9 ms·

Colin: I'm sorry we didn't deliver what you needed. YC's goal in selecting Startup School participants is to get a mix of deeply technical people and populariz

by tlb 12y ago

Colin: I'm sorry we didn't deliver what you needed. YC's goal in selecting Startup School participants is to get a mix of deeply technical people and popularizers. The combination of those two skill sets makes a great startup. When I saw you at Startup School I was like, "Hey, it's cperciva! Maybe he'll find a co-founder who can sell and together they can make Tarsnap take over the backup business!" That would be a good thing for the universe. Tarsnap is a great example of a better technology that should be backing up most of the world's data. It would, if you teamed up with the right popularizer to get the word out and close deals. It hurts me to see Tarsnap backing up only a tiny fraction of the world's data, while companies with great salespeople back up most of it badly. Still, I think we delivered for some people who were inspired to bring their better technology out into the wide world. Also: I hear you about power outlets. My current MBP runs Emacs for 8 hours so I've lost touch with that need, but I'll bring extension cords and power strips to future events.

cperciva 12y ago
Trevor: Thank you for replying. I hope you (and Jessica, and everybody else involved with Startup School) don't take what I've written personally -- I nearly didn't post it for exactly that reason, but decided in the end that you're all grown-ups who won't be offended by honest criticism. ;-) And thank you for your comments when we met -- talking to you was the highlight of the weekend for me (I didn't mention it in the blog post simply because I don't like "outing" people, in case they didn't want their presence at an event to be widely known), both because "Hey, it's tlb!" and because of the confidence you showed in Tarsnap's potential. Thirty seconds of talking to you was more inspiring than the rest of the weekend. As for finding a co-founder... you're not the first person to say that, but after 8 years of writing code I really don't think I could bring in a co-founder at this point.
- tosh 12y ago
  Why not (re 8 years)?
  - cperciva 12y ago
    Leaving aside the semantics, I'd always begrudge any control I gave away after being 100% in charge for so long.
    - selmnoo 12y ago
      I don't understand either why many are suggesting you get a cofounder. You just need another person who can work on UI, branding, PR, etc. Don't give them any equity, don't give them any control over the innards of tarsnap, just pay them a handsome wage (for the handsome job that they'll do). p.s.: in my ideal world, you are every founder (doesn't partake in shitty, ethically-questionable growth-hacking techniques), and your company is every company (offers a decidedly great service, no gimmicks). I think it's extremely unfortunate that you have to do these extra things to be successful on the next level... I wish things weren't this way. But unfortunately you do have to play this strange ballgame to get there.
      - cperciva 12y ago
        Right, and that's exactly what I'm planning on doing.
      - DanBC 12y ago
        > p.s.: in my ideal world, you are every founder (doesn't partake in shitty, ethically-questionable growth-hacking techniques), and your company is every company (offers a decidedly great service, no gimmicks) Are you a Tarsnap customer?
        selmnoo 12y ago
        Not yet, but I think I probably will be in 3'ish months (because of startup's needs). Why do you ask?
      - wensing 12y ago
        I think you're underestimating how hard all those non-coding skills are. When you laundry list "UI, branding, PR, etc" I can almost see you doing a hand-wavy motion. The reality is, anyone that's truly awesome at non-technical things deserves some equity for the 10X-100X growth they will help bring to the business. The truth is you can be 8 years in, but only 10% of the way there.
- tim333 12y ago
  >really don't think I could bring in a co-founder at this point. Rather than a co-founder at Tarsnap you might consider a co-founder at a new backup venture using Tarsnap's technology but with a new brand name and user friendly stuff like a graphical interface and not deleting everything if you don't pay for 2 weeks?
- patio11 12y ago
  You'd make a perfect business co-founder for Tarsnap. The math problems standing in the way don't even crater the approach to the bridge of the Putnam. This is the point of Thomas and I trying to convert you to The Dark Side, for values of dark which include "delighting more people, including more Colin."
  - tptacek 12y ago
    I really just want him to pick better fonts.
    - cperciva 12y ago
      What on earth is wrong with the fonts?
      - idlewords 12y ago
        The picokerning!
      - wglb 12y ago
        I think that Thomas often gets excited enough that his integer counter wraps. I rather like your fonts. The thing that is hardest about tarsnap is that it is not possible to predict my costs, as potio11 noted some time ago. I am OK with the picodollars, personally.
- gcv 12y ago
  > talking to you was the highlight of the weekend for me Sounds like attending was worth it for you, after all, and for the same main reason you noted in your post: networking.
  - cperciva 12y ago
    We may be running into terminological variance here. By "networking" I meant meeting new people.
- yellow_and_gray 12y ago
  I feel there's something inconsistent to be reconciled here. On one hand single-founder startups don't get as big, which is a bad thing. On the other, writing code for 8 years as a single founder is right about the definition of doing things that don't scale, which is a good thing. So you can't say Colin running Tarsnap as a single founder for 8 years was bad for Tarsnap. But it also sounds like unexplored terrain. The more specialized a skill you need for some types of work, the more likely this scenario is to happen. What's missing here is a way forward. If the goal of Tarsnap is to grow, the north star is Tarsnap's growth rate. Colin, could you share more about what you are looking for?
