20 ms·

What I'd tell myself about startups if I could go back 5 years

865 points by vinnyglennon 12y ago

fragglesmock 12y ago
A few years ago I took a run at this whole " startup " thing and I would not exactly call the endeavor a ragging success . I sunk into this hole of building that it is time to come out of and your message from the future makes me feel a lot less crazy . Thank you for the time you took to write it .
timbowhite 12y ago
These are some great points, yet this one made me scratch my head: > 44. No-one has ever used a Bitcoin ATM for practical reasons I've used one because it was more convenient and anonymous than giving a scan of my ID to an online exchange, or meeting a stranger in-person to do a trade.
- rongenre 12y ago
  There's one in San Francisco at 180 Montgomery. I've never used it. http://sfist.com/2014/09/15/sf_gets_its_first_bitcoin_atm_at_fi.php http://sfist.com/2014/09/15/sf_gets_its_first_bitcoin_atm_at...
  - winnopeg 12y ago
    It was moved from Workshop Cafe, it's now at 2415 Mission St. housed within "Nakamoto's", a Bitcoin-only store. They actually have two there now. http://nakamotos.io/ http://nakamotos.io/
- johndevor 12y ago
  The ATM in Baltimore is used constantly.
peshkira 12y ago
Very interesting points. I agree with many of them as they reflect my own experiences. Assuming you are the author :) Could you elaborate on 3 "Always refuse if someone asks you to sign an NDA before hearing their idea". This is something I always find frustrating, but I usually end up signing the NDA as it seems irrelevant to me anyway. I'd be interested to know how people react when you tell them that you don't want to hear their idea. Do they change their attitude towards it, or you don't follow up?
- talkingquickly 12y ago
  Hey, author here. My logic is usually that an NDA is a restriction on me, so I won't usually sign one unless I'm getting something in return. E.g. I'm happy to sign one in the context of a piece of paid work. Most people are quite receptive when I explain the above and that in practice I don't believe that ideas really get stolen. Well not (web/app)tech startup ideas anyway. I've never had what you'd call a "bad" reaction to it and in about 75% of cases, people have then gone on to explain their idea.
  - ckluis 12y ago
    I just say I have a $2,000 NDA fee as it places liability on me.
- prawn 12y ago
  In my experience, if I explain that I won't sign an NDA and they don't return, I've dodged a bullet. Last one was an older guy who wanted to rebuild eBay on a strict budget and just wasn't at all comfortable talking about his idea without an NDA. I'm willing to bet, months later, he's made very little progress. I don't think I've missed any quality opportunities with this approach. I'm always very polite about it and explain my reasons.
- bkeroack 12y ago
  To add to the other comments, it also shows the requestor to have incredible hubris and/or naivete. An experienced entrepreneur understands that raw ideas have virtually zero value, it's the team and execution that matter. If an NDA enters the conversation it's possible that you're speaking to one of the perpetual "idea guys" in search of coders, and you should terminate the interaction quickly.
aestetix 12y ago
Too bad Clinkle didn't have this.
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  That's a blast from the past. Only 6 mentions of Clinkle on HN over the past 6 months. Seems like that failure got swept under the rug.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
ljoshua 12y ago
Great list that made me smile. My two favorites from it include: - Falling in love with a product (rather than the problem) is really dangerous - It's really hard to build a product if you don't have a big personal investment in the problem it solves
- beat 12y ago
  On the other hand, there are a lot of problems that are highly valuable because they aren't sexy and you can't fall in love with them.
  - jkestner 12y ago
    In those cases, I fall in love with the projected result. Visualizing a bunch of people happier because some obstacle is removed is motivating. More so when they start emailing you their joy over this pain point being removed.
  - tdaltonc 12y ago
    Do you have an unlovable problem in mind? I guarantee I can recast it as the sexiest most important problem there is. Edit: On second though, if you can show that there is big money in solving [unlovable problem], I wont have to recast it. 1000 bay entrepreneurs will be stumbling over one another to recast it on their "Join The Team" page.
    - adventured 12y ago
      Farming would have fallen into this category until recently. Pitching anything farm tech / data related in the bay area between 1994 - 2012 or so, would have mostly fallen on deaf ears. Under no circumstances would you have run into a scenario of 1,000 bay area entrepreneurs stumbling over themselves to copy your farm tech startup ten years ago. You can be sure there are blind spots of opportunity today in the same way.
  - NeutronBoy 12y ago
    Pretty much sums up the software/IT problems of enterprise.
AndrewKemendo 12y ago
I'd always rather work with someone who ships over someone who's technically brilliant Lets define what ships means then. Does that mean that they are just really good at debugging so that the limited features you do have don't break? Does it mean they know how to distill exactly the use cases needed so that you don't develop more than necessary? I can think of many ways to ship something that is incomplete, but that doesn't mean it's worth anything so I am curious about this statement.
- grey-area 12y ago
  Lets define what ships means then. It means delivering a product. Some companies die before they even ship a product to customers, and actually getting your imperfect product out there in front of customers is a really important and difficult step to take, and usually results in you finding out you need to change it in significant ways you hadn't even considered. Some companies die after they ship because they used up all their money just getting to the shipping stage and run out of time.
  - AndrewKemendo 12y ago
    What you are defining is a single event. Shipping is a constant process. "ABS" always be shipping is pretty much the standard, so your definition makes no sense. Maybe I am just crazy though because isn't that the whole point of Lean startup, MVP etc...? You ship before things are ready in the "pretotype" phase?
    - oe 12y ago
      I'm not so sure if it's the standard? I've seen many startups that took 6-12 months to ship the first version of their product. Usually the owners had read Lean Startup but still wanted to fix that one more thing before releasing anything. Coding something for more than half a year without any real users makes selling the idea difficult, and makes any setbacks bigger in terms of lost morale and keeping momentum.
- toolz 12y ago
  Have you been around people who own a project from start to finish and nothing but their name is on it? The most common holdup is that it's never good enough for them. I've seen start up projects that I could've done solo in a couple of months that took a small team a couple of years. The reason for things like that is usually they don't ship a product and when you don't ship you don't have feedback motivation to work on the important things (or sometimes no motivation to work on anything at all)
hectorperez 12y ago
Great points! I added some of them to AgreeList [1]. For example on [2] you can see that Richard Branson also agrees on the advice "trust your gut". [1] http://www.agreelist.com/talkingquickly http://www.agreelist.com/talkingquickly [2] http://www.agreelist.com/s/listen-to-others-but-go-with-your-gut-rx54xxorby6y http://www.agreelist.com/s/listen-to-others-but-go-with-your...
S4M 12y ago
> Linear growth can be worse than no growth Not sure I get this one right. For me, some growth is better than nothing. If your growth is linear, it means that you have something like n new users every week, which is probably because they found it through ads or something, but they don't recommend it to their friends - otherwise, you would have every week n+knumber_of_users[previous week]* and the growth would be exponential. I suppose that's why OP is saying this, but I think the real metric is not growth, but retention. Better to have a few users who stick with your product. Is that what the OP means?
- talkingquickly 12y ago
  Yeah you're totally right, it's a huge over simplification. I was specifically thinking of the scenario where you add roughly the same number of users each period, where that number isn't really enough for it to be a viable business but because there are some users, it becomes really hard to say "this isn't working" and either radically change something or quit. Agree that retention is often a much better metric.
  - jim-greer 12y ago
    Yes. Kongregate always had decent-but-linear growth and very good retention (of registered users, not so good for guests). Worked for us: here's a graph of web sessions per day with the units taken off. http://i.imgur.com/715wGwX.png http://i.imgur.com/715wGwX.png It flattened out as mobile took all the growth out of browser-based games. It took us a while to figure mobile out but now we're doing well as a publisher/marketer/funder of indie free-to-play games. https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/publisher/kongregate/ https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/publisher/kongregate/
