4 ms·

Startups are not about making money. If you are the entrepreneur behind the startup who is mostly in for the money, your startup will suck in the end and you wi

by wellboy 13y ago

Startups are not about making money. If you are the entrepreneur behind the startup who is mostly in for the money, your startup will suck in the end and you will shut it down or leave it with a bad feeling. If you don't give a f about the money and you sincerely want to change the world and make it a better place, then your startup will succeed, be awesome and in the end make your investors more money back. However, most entrepreneurs don't get that, which is a shame. The ones that get it are the ones that you want to look out for.

esw 13y ago
I'm sure that someone will join in shortly with a list of successful startups which are sincerely trying to change the world and make it a better place, but I'm having a really hard time naming one.
- wj 13y ago
  The founder of Asana gave a great talk on that subject for Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (available online if you search). If I remember correctly for him changing the world was making it easier for others to do their thing more effeciently. One example he gave was cancer researchers that use Asana which gives them more time for research due to easier project management.
phantom_oracle 13y ago
you sincerely want to change the world and make it a better place,... You shouldn't believe that crap. That is simply keyword optimization to attract VCs who "believe in people, not the company". If you want to make the world a better place, you don't need to profit off of it at the same time. A rational human being is driven to maximizing his own utility. While he may want to fund a tech school in Ghana when he becomes a millionaire, he will want to do it after he has made 10x the amount he gives away and many will do it openly, because fame is as desired as money (if not more).
- wellboy 13y ago
  Well, if you want to improve the lifes of millions of people, your company has to make significants profits and grow strongly. The thing that most people don't understand is that if a company isn't profitable, its products will never reach these people. That's just reality, if you can't pay your employees, they will work for somebody else and all your idealism doesn't help there.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - phantom_oracle 13y ago
    "Well, if you want to improve the lifes of millions of people, your company has to make significants profits and grow strongly." Wikipedia? Mozilla? Ushahidi? "That's just reality, if you can't pay your employees, they will work for somebody else and all your idealism doesn't help there." If you can pay them enough to satisfy their utility and basic needs/wants, people will work for you. Again, see the examples above. You should try contributing open source software to non-profits. Maybe you will see things in a different light and while a cat-photo sharing app worth $50 million may not reach people in Mogadishu (who really don't give a shit about an "angry" cat), your health/water-finder/medicine app will reach the NPO workers who indirectly assist millions.

by wellboy 13y ago

esw 13y ago

I'm sure that someone will join in shortly with a list of successful startups which are sincerely trying to change the world and make it a better place, but I'm having a really hard time naming one.

wj 13y ago
The founder of Asana gave a great talk on that subject for Stanford's Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (available online if you search). If I remember correctly for him changing the world was making it easier for others to do their thing more effeciently. One example he gave was cancer researchers that use Asana which gives them more time for research due to easier project management.

phantom_oracle 13y ago

you sincerely want to change the world and make it a better place,... You shouldn't believe that crap. That is simply keyword optimization to attract VCs who "believe in people, not the company". If you want to make the world a better place, you don't need to profit off of it at the same time. A rational human being is driven to maximizing his own utility. While he may want to fund a tech school in Ghana when he becomes a millionaire, he will want to do it after he has made 10x the amount he gives away and many will do it openly, because fame is as desired as money (if not more).

wellboy 13y ago
Well, if you want to improve the lifes of millions of people, your company has to make significants profits and grow strongly. The thing that most people don't understand is that if a company isn't profitable, its products will never reach these people. That's just reality, if you can't pay your employees, they will work for somebody else and all your idealism doesn't help there.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- phantom_oracle 13y ago
  "Well, if you want to improve the lifes of millions of people, your company has to make significants profits and grow strongly." Wikipedia? Mozilla? Ushahidi? "That's just reality, if you can't pay your employees, they will work for somebody else and all your idealism doesn't help there." If you can pay them enough to satisfy their utility and basic needs/wants, people will work for you. Again, see the examples above. You should try contributing open source software to non-profits. Maybe you will see things in a different light and while a cat-photo sharing app worth $50 million may not reach people in Mogadishu (who really don't give a shit about an "angry" cat), your health/water-finder/medicine app will reach the NPO workers who indirectly assist millions.