you blog about how you're having problems {growing your userbase|scaling your product|etc.}, it pretty much guarantees that your investors will get scared. "Hey, you're telling the world you're encountering problem P, but your competitors aren't! [it's just because they were smarter than you about that] Why should we trust you with our dollars?" Conversely if you blog about how awesome your company is and how everything is peachy, no one will care, so what's the point? I agree with the general premise of your last paragraph; that being said, you'll notice that a lot of entrepreneurs giving talks do so after they made it big, and that people like Paul Graham aren't CEOs, so they don't share the same incentives and fears.

yuhong 13y ago
Personally I'd like the problems be fixed if possible.
mindcrime 13y ago
I don't think anybody is saying that there isn't some confidential stuff that you shouldn't blog about. But if most of what you are dealing with is so confidential you can't talk about it (even if you have to redact some details), I agree that that sounds a bit dodgy. Besides, what are the chances that anybody really wants to read about the mundane day to day operational stuff anyway? Unless there's some bit of salacious gossip in there... but us humans get get our fix of salacious gossip from People or Us or somewhere else. Similarly, if you blog about how you're having problems {growing your userbase|scaling your product|etc.}, it pretty much guarantees that your investors will get scared. "Hey, you're telling the world you're encountering problem P, but your competitors aren't! [it's just because they were smarter than you about that] Why should we trust you with our dollars?" Feh... your competitors probably are having the same problem, and being more open about things shows that you have the confidence to be open, which - to my way of thinking - inspires more confidence, not less. If people are keeping secrets, I wonder what they're hiding. If they're being open and transparent, I can see what's going on, see what progress they're making, etc. The guys from PMRobot made a really fascinating post[1] a while back, touching on the whole transparency thing. It inspired us to do the same thing[2], and I have to say, it felt good and I think it's the right thing to do in the long run. Besides, anybody who might want to invest in us, but chooses not to because of a blog post, was an investor we didn't want to begin with (disclaimer: We have no outside investors at this time and aren't seeking any). [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5540545 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5540545 [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5540986 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5540986
diego 13y ago
You obviously did not read my blog while I was CEO of IndexTank, a funded startup acquired by LinkedIn. I found plenty to blog about, and many of my posts were on the front page of this site. All the petty things that you mentioned happen to most startups, and don't usually make for interesting posts. That's my point about the OP.