JonFish85 12y ago
"It's really easy to become hyper-critical and respond to every idea with "yeah but that won't work because of x". This is lazy, don't do it." I'd say that while this is true, there's an important "other side" to this, that not everything is a world-changing, ground-shaking idea that's going to revolutionize the way the world works. Sometimes ideas are indeed stupid, and one of the things I don't love about HN is the echo chamber effect. If everyone is telling you how great things are, coupled with 17 ("Constantly exaggerating how well you're doing can be very tiring.") things can disconnect from reality quickly.
- windust 12y ago
  Mandatory xkcd comic https://xkcd.com/1497/ https://xkcd.com/1497/
- minimaxir 12y ago
  > Sometimes ideas are indeed stupid, and one of the things I don't love about HN is the echo chamber effect. However, Hacker News is one of the surprisingly few communities that will tell you if your idea is terrible, which is one of the reasons for the recent "gratuitous negativity" controversies.
mootothemax 12y ago
The people who are really getting somewhere aren't the people who are always out for drinks Too true. As a side note, there are an awful lot of people who seem to go to a different startup event every night of the week, and then some hackathon over the weekend. I generally find it's the other people who are getting stuff done.
- mpeg 12y ago
  I'm always up for a coffee though and I've found that to work well for most people. Lots of people at evening startup events just want to have a drink after work. Get their card and pitch them on office hours.
  - mootothemax 12y ago
    I'm always up for a coffee though and I've found that to work well for most people. Agreed. I can even be tempted by the occasional lunch as well!
TravisLS 12y ago
Wow, I don't have anything useful to add, but I have to compliment the author. Every single one of these is spot on, and almost perfectly mirrors my experience. Great post.
timdaub 12y ago
There is a similar talk on this topic called "If Only I Knew This Shit In College" by Zach Holman. You can watch it here: http://developertalks.tumblr.com/post/115528336319/zach-holman-if-only-i-knew-this-shit-in-college http://developertalks.tumblr.com/post/115528336319/zach-holm...
ttty 12y ago
64. Read this again. (Until i < 10, so you don't hang in a loop)
- MoOmer 12y ago
  while !comprehension
afarrell 12y ago
> 4. Like it or not, most networking in London is focused around drinking. Find a way to deal with that without having a constant hangover. One of my classes at uni taught me that doing drugs (especially alcohol) is sometimes necessary for getting things done, but I still wish this wasn't the case.
- borgia 12y ago
  Can you expand on that? What was the class? Was this advice issued or was it something you came to realise yourself? Pure curiosity.
  - afarrell 12y ago
    This was an engineering leadership class at MIT. The advise specifically was first an anecdote about working in Japan and going out to get piss-drunk on sale after work and then a generalization of that to drinking as a means to networking in general. My generalization to other drugs is my own. Since there is no moral difference between alcohol and marijuana and there soon won't be a legal one. The reason why alcohol culture frustrates me is that in high school, I had an older friend who started going to AA and brought me along for moral support sometimes. I've since grown up, developed a fondness for craft cider, and realized that I personally don't have much to worry about from addiction. But for the same reason I think startup events should be expected to be wheelchair-accessible, I think folks should be cool with teetotalers.
    - borgia 12y ago
      >This was an engineering leadership class at MIT. The advise specifically was first an anecdote about working in Japan and going out to get piss-drunk on sale after work and then a generalization of that to drinking as a means to networking in general. My generalization to other drugs is my own. Since there is no moral difference between alcohol and marijuana and there soon won't be a legal one. Interestingly I read an article (perhaps it was posted here?) in recent days about westerners struggling in Japan and one key point was the expectation to go out drinking heavily after work every night. I can see the merit in holding networking events surrounding drinking as alcohol will (perhaps) get people to put their guard down, relax and socialise more than if everyone were stone cold sober. I will be interested to see what happens with regards to marijuana and networking events. Though the moral argument against marijuana is gone, there is still a stigma associated with the drug. In many professional circles cocaine is currently more likely to be the accepted drug of choice than marijuana (going by personal experience). Marijuana is also different to alcohol in that one can have a few drinks over a reasonable amount of time and be more relaxed without getting intoxicated, however a few drags on a pipe with reasonable marijuana in it will cause rapid intoxication. How well that bears for networking events is something I'll certainly be interested to see!
vjvj 12y ago
> 6. Linear growth can be worse than no growth Can you elaborate on this please?
- nhayden 12y ago
  No growth could mean you're still at the flat part of exponential. Linear means it's definitely not exponential.
  - princeb 12y ago
    wait, this makes no sense... there is no flat part of the exponential... the derivative of the exponential is the exponential!
    - nhayden 12y ago
      I should have said the flat part before an exponential. Like a hockey stick.
      - progmanal 12y ago
        I think he is being pedantic, because that part is also exponential.
        vjvj 12y ago
        and really not that dissimilar to linear growth during that stage of the curve...
- eli 12y ago
  I'm not the author, but I think it's related to the following point about failing fast. It's not a good situation to be pouring yourself into a business that just plods along, never really in danger of going bankrupt but also never in danger of great success. A clear failure would be preferable because it would be a lot easier to walk away, pivot, start over, etc.
robotnoises 12y ago
Nice list! Good balance of humor and practicality. I especially enjoyed this one: "If you end up pitching to someone over coffee, ask to hear their pitch afterwards." A nice thought, as a lot of people view networking only through the lens of "what can I gain?"
- davemel37 12y ago
  Ironically. The best way to gain from networking is to forget about what you can gain and focus on the other persons interests. Excellent point about an excellent list in an excellent post.
  - robotnoises 12y ago
    Excellent reply!
    - joepie91_ 12y ago
      Chef Excellence would be proud.
- willlma 12y ago
  What does he mean by "their pitch"? Doesn't this assume they're launching a product?
- balls187 12y ago
  > A nice thought, as a lot of people view networking only through the lens of "what can I gain?" One thing that stuck out to me as a founder going through TechStars was the advice: "Ask them [mentor|investor|founder] if there is anything you can do for them."
cletus 12y ago
What a great list. My favourite: > Facebook is the Facebook for X The one point I would elaborate on is listening to customers. This deserves more attention because listening to what customers _say_ can be a disaster. People will tell you all sorts of things about what they think they want and need. A lot of the time they're wrong. This can be worse than just building things you want or think are important. Listening to customers really means measuring what they respond to. Or, to put it another way, ignore what they say, see what they do.
- kifler 12y ago
  Ditto. Every time I end up at a networking event, someone without fail always ends up pitching that they have either Facebook for X or Groupon for Y. No matter how you approach it, feigning interest, dismissing them, or talking about your reserverations, they never seem to get it.
CheckHook 12y ago
People don't steal ideas. Tell as many people as possible. Never ask someone to sign an NDA before hearing your idea, you'll instantly lose all credibility I find this hard to believe and can see why experienced people would keep startup ideas close to their chest.
- tashoecraft 12y ago
  This is the general motto for a majority of people. If you've done several startups with big exits, then yeah keep your idea behind NDA's because you can. For everyone else, no one is going to steal your idea. Even in the remote possibility that they somehow would, then you better be more motivated then them and should be well enough ahead that they can't catch up.
- krenoten 12y ago
  Like everything else, it's a tradeoff. Knowledge about certain market topologies actually can constitute a tremendous advantage, although NDA's are employed far more than is actually necessary.
- diminoten 12y ago
  Can you elaborate at all on why?
  - CheckHook 12y ago