  - cperciva 12y ago
    If the goal of Tarsnap is to grow, the north star is Tarsnap's growth rate. Well, Tarsnap's goal isn't to grow. I mean, growth is nice, but I'd be perfectly happy if it stayed at its current size; my priority is to have a good product.
    - Widdershin 12y ago
      I deeply admire anyone who does business like you.
    - rokhayakebe 12y ago
      I am curious; how do you come to the conclusion that staying small is better than growing the product/business and taking over as some suggest?
      - cperciva 12y ago
        I said that Tarsnap's goal wasn't to grow, not that Tarsnap's goal was to not grow. What it comes down to is that Tarsnap is large enough now to be easily self-sustaining (it pays me more than I would expect to earn anywhere else), and my goal from the start was "build the service I want to use", not "become rich".
        12y ago
- mhartl 12y ago
  I don't like "outing" people, in case they didn't want their presence at an event to be widely known I understand where you're coming from, but in the present context this is consideration bordering on madness. Trevor is one of the founding Y Combinator partners. How on Earth could it be "outing" him to note that he was at Startup School?
  - cperciva 12y ago
    I never assumed that every YC partner would be at every YC event. As far as I'm aware Trevor wasn't organizing Startup School, merely attending it; and PG (for example) didn't seem to be there at all beyond his appearance on stage. I wouldn't say that Trevor was trying to go incognito, but he certainly didn't seem to be trying to make his presence obvious either.
    - mhartl 12y ago
      While I admire your conscientiousness, I think you may be overshooting caution and flirting with timidity. Audentes Fortuna iuvat.
alecco 12y ago
Why does he need to get a co-founder? Can't he just hire PR, business, and marketing? Why tinker the structure of a an organization already surviving?
- yellow_and_gray 12y ago
  Startups that get big have more than one founder. If your goal isn't just to survive but to grow big, statistically at least you are better off with a co-founder. I say this as a single founder of a startup that didn't grow.
  - limedaring 12y ago
    Startups that get big have more than one founder. That's awfully shortsighted. What about Bezos and Amazon?
  - mgkimsal 12y ago
    "Startups that get big have more than one founder." What? At best it's correlation, not causality, but besides the point... coercive already has a successful business operating for several years. How on earth someone coming in to his existing/operational/profitable business years after its inception could or should be considered a "founder" is such an abuse of the word as to be nonsensical.
    - cperciva 12y ago
      coercive I have to say, I love this autocorrect.
      - mgkimsal 12y ago
        whoops! ;)
weaponofchoice 12y ago
Popularity hacker in 3...2... I bet the next 10 years will see a lot of celebrity-driven startups. Will.i.am, Tom Hanks, Justin Timberlake etc. Looking for your 3rd co-founder? Talk to your local celebrity agent. Something about the term 'popularizer' annoys me. Why not just call them 'marketers'. IMHO, the perfect startup team: 1 technical co-founder, 1 technical co-founder who loves analytics and online marketing, 1 celebrity. Followed by celebrity investors.
- jonny_eh 12y ago
  Like FunnyOrDie has Will Ferrel.
  - dcre 12y ago
    That's an unusual case because Will Ferrell is a world-class expert at comedy, which is Funny or Die's product. Even if you want to argue that their actual product is the ads around the videos, Will Ferrell is more than just a celebrity endorser.
throwaway85252 12y ago
Y Combinator has many characteristics of a cult; a Dear Leader (who appoints his successor himself!); a devout following of young people who are ready to make great sacrifices just to be part of it; mega-churches and mass events such as Startup School; dubious characters as spokesmen (Andrew Mason, Travis Kalanick); apologists who contemplated a career as priest (patio11). They prefer young people because bullshit is harder to swallow the older you get -- and if your bullshit detector is hyper sensitive, like Colin Percival or Maciej Ceglowski, you either can't tolerate the thing (Maciej) or you feel like it leaves you cold (Colin). But it's also an extremely successful cult --possibly one of the most successful ones ever?-- so who are we to criticize.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- patio11 12y ago
  apologists who contemplated a career as priest (patio11) Literally accurate.
- selmnoo 12y ago
  > Maciej Ceglowski, you either can't tolerate the thing (Maciej) What critical things did he say about YC?
  - tptacek 12y ago
    You sound like someone who has made the mistake of not following @Pinboard.
    - selmnoo 12y ago
      Alright, I'll start "following" him. Still, very curious -- what specifically has he said of YC? Doing a ctrl-f on yc|ycombinator on his twitter page didn't reveal much, so still in the dark I am a little bit.
- yellow_and_gray 12y ago
  > prefer young people because bullshit is harder to swallow the older you get You know, it's frightening this sentence is still true if you replace "bullshit" with "dreams" and "swallow" with "believe." It's frightening because ignoring your dreams is the most common regret of the dying. So age might only on the surface be a filter. The true filter might be optimism. I sincerely hope you don't ignore your dreams.

