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""Seriously: McKinsey? WTF do they know about starting your own company?" Eh.. I don't know, maybe they've been consulting and guiding startups since before yo

""Seriously: McKinsey? WTF do they know about starting your own company?" Eh.. I don't know, maybe they've been consulting and guiding startups since before you were born?" Consulting and guiding from the sidelines indeed. Being a consultant is pretty much the furthest you can get from being an entrepreneur. They know next to nothing about risk taking, only about mitigating risk to others. I believe it's a true disgrace that new venture is the most well-known startup competition in the Netherlands, and I'm definitely not alone in this. Over the years it has become a bullshit bingo where some 50-year old Shell exec lectures young talent about why their startup should be a sustainability focused business. They just forget to mention how they have been ignoring any form of sustainable behaviour in their own business model for the past 5 decades. I'd rather take advice from someone who's done it himself instead of following up on some macro-level bullshit business plan book. I don't really believe in stories that promises me golden showers based on some assumption-overloaded excel model. Webvan anybody?

wkneepkens 13y ago
Hear, hear, couldn't agree more.
tinco 13y ago
Just to make sure you don't misunderstand me. I don't have any affiliation with McKinsey, I just think it's a bit odd to dismiss a firm with a pretty solid reputation out of hand without much evidence. I don't think anyone asks of McKinsey that they should be entrepreneurs, or even risk takers. I don't see how risk mitigation is irrelevant to startups. You'll find little about risk mitigation in 'Starting Up' though. It's more about how you can describe your business in a standard way so you and your investors can reason about it more easily. If that's something you want I'll leave up to you. I don't think you should follow the book to the letter, I just think it's a good little book. There's no stories in it that promise golden showers, none that stuck in my mind anyway. Isn't the whole idea of risk taking to promise yourself golden showers based on an assumptions based revenue model (or none at all), like webvan did? I agree with you that it's a good idea to take advice from entrepreneurs themselves though, that's also why Bubbleconf makes an effort to get founders to speak at the conference (and not consultants :P). (btw, I work for a company that coorganizes Bubbleconf, but I'm a part of the organisation of the conf this year, just a helping hand)
- tinco 13y ago
  *I'm not a part of the organisation

wkneepkens 13y ago

Hear, hear, couldn't agree more.

tinco 13y ago

Just to make sure you don't misunderstand me. I don't have any affiliation with McKinsey, I just think it's a bit odd to dismiss a firm with a pretty solid reputation out of hand without much evidence. I don't think anyone asks of McKinsey that they should be entrepreneurs, or even risk takers. I don't see how risk mitigation is irrelevant to startups. You'll find little about risk mitigation in 'Starting Up' though. It's more about how you can describe your business in a standard way so you and your investors can reason about it more easily. If that's something you want I'll leave up to you. I don't think you should follow the book to the letter, I just think it's a good little book. There's no stories in it that promise golden showers, none that stuck in my mind anyway. Isn't the whole idea of risk taking to promise yourself golden showers based on an assumptions based revenue model (or none at all), like webvan did? I agree with you that it's a good idea to take advice from entrepreneurs themselves though, that's also why Bubbleconf makes an effort to get founders to speak at the conference (and not consultants :P). (btw, I work for a company that coorganizes Bubbleconf, but I'm a part of the organisation of the conf this year, just a helping hand)

tinco 13y ago
*I'm not a part of the organisation