    Somebody with more funds and connections could ship your idea before you rendering yours obsolete. In the case of a hardware based startup they could even patent the idea first.
    - beat 12y ago
      Anyone with the resources and gumption to outperform you at your own idea is someone who has their own ideas. They aren't looking for ideas to steal, because ideas frankly aren't that hard. They're looking for progress on the ideas they have.
    - diminoten 12y ago
fixxer 12y ago
Really great list. #61 can not be overemphasized and includes blogging. I got one of my blog posts in a phd thesis last year (tried so hard to hire that kid!).
dnevogt12 12y ago
Awesome writing style, and great examples of what it's like to build a startup in the trenches.
- carlesfe 12y ago
  Yes, I thought the same. I enjoy pg's essays and, while not comparing both styles, it's refreshing to see a bullet-point blogpost with well thought content, unlike the usual "You won't believe these 10 tricks all successful startups have in common"
makeitsuckless 12y ago
> A good developer can pick up any language or platform in a few weeks Yes and no. There's a major difference between "picking up" and actually being good at something. If you have nobody on the team that is either already intimately familiar with the language/platform, or has experience with various languages/platforms, you're going to be spending a lot of time figuring out how to do stuff properly instead of just building stuff. And if you are a startup with a limited runway, that difference is crucial.
- ddoolin 12y ago
  I'm glad you made this distinction. With enough time, yeah, sure, we can be "good" at any of them, but I've seen companies bring people on without a developed skill set in a particular technology only to find out the ramp-up time to be as efficient as someone familiar with it to be much longer than they bargained for.
  - m3mnoch 12y ago
    agreed. it's really about lifecycle. near the beginning of your startup, you need multi-hat-wearing-swiss-army-knives for developers. once you get traction and growth, you need to bring in vertical expertise.
- offwhite 12y ago
  I think the point is that a good developer is happy to start using a language/framework because it is the best tool for the job (regardless of their experience using it), rather than just sticking to what they know. I think that's probably more useful in a start up. But I go more for the 'get shit working and see what happens' approach to developing. I mean, making it look pretty is what iterations are for. maybe. or whatever.
  - jkestner 12y ago
    "Best tool for the job" is not a knowable truth. Best for what time frame? For what shifting array of tasks? Often we pick the tool that will be perfect for high performance or a known task, but if you're still figuring out the product, why not make an MVP using what you know? I rarely see anyone fail because they chose, say, PHP. <cough>Facebook</cough>
drcode 12y ago
> Think hard about a pivot which makes good business sense but leads to a product you no longer care about I was just about to do this... hmmm... maybe I need to think harder.
rywalker 12y ago
Great post Ben, curious if you collected that list over time or just got on an inspired roll :)
dj-wonk 12y ago
There are some gems in here, mixed with some highly-specific and perhaps contingent observations. I wish everything on the web, especially this, could be split apart and commented on it a sane way.
- kodr 12y ago
  A few years ago, I used Diigo [1], it's an extension that let you share a website and comment on it, anywhere. It's been a long time since I used it, I don't really if it's still active. [1]: https://www.diigo.com/ https://www.diigo.com/
soci 12y ago
Great piece of advice. > 5. The people who are really getting somewhere aren't the people who are always out for drinks I would add that networking is ok (specially with your customers). But being always networking with the entrepreneurs in your area won't drive you anywhere near success. Someone once told me this advice that I try to remember myself every once and then: "Less networking and more working" Also, although the list of advices nails it at mirroring my own experience, I know that I would not follow most of them. For an unexperienced entrepreneur it's difficult to discern good from bad advice.
euphemize 12y ago
A bit uneven as a post. Some really, really great advice, some more questionable I find. >The logo doesn't matter at the start, find a simple text based logo you can re-use for different projects Not convinced. Your logo will follow you around for a long time, regardless of what you tell yourself. People will see it and associate you and your startup with it. Doing a large rebrand is difficult, costly and time-consuming.
- andycroll 12y ago
  > Doing a large rebrand is difficult, costly and time-consuming And also a nice problem to have. Most 'startups' won't get to this stage, so spending time on a logo _is_ a waste.
- at-fates-hands 12y ago
  While on the flip side of that, investing a lot of time and money to get a logo done when there's a 50/50 chance the company might not make it another six months seems a waste of both. This is the problem with startups, you just never know. Should I work on growing my brand and banking sales, or stop and spend a bunch of time deciding on a logo? The branding will come if the product and the business model are there. Also, some of the most famous brands have the simplest logos: The Red Cross Apple Subway Ralph Lauren Zippo Adidas Nike Google Ikea Dyson Coca-Cola Pixar
  - jkestner 12y ago
    Agreed, but simple doesn't mean they didn't spend a lot of time/money on it. (NeXT paying Paul Rand $100K comes to mind.) Many logos are an evolution over years. http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Subway http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Subway http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Adidas http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Adidas http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo Since we're talking about startups, can't forget Facebook's original name/logo: http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Facebook http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Facebook
  - striking 12y ago
    Also: the Nike Swoosh was made for $35. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swoosh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swoosh
uuilly 12y ago
Brilliant post. Most of these points hit home for me. One of the things I've been honing in on recently - which you do as well - is effectiveness. Brilliant developers who don't ship aren't effective. People who don't distill a product down to just what's necessary aren't effective. You hit on this concept - and many others - in a number of spots. Thanks for sharing.
- jdiomede 12y ago
  True, and this is one of the harder lessons to act on. Brilliance in = brilliance out, right? At the most basic level shipping product can be the difference between fail-pivot-success and fail.
- obastani 12y ago
  I didn't really understand this one -- what does it mean to be a brilliant developer who doesn't ship?
  - chudi 12y ago
    someone who can code complex algorithms in an environment like a topcoder contest, acm, etc. and can't finish something in the real world.
  - r00fus 12y ago
    Perhaps someone who is brilliant but perfectionist and not interested or capable of doing the work to glue/shim a canonical example into a working product. Some folks are good at the former, others are good at the latter. The really good ones are comfortable with both.
  - fudged71 12y ago
    This is closely related to the "Raw Technology Persona"[1] A developer who can talk you through an entire stack and why specific tradeoffs were made on specific pieces of the architecture... yet hoards code on their box without committing, works on stuff without telling other people, and claims that things are progressed much further than they actually are. It's an ego and accountability problem. Someone like this might prefer to refactor your entire stack multiple times, partly due to shiny-new-framework, and partly due to the lack of understanding that from a business perspective you often have to work with what you've got. I think it's less about perfectionism and more about inexperience with balancing business tradeoffs with technology. There's a great series in Forbes specific to CTOs undergoing this "meltdown" [2]. In it, they mention a few warning signs including: never saying no, missing deadlines, low morale, and poor estimation of timelines. [1] http://www.citoresearch.com/it-management/why-cios-and-ctos-suffer-raw-technology-persona http://www.citoresearch.com/it-management/why-cios-and-ctos-... [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/danwoods/2013/08/26/avoiding-a-cto-meltdown-part-2-warning-signs/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/danwoods/2013/08/26/avoiding-a-c...
plongeur 12y ago
> 16. I still don't know any real investors What is this supposed to mean?
- oe 12y ago
  I read it as "don't spend your time trying to find / meet (real) investors", along the lines of #47 "You're probably either building or fund raising." Also that meaningful investments don't necessarily come from traditional, real investors.
