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This felt like a Broscience article targeted at Startups instead of bodybuilders. Tl;dr 1. the founder(s) quits too early due to lack of conviction ; 2. the fo

This felt like a Broscience article targeted at Startups instead of bodybuilders. Tl;dr 1. the founder(s) quits too early due to lack of conviction ; 2. the founder(s) don't understand how to fundraise or company-build; 3. The venture capital market is in a period of risk aversion. And some stuff about how amazing Sean Parker is. His controversial line is "Startups do not fail because they build products that nobody wants". And he is using his own taste as a barometer of "want". Sorry , it doesn't work that way.

seiji 13y ago
This felt like a Broscience article targeted at Startups instead of bodybuilders. That's the best way to put it. It would make a great "Startup GQ" or "Startup Vanity Fair" article. If you're not currently trying to raise a multi-million dollar round: skip this article and keep building good things. It's written for a very narrow group of people going through a very specific point in the startup lifecycle—don't waste your precious waking time reading about or comparing yourself to things not relevant. (The voice of the post makes me feel inadequate for not playing The Game (startup edition) because other people are hustling/cheating/ruining themselves to be hip to the scene and I'm still not an acquihire failed-product millionaire.) I wanted to like the post, but it comes off as a personal "rich man has to deal with kids, thinks most people aren't being dangerous enough, wants people to risk more of their lives instead of playing it safe." It's about 6500 words of slightly incoherent rambling of personal bro anecdotes after the first three points.
krmmalik 13y ago
That's the second time i've read the term "BroScience" today but i still don't understand what it means? Can you share some insight?
- dasil003 13y ago
  I'd never heard the term, but I immediately understood it in context. It's the presentation of an opinion as being based on logic when in fact it is based on a masculine over-confidence and projection of power.
  - krmmalik 13y ago
    Thank you. That helps quite alot.
  - jacques_chester 13y ago
    A better description is that ideas form in the gym, or are poorly cherry-picked from old research, and then mutate through an ongoing telephone game into ... "broscience". A classic example is "don't squat too deep, it's bad for your knees". It has staying power because squatting deep is hard. If you squat deep, you can't slap as many plates on the bar. The original source is a 1970s study that hasn't really been followed up. But it doesn't square with what's known now about biomechanics (eg shearing is highest at the "safe height"; shallow squatting leads to uneven wear because that's not how the knee is arranged to work etc), or on the statistics on injury and pathology in sports using lots of squats. Sometimes broscience comes from observations by bodybuilders and sometimes it gets validated. But a lot of the time it's worthy of mockery because it's just folklore with a particularly postural nature.
- saraid216 13y ago
  http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=broscience http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=broscience I am vaguely bothered that such a term was necessary.
filip01 13y ago
Agree. He seems to struggle with how to interpret the "want" part of of "make something people want". The point of this sentence as I've learned the hard way through sales, pain points etc is that "want" and "should want" are not the same things. Even though Francis Pedraza's intuition says that people should want something, it's not certain that they actually do (and will pay for it). For example, my intuition tells me it'll be really difficult to build a business around his Everest app but if there's something to learn from Lean it's that intuition rarely is sufficient. (And I'm sure the Everest team proves my intuition wrong with good growth and feedback). Though, in general, I love visionary startups and founders but I don't think that a grand vision should be an excuse for not validating the value and growth hypothesis. And of course he has a good point in that startups often need many iterations to find the exact product that their customers want and since these iterations can be painful it's very helpful, if not necessary, for founders to be vision driven.
savories 13y ago
Thanks for summarizing this. It was painful to read so I stopped and was hoping for a tldr in the comments. Medium is already becoming riddled with linkbait.

seiji 13y ago

This felt like a Broscience article targeted at Startups instead of bodybuilders. That's the best way to put it. It would make a great "Startup GQ" or "Startup Vanity Fair" article. If you're not currently trying to raise a multi-million dollar round: skip this article and keep building good things. It's written for a very narrow group of people going through a very specific point in the startup lifecycle—don't waste your precious waking time reading about or comparing yourself to things not relevant. (The voice of the post makes me feel inadequate for not playing The Game (startup edition) because other people are hustling/cheating/ruining themselves to be hip to the scene and I'm still not an acquihire failed-product millionaire.) I wanted to like the post, but it comes off as a personal "rich man has to deal with kids, thinks most people aren't being dangerous enough, wants people to risk more of their lives instead of playing it safe." It's about 6500 words of slightly incoherent rambling of personal bro anecdotes after the first three points.

krmmalik 13y ago

That's the second time i've read the term "BroScience" today but i still don't understand what it means? Can you share some insight?

dasil003 13y ago
I'd never heard the term, but I immediately understood it in context. It's the presentation of an opinion as being based on logic when in fact it is based on a masculine over-confidence and projection of power.
- krmmalik 13y ago
  Thank you. That helps quite alot.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  A better description is that ideas form in the gym, or are poorly cherry-picked from old research, and then mutate through an ongoing telephone game into ... "broscience". A classic example is "don't squat too deep, it's bad for your knees". It has staying power because squatting deep is hard. If you squat deep, you can't slap as many plates on the bar. The original source is a 1970s study that hasn't really been followed up. But it doesn't square with what's known now about biomechanics (eg shearing is highest at the "safe height"; shallow squatting leads to uneven wear because that's not how the knee is arranged to work etc), or on the statistics on injury and pathology in sports using lots of squats. Sometimes broscience comes from observations by bodybuilders and sometimes it gets validated. But a lot of the time it's worthy of mockery because it's just folklore with a particularly postural nature.
saraid216 13y ago
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=broscience http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=broscience I am vaguely bothered that such a term was necessary.

filip01 13y ago

Agree. He seems to struggle with how to interpret the "want" part of of "make something people want". The point of this sentence as I've learned the hard way through sales, pain points etc is that "want" and "should want" are not the same things. Even though Francis Pedraza's intuition says that people should want something, it's not certain that they actually do (and will pay for it). For example, my intuition tells me it'll be really difficult to build a business around his Everest app but if there's something to learn from Lean it's that intuition rarely is sufficient. (And I'm sure the Everest team proves my intuition wrong with good growth and feedback). Though, in general, I love visionary startups and founders but I don't think that a grand vision should be an excuse for not validating the value and growth hypothesis. And of course he has a good point in that startups often need many iterations to find the exact product that their customers want and since these iterations can be painful it's very helpful, if not necessary, for founders to be vision driven.

savories 13y ago

Thanks for summarizing this. It was painful to read so I stopped and was hoping for a tldr in the comments. Medium is already becoming riddled with linkbait.