by tlb 12y ago

cperciva 12y ago

Trevor: Thank you for replying. I hope you (and Jessica, and everybody else involved with Startup School) don't take what I've written personally -- I nearly didn't post it for exactly that reason, but decided in the end that you're all grown-ups who won't be offended by honest criticism. ;-) And thank you for your comments when we met -- talking to you was the highlight of the weekend for me (I didn't mention it in the blog post simply because I don't like "outing" people, in case they didn't want their presence at an event to be widely known), both because "Hey, it's tlb!" and because of the confidence you showed in Tarsnap's potential. Thirty seconds of talking to you was more inspiring than the rest of the weekend. As for finding a co-founder... you're not the first person to say that, but after 8 years of writing code I really don't think I could bring in a co-founder at this point.

tosh 12y ago
Why not (re 8 years)?
- cperciva 12y ago
  Leaving aside the semantics, I'd always begrudge any control I gave away after being 100% in charge for so long.
  - selmnoo 12y ago
    I don't understand either why many are suggesting you get a cofounder. You just need another person who can work on UI, branding, PR, etc. Don't give them any equity, don't give them any control over the innards of tarsnap, just pay them a handsome wage (for the handsome job that they'll do). p.s.: in my ideal world, you are every founder (doesn't partake in shitty, ethically-questionable growth-hacking techniques), and your company is every company (offers a decidedly great service, no gimmicks). I think it's extremely unfortunate that you have to do these extra things to be successful on the next level... I wish things weren't this way. But unfortunately you do have to play this strange ballgame to get there.
    - cperciva 12y ago
      Right, and that's exactly what I'm planning on doing.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      > p.s.: in my ideal world, you are every founder (doesn't partake in shitty, ethically-questionable growth-hacking techniques), and your company is every company (offers a decidedly great service, no gimmicks) Are you a Tarsnap customer?
      - selmnoo 12y ago
        Not yet, but I think I probably will be in 3'ish months (because of startup's needs). Why do you ask?
    - wensing 12y ago
      I think you're underestimating how hard all those non-coding skills are. When you laundry list "UI, branding, PR, etc" I can almost see you doing a hand-wavy motion. The reality is, anyone that's truly awesome at non-technical things deserves some equity for the 10X-100X growth they will help bring to the business. The truth is you can be 8 years in, but only 10% of the way there.
tim333 12y ago
>really don't think I could bring in a co-founder at this point. Rather than a co-founder at Tarsnap you might consider a co-founder at a new backup venture using Tarsnap's technology but with a new brand name and user friendly stuff like a graphical interface and not deleting everything if you don't pay for 2 weeks?
patio11 12y ago
You'd make a perfect business co-founder for Tarsnap. The math problems standing in the way don't even crater the approach to the bridge of the Putnam. This is the point of Thomas and I trying to convert you to The Dark Side, for values of dark which include "delighting more people, including more Colin."
- tptacek 12y ago
  I really just want him to pick better fonts.
  - cperciva 12y ago
    What on earth is wrong with the fonts?
    - idlewords 12y ago
      The picokerning!
    - wglb 12y ago
      I think that Thomas often gets excited enough that his integer counter wraps. I rather like your fonts. The thing that is hardest about tarsnap is that it is not possible to predict my costs, as potio11 noted some time ago. I am OK with the picodollars, personally.
gcv 12y ago
> talking to you was the highlight of the weekend for me Sounds like attending was worth it for you, after all, and for the same main reason you noted in your post: networking.
- cperciva 12y ago
  We may be running into terminological variance here. By "networking" I meant meeting new people.
yellow_and_gray 12y ago
I feel there's something inconsistent to be reconciled here. On one hand single-founder startups don't get as big, which is a bad thing. On the other, writing code for 8 years as a single founder is right about the definition of doing things that don't scale, which is a good thing. So you can't say Colin running Tarsnap as a single founder for 8 years was bad for Tarsnap. But it also sounds like unexplored terrain. The more specialized a skill you need for some types of work, the more likely this scenario is to happen. What's missing here is a way forward. If the goal of Tarsnap is to grow, the north star is Tarsnap's growth rate. Colin, could you share more about what you are looking for?
- cperciva 12y ago
  If the goal of Tarsnap is to grow, the north star is Tarsnap's growth rate. Well, Tarsnap's goal isn't to grow. I mean, growth is nice, but I'd be perfectly happy if it stayed at its current size; my priority is to have a good product.
  - Widdershin 12y ago
    I deeply admire anyone who does business like you.
  - rokhayakebe 12y ago
    I am curious; how do you come to the conclusion that staying small is better than growing the product/business and taking over as some suggest?
    - cperciva 12y ago
      I said that Tarsnap's goal wasn't to grow, not that Tarsnap's goal was to not grow. What it comes down to is that Tarsnap is large enough now to be easily self-sustaining (it pays me more than I would expect to earn anywhere else), and my goal from the start was "build the service I want to use", not "become rich".
      - 12y ago
mhartl 12y ago
I don't like "outing" people, in case they didn't want their presence at an event to be widely known I understand where you're coming from, but in the present context this is consideration bordering on madness. Trevor is one of the founding Y Combinator partners. How on Earth could it be "outing" him to note that he was at Startup School?
- cperciva 12y ago
  I never assumed that every YC partner would be at every YC event. As far as I'm aware Trevor wasn't organizing Startup School, merely attending it; and PG (for example) didn't seem to be there at all beyond his appearance on stage. I wouldn't say that Trevor was trying to go incognito, but he certainly didn't seem to be trying to make his presence obvious either.
  - mhartl 12y ago
    While I admire your conscientiousness, I think you may be overshooting caution and flirting with timidity. Audentes Fortuna iuvat.