- mkagenius 12y ago
  His younger self doesn't know any real investors. He needs to get more connections. (My interpretation)
kendallpark 12y ago
> Tech news (and news is general) has a very low return on time invested. Prefer books and conversations So true. Should probably block HN.
- norenjr 12y ago
  I don't think HN qualifies as tech news
- gedrap 12y ago
  Personally, I found that my ROI for time on HN is a decaying function. During my first year here, it was extremely valuable. I've read about many things that I didn't it exists, read comments written by far more experienced people. However, a few years later, there is a lot of repetition and normally I stick to HN newsletters and filters by points.
tdaltonc 12y ago
> It's really easy to become hyper-critical and respond to every idea with "yeah but that won't work because of x". This is lazy, don't do it. This should be one of the HN guidelines.
- gopher2 12y ago
  Good idea, I think that it already might be. They just had that highly commented post about avoiding "gratuitous negativity"
gmarx 12y ago
I disagree with the generally accepted one- build something you want. This is a fine thing to do but the overwhelming majority of good software business ideas aren't for consumers or developers. The overwhelming majority of workers who have problems that could be fixed by software are not developers. Lots of opportunities out there...
- gedrap 12y ago
  You have a point :) Building something you want usually means that you have a deeper understanding of the problem. Also, chances are, that you are familiar with the market, alternative tools, etc. Which is a must for creating a good product. Actually wanting to use it adds a little bit of passion which definitely counts in the early stage.
  - gmarx 12y ago
    clearly there are advantages if such an opportunity presents itself. Of course if you are a programming by trade, chances are it will present to a lot of your peers as well
rottyguy 12y ago
Going through this now after a few false starts. I initially picked a problem that everyone's been complaining about forever --HR/Recruiting/Resumes. Seems riped for solving but... 1) Getting engagement is tough in any idea. Extra tough here b/c writing/submitting resumes is not an everyday thing and really a pain point! 2) I knew very few people in the Recruiting industry (see #1) which made getting spun up that much harder. 3) While I agree HR/Recruiting has lots of problems, I really wasn't passionate about the space. What this means is that during the down times, and you'll have plenty of those when you think to yourself if all this work is really worth it, you really need to draw deep. And if you can't convince yourself to keep moving forward, it eventually spirals from there. I'm now playing in the local space and much happier (even though getting engagement is still a btch!) :-) I do have a question to the community 1) When is it time to "start the company"? (eg through IRS) 2) If you have an existing company entity (from another failed startup attempt) that didn't have a lot of entanglements, is it better to change the name of that company to your new startup (after passing #1 test) or better to shutdown and restart? Just trying to understand if there are any (longterm) downside to a simple rename.
- gearhart 12y ago
  WRT when you start the company - I only have experience from the UK market, but here you're doing a tradeoff; on the one hand there are a lot of programs and benefits for startups (like SEIS tax relief), so it's beneficial to be 'young' for as long as possible, but on the other hand, some big companies have purchasing requirements that, to protect them from immature, risky startups, only permit them to purchase from a company that has been around for a certain period of time, often years. As a caveat to that, however, most people tend not to use incorporation date to decide whether you're a startup - start of trading, or fundraising rounds are the most common alternatives, so if you've not done either of those things your previous startup would be, for most purposes, a clean start. I personally would set up a new one just for cleanliness, but then that's a very cheap, easy process in the UK, I don't know if that's also the case in the US.
- cbhl 12y ago
  My local incubator's advice was "incorporate as soon as you can afford it, maybe slightly sooner than that". Incorporating limits your liability. If your businesses screws up before you're incorporated, then you are a sole proprietor, then you can lose everything (say, your house, if you own one). Granted, it was a college incubator, so they gave that advice knowing that a bunch of students were at an exploratory stage that doesn't warrant the overhead (fees, taxes) of a company.
paulhauggis 12y ago
This is a great article. Here is my experience with startups: -1 co-founder was a designer and after I finished the product (I'm a developer), took 6 months to make changes that could have taken a week or two. Without a boss telling him what to do, he had no motivation to finish anything in a timely fashion. This failed before it got off the ground, but I built lots of nice libraries that I still use today. -1 co-founder (a developer) gave up after he had to work on the boring parts. A few years later I gave him another chance. We were going to start a consulting business together and I figured, because he already had clients, that things would be different from our previous experience. Well, he took me to his lawyer and wanted me to sign these completely 1-sided contracts where everything I built in my off-time was owned by both of us (he knows I had other companies). He also wouldn't take any risk and give me ownership in his current contracts, but I had to give up mine. Before I even had a chance to tell him no, he changed his mind once again and wanted to "wait a month". 3 months later, I politely told him I wasn't interested and he now works a 9-5. -The last time in my poor decision making was partnering up with someone that had no tech (besides checking email, etc) or business experience. I was to do all of the development and I figured he could learn the business and marketing skills along the way. His job in the beginning was to do all of the content-creation (which is not easy). Well, after alpha 1 I built the entire site and he created 5 articles (which was enough to get some people testing it). He was unwilling to learn anything about marketing (because I was better at it as he said) and wanted to farm out all of the content creation to other people (which is a good idea, but not at this stage in the business..especially when we are strapped for cash). So now we are in a situation where he has nothing to do and my job is to: get customers, design the website, fix bugs, and make business decisions. I'm basically running the entire business myself and he, as an equal partner, is sitting around waiting for things to happen. So what does he decide to do? Comes up with un-realistic ideas for future business plans that of course only involve things that I will be working on and not him (since he has no tech experience). I also had to fight against his ideas and continue to convince him that we shouldn't be working on the next "Facebook for X" and on the task at hand that had a real chance at making money. This involved hours and hours of phone calls and meetings that took me away from the site that was in alpha. That was another issue: nothing could be explained by email to him, only by phone or in-person. Everything eventually fell apart and it was a very frustrating experience. He was also a good friend, which made it even more difficult. I feel like some people like the idea of running a business, but have these un-realistic expectations when it actually comes down to doing the work. I've learned some hard lessons, but I think it will help me in the future when it comes time to find another co-founder.
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DenisM 12y ago
Any first-person accounts to support "Linear growth can be worse than no growth"? Seems like something important, but not quite clear; a couple of real world examples would really help.
- simonswords82 12y ago
  I guess the underlying message here is that a product can limp on with linear growth, sucking the team's time and energy that they could be investing elsewhere. Conversely no growth is a clear call to action that the product sucks, and needs to be abandoned!
dmritard96 12y ago
Advice is a good one on here. I would phrase as: "The vector sum of startup advice is 0 - choose carefully and quickly"
gaius 12y ago
Nothing in there about not giving up half a market salary for "options" on 0.001% of the company. Rule #1 in my book.
robbyking 12y ago
> Linear growth can be worse than no growth. This one is huge. I had a manger once who confused linear growth with vertical growth, and as a result our entire engineering staff was spread thin trying to make progress on a large variety of mediocre products.
- zerooneinfinity 12y ago
  Can you explain this in more detail? Why is linear growth worse than no growth?
  - kstenerud 12y ago
    Because it has a tendency to lull you into wasting time on a product that's not going to make any real money.
  - jacobn 12y ago
    You get fooled into thinking you're on to something, when in reality it's a zombie. Which can be a great lifestyle business, but your (potential) VC backer may be less enthusiastic.
- aytekin 12y ago
  Not all linear growth is equal. 10 sign ups a day != 10,000 signups a day. Linear growth can be OK and even profitable.
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  Still don't get it. Let's say a linear YoY revenue growth of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 million. Or the same for net profits. Why is that worse than no growth?
  - Nicholas_C 12y ago
    I think the key phrase is "can be worse than no growth". Linear growth of 5% a year on small base sucks and can be worse than no growth because it provides an illusion of progress. A team could be working on something with a much greater return instead. If a team saw no growth they may have abandoned the project entirely instead of pushing onwards through mediocre or lackluster growth (relatively speaking) for a longer period of time.
gdubs 12y ago
A lot of great items here, but number one resonates the most. One of the most common problems I've seen on any project I've ever worked on (my own side-projects included) is a difficulty in saying 'No' to things. The list itself would benefit from the same advice -- cutting it down to half as many items would have upped the overall quality IMO.
mindfulgeek 12y ago
Thanks for sharing! I learned too many of these the hard way... I think I could say that about most things I've learned though :)
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Kiro 12y ago
Regarding 46 I can't help to think "why don't you just learn to program and build it yourself?". Most ideas are simple CRUD apps anyway.
- josu 12y ago
  Because comparative advantage. Do what you are good at, and pay for what you are not good at. Spending time on learning has an opportunity cost. If your opportunity cost is low i.e.: your current income is low, then maybe learning to program is a good idea. But if you make 200$/hour, you are better off finding a technical cofounder or outsourcing it. besides, having a technical cofounder lets you focus on other areas of the business. At least this is how I see it. The Woz/Jobs tandem would be a paradigmatic example of this.
yzh 12y ago
This is a great list, the only missing part here is: WHY? It would be nice to have a short description of the reason attached to each item.
nicholasdrake 12y ago
i think there's way too much group think in the Valley. it's carlota perez's overadaptation, overlearning the lessons of the recent past..
shinamee 12y ago
#18 ... hmm
shinamee 12y ago
#18 ... hmm
chatmasta 12y ago
> It's really easy to automatically dismiss everyone who starts a conversation with "I'm looking for a technical co-founder". Doing this means you miss talking to some interesting people. But be upfront that you're not that co-founder so no-one feels like their time is wasted. This is a good point. I suspect many people here have grown tired of hearing "dude I have this idea for an app..." I just graduated from college and many of my nontechnical friends who went into finance are realizing they hate it and want to get into tech startups. During college I was always busy so I shrugged off these conversations. Now I have time to listen, and it turns out, many of them actually do have good ideas and business models. They just don't know how to code them. But these are smart, well connected people who can raise money. Dismissing their ideas is foolish and could certainly be a waste. I realized I can monetize all my friends asking me to help with apps. I have a team of programmers I've worked with overseas, and I know how to manage them to complete projects. I've started offering a service to my friends where I take them from idea to MVP (usually a basic CRUD web app). I translate ideas to technical requirements, write a spec, divide it into milestones, negotiate payment schedule, and manage the project to completion. I structure the price per milestone so that my team is rewarded for hitting deadlines, e.g. Milestone X (some subset of feature requirements) pays $1000 by 4/31, or $1500 by 4/24. This has worked well for me in the past and is a good way to keep projects on schedule. I just started doing this, and I've gotten a new lead or two each week so far. None have been serious enough about the idea yet to immediately execute, but I suspect with some pressure applied they will be ready. I spoke to an alumnus from my school who graduated 3 years ago and did this in an official capacity. He started a "product development consultancy" wih a hybrid employee/outsource model, and tapped his alumni network for projects. His company completed 39 projects in its first year, all sourced from networking. If you are an engineer also blessed with a strong network and interpersonal skills, I suggest you look into this as well. You don't need to code every app that someone wants help with. Often you can help give direction, or even charge for your services of managing an overseas team. People who leave finance are a good match because they can raise funds to the point that you can offer cheap, quality service from a friend, but also pay your developers way more than median salary in their country. I think of it like arbitraging my networks and skillsets. Regardless of whether you do that, I definitely recommend putting an end to the habit of ignoring the app ideas of your friends.
hackthisaccount 12y ago
I would add: No matter what a stripper tells you, there is no sex in the champaign room.
tieTYT 12y ago
> Always refuse if someone asks you to sign an NDA before hearing their idea I hear this a lot. What's the reasoning?
- Retra 12y ago
  1. They are probably extremely selfish. 2. If they think they need an NDA in a conversation, then they probably don't know how to think well enough to have an idea worth hearing.
- vonnik 12y ago
  1) NDAs are pretty much unenforceable. If someone asks you to sign one, that means they are very new to the business, and probably have a lot of other mistakes to make. 2) It shows they don't trust you. My rule of thumb is: distrust is a disease that NDAs won't cure, and indicates much deeper problems. If you don't trust someone, just don't share with them.
zxcvvcxz 12y ago
A lot of these 'problems' and 'lessons' seem to come as a byproduct of being a part of a 'scene' to do with startups, particularly uninspiring web and mobile startups. 'Uninspiring', to me, means people doing a startup for the sake of doing a startup, not because they're passionate about the problem, have found a good opportunity/market to exploit, etc. One of the best pieces of advice I got was to not associated with losers. It's harsh, I know, but if you see people around you not being productive and successful, chances are you're in the wrong peer group. Better to have a smaller and higher quality social circle than to let your time be wasted by 'the scene'. There's a good heuristic - anytime someone calls something a 'scene', it's time to leave. It means the people are interested more in the idea of what they're doing than the real thing.
- brc 12y ago
  It's also one of the hardest things to avoid - associating with losers. That is because the losers tend to look for company and make it easy to join their groups, while the achievers and doers jealously guard their time and acquaintances - which is why they are achievers and doers. A neat way around this can be to start doing recreational activities that achievers do. Taking time to develop skills in whatever that is will help to make friendships and relationships that matter. This doesn't have to be as obvious as joining an expensive golf club - in fact, that club might be populated by losers in the 'golf scene' - golf is horrendously time-soaking. It could be an early morning cycling group, could be anything. It's most likely not a pub-visiting binge drinking group.
_RPM 12y ago
> The people who are really getting somewhere aren't the people who are always out for drinks I've found that true in a lot of contexts. > Everyone has a hidden stash of domains they've never used Very true for me. I have about 7 domains not being used.
chaosfactor 12y ago
P(you create a successful company|you read this guys post) ~= 0
- chrisshroba 12y ago
  Please avoid gratuitous negativity. http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline
  - chaosfactor 12y ago
    It's not gratiutously negative - or even negative at all. It's a matter of fact. The advice in that column will not lead you to create a successful company, so take it with a healthy dose of humility and with a grain of salt. Indeed, while your post can be considered harmful, mine cannot.
giis 12y ago
Its a very good list. Completely agree with 53 and 54. Thanks for sharing it. Sometime ago I listed out my experience here giis.co.in/do.html
henryaj 12y ago
> It's really easy to become hyper-critical and respond to every idea with "yeah but that won't work because of x". This is lazy, don't do it. I've a close friend who does this -- I wouldn't even call it being 'hyper-critical'; I call it snark. It's a really negative personality trait and one I take pains to avoid. As Sam Altman said in his How To Start A Startup lectures: usually the best ideas are a little bit weird.