alecco 12y ago

Why does he need to get a co-founder? Can't he just hire PR, business, and marketing? Why tinker the structure of a an organization already surviving?

yellow_and_gray 12y ago
Startups that get big have more than one founder. If your goal isn't just to survive but to grow big, statistically at least you are better off with a co-founder. I say this as a single founder of a startup that didn't grow.
- limedaring 12y ago
  Startups that get big have more than one founder. That's awfully shortsighted. What about Bezos and Amazon?
- mgkimsal 12y ago
  "Startups that get big have more than one founder." What? At best it's correlation, not causality, but besides the point... coercive already has a successful business operating for several years. How on earth someone coming in to his existing/operational/profitable business years after its inception could or should be considered a "founder" is such an abuse of the word as to be nonsensical.
  - cperciva 12y ago
    coercive I have to say, I love this autocorrect.
    - mgkimsal 12y ago
      whoops! ;)

weaponofchoice 12y ago

Popularity hacker in 3...2... I bet the next 10 years will see a lot of celebrity-driven startups. Will.i.am, Tom Hanks, Justin Timberlake etc. Looking for your 3rd co-founder? Talk to your local celebrity agent. Something about the term 'popularizer' annoys me. Why not just call them 'marketers'. IMHO, the perfect startup team: 1 technical co-founder, 1 technical co-founder who loves analytics and online marketing, 1 celebrity. Followed by celebrity investors.

jonny_eh 12y ago
Like FunnyOrDie has Will Ferrel.
- dcre 12y ago
  That's an unusual case because Will Ferrell is a world-class expert at comedy, which is Funny or Die's product. Even if you want to argue that their actual product is the ads around the videos, Will Ferrell is more than just a celebrity endorser.

throwaway85252 12y ago

Y Combinator has many characteristics of a cult; a Dear Leader (who appoints his successor himself!); a devout following of young people who are ready to make great sacrifices just to be part of it; mega-churches and mass events such as Startup School; dubious characters as spokesmen (Andrew Mason, Travis Kalanick); apologists who contemplated a career as priest (patio11). They prefer young people because bullshit is harder to swallow the older you get -- and if your bullshit detector is hyper sensitive, like Colin Percival or Maciej Ceglowski, you either can't tolerate the thing (Maciej) or you feel like it leaves you cold (Colin). But it's also an extremely successful cult --possibly one of the most successful ones ever?-- so who are we to criticize.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
patio11 12y ago
apologists who contemplated a career as priest (patio11) Literally accurate.
selmnoo 12y ago
> Maciej Ceglowski, you either can't tolerate the thing (Maciej) What critical things did he say about YC?
- tptacek 12y ago
  You sound like someone who has made the mistake of not following @Pinboard.
  - selmnoo 12y ago
    Alright, I'll start "following" him. Still, very curious -- what specifically has he said of YC? Doing a ctrl-f on yc|ycombinator on his twitter page didn't reveal much, so still in the dark I am a little bit.
yellow_and_gray 12y ago
> prefer young people because bullshit is harder to swallow the older you get You know, it's frightening this sentence is still true if you replace "bullshit" with "dreams" and "swallow" with "believe." It's frightening because ignoring your dreams is the most common regret of the dying. So age might only on the surface be a filter. The true filter might be optimism. I sincerely hope you don't ignore your dreams.