865 points by vinnyglennon 12y ago

A few years ago I took a run at this whole " startup " thing and I would not exactly call the endeavor a ragging success . I sunk into this hole of building that it is time to come out of and your message from the future makes me feel a lot less crazy . Thank you for the time you took to write it .

timbowhite 12y ago

These are some great points, yet this one made me scratch my head: > 44. No-one has ever used a Bitcoin ATM for practical reasons I've used one because it was more convenient and anonymous than giving a scan of my ID to an online exchange, or meeting a stranger in-person to do a trade.

rongenre 12y ago
There's one in San Francisco at 180 Montgomery. I've never used it. http://sfist.com/2014/09/15/sf_gets_its_first_bitcoin_atm_at_fi.php http://sfist.com/2014/09/15/sf_gets_its_first_bitcoin_atm_at...
- winnopeg 12y ago
  It was moved from Workshop Cafe, it's now at 2415 Mission St. housed within "Nakamoto's", a Bitcoin-only store. They actually have two there now. http://nakamotos.io/ http://nakamotos.io/
johndevor 12y ago
The ATM in Baltimore is used constantly.

peshkira 12y ago

Very interesting points. I agree with many of them as they reflect my own experiences. Assuming you are the author :) Could you elaborate on 3 "Always refuse if someone asks you to sign an NDA before hearing their idea". This is something I always find frustrating, but I usually end up signing the NDA as it seems irrelevant to me anyway. I'd be interested to know how people react when you tell them that you don't want to hear their idea. Do they change their attitude towards it, or you don't follow up?

talkingquickly 12y ago
Hey, author here. My logic is usually that an NDA is a restriction on me, so I won't usually sign one unless I'm getting something in return. E.g. I'm happy to sign one in the context of a piece of paid work. Most people are quite receptive when I explain the above and that in practice I don't believe that ideas really get stolen. Well not (web/app)tech startup ideas anyway. I've never had what you'd call a "bad" reaction to it and in about 75% of cases, people have then gone on to explain their idea.
- ckluis 12y ago
  I just say I have a $2,000 NDA fee as it places liability on me.
prawn 12y ago
In my experience, if I explain that I won't sign an NDA and they don't return, I've dodged a bullet. Last one was an older guy who wanted to rebuild eBay on a strict budget and just wasn't at all comfortable talking about his idea without an NDA. I'm willing to bet, months later, he's made very little progress. I don't think I've missed any quality opportunities with this approach. I'm always very polite about it and explain my reasons.
bkeroack 12y ago
To add to the other comments, it also shows the requestor to have incredible hubris and/or naivete. An experienced entrepreneur understands that raw ideas have virtually zero value, it's the team and execution that matter. If an NDA enters the conversation it's possible that you're speaking to one of the perpetual "idea guys" in search of coders, and you should terminate the interaction quickly.

aestetix 12y ago

Too bad Clinkle didn't have this.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago
That's a blast from the past. Only 6 mentions of Clinkle on HN over the past 6 months. Seems like that failure got swept under the rug.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]

ljoshua 12y ago

Great list that made me smile. My two favorites from it include: - Falling in love with a product (rather than the problem) is really dangerous - It's really hard to build a product if you don't have a big personal investment in the problem it solves

beat 12y ago
On the other hand, there are a lot of problems that are highly valuable because they aren't sexy and you can't fall in love with them.
- jkestner 12y ago
  In those cases, I fall in love with the projected result. Visualizing a bunch of people happier because some obstacle is removed is motivating. More so when they start emailing you their joy over this pain point being removed.
- tdaltonc 12y ago
  Do you have an unlovable problem in mind? I guarantee I can recast it as the sexiest most important problem there is. Edit: On second though, if you can show that there is big money in solving [unlovable problem], I wont have to recast it. 1000 bay entrepreneurs will be stumbling over one another to recast it on their "Join The Team" page.
  - adventured 12y ago
    Farming would have fallen into this category until recently. Pitching anything farm tech / data related in the bay area between 1994 - 2012 or so, would have mostly fallen on deaf ears. Under no circumstances would you have run into a scenario of 1,000 bay area entrepreneurs stumbling over themselves to copy your farm tech startup ten years ago. You can be sure there are blind spots of opportunity today in the same way.
- NeutronBoy 12y ago
  Pretty much sums up the software/IT problems of enterprise.

AndrewKemendo 12y ago

I'd always rather work with someone who ships over someone who's technically brilliant Lets define what ships means then. Does that mean that they are just really good at debugging so that the limited features you do have don't break? Does it mean they know how to distill exactly the use cases needed so that you don't develop more than necessary? I can think of many ways to ship something that is incomplete, but that doesn't mean it's worth anything so I am curious about this statement.

grey-area 12y ago
Lets define what ships means then. It means delivering a product. Some companies die before they even ship a product to customers, and actually getting your imperfect product out there in front of customers is a really important and difficult step to take, and usually results in you finding out you need to change it in significant ways you hadn't even considered. Some companies die after they ship because they used up all their money just getting to the shipping stage and run out of time.
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago
  What you are defining is a single event. Shipping is a constant process. "ABS" always be shipping is pretty much the standard, so your definition makes no sense. Maybe I am just crazy though because isn't that the whole point of Lean startup, MVP etc...? You ship before things are ready in the "pretotype" phase?
  - oe 12y ago
    I'm not so sure if it's the standard? I've seen many startups that took 6-12 months to ship the first version of their product. Usually the owners had read Lean Startup but still wanted to fix that one more thing before releasing anything. Coding something for more than half a year without any real users makes selling the idea difficult, and makes any setbacks bigger in terms of lost morale and keeping momentum.
toolz 12y ago
Have you been around people who own a project from start to finish and nothing but their name is on it? The most common holdup is that it's never good enough for them. I've seen start up projects that I could've done solo in a couple of months that took a small team a couple of years. The reason for things like that is usually they don't ship a product and when you don't ship you don't have feedback motivation to work on the important things (or sometimes no motivation to work on anything at all)

hectorperez 12y ago

Great points! I added some of them to AgreeList [1]. For example on [2] you can see that Richard Branson also agrees on the advice "trust your gut". [1] http://www.agreelist.com/talkingquickly http://www.agreelist.com/talkingquickly [2] http://www.agreelist.com/s/listen-to-others-but-go-with-your-gut-rx54xxorby6y http://www.agreelist.com/s/listen-to-others-but-go-with-your...

S4M 12y ago

> Linear growth can be worse than no growth Not sure I get this one right. For me, some growth is better than nothing. If your growth is linear, it means that you have something like n new users every week, which is probably because they found it through ads or something, but they don't recommend it to their friends - otherwise, you would have every week n+knumber_of_users[previous week]* and the growth would be exponential. I suppose that's why OP is saying this, but I think the real metric is not growth, but retention. Better to have a few users who stick with your product. Is that what the OP means?

talkingquickly 12y ago
Yeah you're totally right, it's a huge over simplification. I was specifically thinking of the scenario where you add roughly the same number of users each period, where that number isn't really enough for it to be a viable business but because there are some users, it becomes really hard to say "this isn't working" and either radically change something or quit. Agree that retention is often a much better metric.
- jim-greer 12y ago
  Yes. Kongregate always had decent-but-linear growth and very good retention (of registered users, not so good for guests). Worked for us: here's a graph of web sessions per day with the units taken off. http://i.imgur.com/715wGwX.png http://i.imgur.com/715wGwX.png It flattened out as mobile took all the growth out of browser-based games. It took us a while to figure mobile out but now we're doing well as a publisher/marketer/funder of indie free-to-play games. https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/publisher/kongregate/ https://www.appannie.com/apps/ios/publisher/kongregate/

JonFish85 12y ago

"It's really easy to become hyper-critical and respond to every idea with "yeah but that won't work because of x". This is lazy, don't do it." I'd say that while this is true, there's an important "other side" to this, that not everything is a world-changing, ground-shaking idea that's going to revolutionize the way the world works. Sometimes ideas are indeed stupid, and one of the things I don't love about HN is the echo chamber effect. If everyone is telling you how great things are, coupled with 17 ("Constantly exaggerating how well you're doing can be very tiring.") things can disconnect from reality quickly.

windust 12y ago
Mandatory xkcd comic https://xkcd.com/1497/ https://xkcd.com/1497/
minimaxir 12y ago
> Sometimes ideas are indeed stupid, and one of the things I don't love about HN is the echo chamber effect. However, Hacker News is one of the surprisingly few communities that will tell you if your idea is terrible, which is one of the reasons for the recent "gratuitous negativity" controversies.

mootothemax 12y ago

The people who are really getting somewhere aren't the people who are always out for drinks Too true. As a side note, there are an awful lot of people who seem to go to a different startup event every night of the week, and then some hackathon over the weekend. I generally find it's the other people who are getting stuff done.

mpeg 12y ago
I'm always up for a coffee though and I've found that to work well for most people. Lots of people at evening startup events just want to have a drink after work. Get their card and pitch them on office hours.
- mootothemax 12y ago
  I'm always up for a coffee though and I've found that to work well for most people. Agreed. I can even be tempted by the occasional lunch as well!

TravisLS 12y ago

Wow, I don't have anything useful to add, but I have to compliment the author. Every single one of these is spot on, and almost perfectly mirrors my experience. Great post.

timdaub 12y ago

There is a similar talk on this topic called "If Only I Knew This Shit In College" by Zach Holman. You can watch it here: http://developertalks.tumblr.com/post/115528336319/zach-holman-if-only-i-knew-this-shit-in-college http://developertalks.tumblr.com/post/115528336319/zach-holm...

ttty 12y ago

64. Read this again. (Until i < 10, so you don't hang in a loop)

MoOmer 12y ago
while !comprehension

afarrell 12y ago

> 4. Like it or not, most networking in London is focused around drinking. Find a way to deal with that without having a constant hangover. One of my classes at uni taught me that doing drugs (especially alcohol) is sometimes necessary for getting things done, but I still wish this wasn't the case.

borgia 12y ago
Can you expand on that? What was the class? Was this advice issued or was it something you came to realise yourself? Pure curiosity.
- afarrell 12y ago
  This was an engineering leadership class at MIT. The advise specifically was first an anecdote about working in Japan and going out to get piss-drunk on sale after work and then a generalization of that to drinking as a means to networking in general. My generalization to other drugs is my own. Since there is no moral difference between alcohol and marijuana and there soon won't be a legal one. The reason why alcohol culture frustrates me is that in high school, I had an older friend who started going to AA and brought me along for moral support sometimes. I've since grown up, developed a fondness for craft cider, and realized that I personally don't have much to worry about from addiction. But for the same reason I think startup events should be expected to be wheelchair-accessible, I think folks should be cool with teetotalers.
  - borgia 12y ago
    >This was an engineering leadership class at MIT. The advise specifically was first an anecdote about working in Japan and going out to get piss-drunk on sale after work and then a generalization of that to drinking as a means to networking in general. My generalization to other drugs is my own. Since there is no moral difference between alcohol and marijuana and there soon won't be a legal one. Interestingly I read an article (perhaps it was posted here?) in recent days about westerners struggling in Japan and one key point was the expectation to go out drinking heavily after work every night. I can see the merit in holding networking events surrounding drinking as alcohol will (perhaps) get people to put their guard down, relax and socialise more than if everyone were stone cold sober. I will be interested to see what happens with regards to marijuana and networking events. Though the moral argument against marijuana is gone, there is still a stigma associated with the drug. In many professional circles cocaine is currently more likely to be the accepted drug of choice than marijuana (going by personal experience). Marijuana is also different to alcohol in that one can have a few drinks over a reasonable amount of time and be more relaxed without getting intoxicated, however a few drags on a pipe with reasonable marijuana in it will cause rapid intoxication. How well that bears for networking events is something I'll certainly be interested to see!

vjvj 12y ago

> 6. Linear growth can be worse than no growth Can you elaborate on this please?

nhayden 12y ago
No growth could mean you're still at the flat part of exponential. Linear means it's definitely not exponential.
- princeb 12y ago
  wait, this makes no sense... there is no flat part of the exponential... the derivative of the exponential is the exponential!
  - nhayden 12y ago
    I should have said the flat part before an exponential. Like a hockey stick.
    - progmanal 12y ago
      I think he is being pedantic, because that part is also exponential.
      - vjvj 12y ago
        and really not that dissimilar to linear growth during that stage of the curve...
eli 12y ago
I'm not the author, but I think it's related to the following point about failing fast. It's not a good situation to be pouring yourself into a business that just plods along, never really in danger of going bankrupt but also never in danger of great success. A clear failure would be preferable because it would be a lot easier to walk away, pivot, start over, etc.

robotnoises 12y ago

Nice list! Good balance of humor and practicality. I especially enjoyed this one: "If you end up pitching to someone over coffee, ask to hear their pitch afterwards." A nice thought, as a lot of people view networking only through the lens of "what can I gain?"

davemel37 12y ago
Ironically. The best way to gain from networking is to forget about what you can gain and focus on the other persons interests. Excellent point about an excellent list in an excellent post.
- robotnoises 12y ago
  Excellent reply!
  - joepie91_ 12y ago
    Chef Excellence would be proud.
willlma 12y ago
What does he mean by "their pitch"? Doesn't this assume they're launching a product?
balls187 12y ago
> A nice thought, as a lot of people view networking only through the lens of "what can I gain?" One thing that stuck out to me as a founder going through TechStars was the advice: "Ask them [mentor|investor|founder] if there is anything you can do for them."

cletus 12y ago

What a great list. My favourite: > Facebook is the Facebook for X The one point I would elaborate on is listening to customers. This deserves more attention because listening to what customers _say_ can be a disaster. People will tell you all sorts of things about what they think they want and need. A lot of the time they're wrong. This can be worse than just building things you want or think are important. Listening to customers really means measuring what they respond to. Or, to put it another way, ignore what they say, see what they do.

kifler 12y ago
Ditto. Every time I end up at a networking event, someone without fail always ends up pitching that they have either Facebook for X or Groupon for Y. No matter how you approach it, feigning interest, dismissing them, or talking about your reserverations, they never seem to get it.

CheckHook 12y ago

People don't steal ideas. Tell as many people as possible. Never ask someone to sign an NDA before hearing your idea, you'll instantly lose all credibility I find this hard to believe and can see why experienced people would keep startup ideas close to their chest.

tashoecraft 12y ago
This is the general motto for a majority of people. If you've done several startups with big exits, then yeah keep your idea behind NDA's because you can. For everyone else, no one is going to steal your idea. Even in the remote possibility that they somehow would, then you better be more motivated then them and should be well enough ahead that they can't catch up.
krenoten 12y ago
Like everything else, it's a tradeoff. Knowledge about certain market topologies actually can constitute a tremendous advantage, although NDA's are employed far more than is actually necessary.
diminoten 12y ago
Can you elaborate at all on why?
- CheckHook 12y ago
  Somebody with more funds and connections could ship your idea before you rendering yours obsolete. In the case of a hardware based startup they could even patent the idea first.
  - beat 12y ago
    Anyone with the resources and gumption to outperform you at your own idea is someone who has their own ideas. They aren't looking for ideas to steal, because ideas frankly aren't that hard. They're looking for progress on the ideas they have.
  - diminoten 12y ago

fixxer 12y ago

Really great list. #61 can not be overemphasized and includes blogging. I got one of my blog posts in a phd thesis last year (tried so hard to hire that kid!).

dnevogt12 12y ago

Awesome writing style, and great examples of what it's like to build a startup in the trenches.

carlesfe 12y ago
Yes, I thought the same. I enjoy pg's essays and, while not comparing both styles, it's refreshing to see a bullet-point blogpost with well thought content, unlike the usual "You won't believe these 10 tricks all successful startups have in common"

makeitsuckless 12y ago

> A good developer can pick up any language or platform in a few weeks Yes and no. There's a major difference between "picking up" and actually being good at something. If you have nobody on the team that is either already intimately familiar with the language/platform, or has experience with various languages/platforms, you're going to be spending a lot of time figuring out how to do stuff properly instead of just building stuff. And if you are a startup with a limited runway, that difference is crucial.

ddoolin 12y ago
I'm glad you made this distinction. With enough time, yeah, sure, we can be "good" at any of them, but I've seen companies bring people on without a developed skill set in a particular technology only to find out the ramp-up time to be as efficient as someone familiar with it to be much longer than they bargained for.
- m3mnoch 12y ago
  agreed. it's really about lifecycle. near the beginning of your startup, you need multi-hat-wearing-swiss-army-knives for developers. once you get traction and growth, you need to bring in vertical expertise.
offwhite 12y ago
I think the point is that a good developer is happy to start using a language/framework because it is the best tool for the job (regardless of their experience using it), rather than just sticking to what they know. I think that's probably more useful in a start up. But I go more for the 'get shit working and see what happens' approach to developing. I mean, making it look pretty is what iterations are for. maybe. or whatever.
- jkestner 12y ago
  "Best tool for the job" is not a knowable truth. Best for what time frame? For what shifting array of tasks? Often we pick the tool that will be perfect for high performance or a known task, but if you're still figuring out the product, why not make an MVP using what you know? I rarely see anyone fail because they chose, say, PHP. <cough>Facebook</cough>

drcode 12y ago

> Think hard about a pivot which makes good business sense but leads to a product you no longer care about I was just about to do this... hmmm... maybe I need to think harder.

rywalker 12y ago

Great post Ben, curious if you collected that list over time or just got on an inspired roll :)

dj-wonk 12y ago

There are some gems in here, mixed with some highly-specific and perhaps contingent observations. I wish everything on the web, especially this, could be split apart and commented on it a sane way.

kodr 12y ago
A few years ago, I used Diigo [1], it's an extension that let you share a website and comment on it, anywhere. It's been a long time since I used it, I don't really if it's still active. [1]: https://www.diigo.com/ https://www.diigo.com/

soci 12y ago

Great piece of advice. > 5. The people who are really getting somewhere aren't the people who are always out for drinks I would add that networking is ok (specially with your customers). But being always networking with the entrepreneurs in your area won't drive you anywhere near success. Someone once told me this advice that I try to remember myself every once and then: "Less networking and more working" Also, although the list of advices nails it at mirroring my own experience, I know that I would not follow most of them. For an unexperienced entrepreneur it's difficult to discern good from bad advice.

euphemize 12y ago

A bit uneven as a post. Some really, really great advice, some more questionable I find. >The logo doesn't matter at the start, find a simple text based logo you can re-use for different projects Not convinced. Your logo will follow you around for a long time, regardless of what you tell yourself. People will see it and associate you and your startup with it. Doing a large rebrand is difficult, costly and time-consuming.

andycroll 12y ago
> Doing a large rebrand is difficult, costly and time-consuming And also a nice problem to have. Most 'startups' won't get to this stage, so spending time on a logo _is_ a waste.
at-fates-hands 12y ago
While on the flip side of that, investing a lot of time and money to get a logo done when there's a 50/50 chance the company might not make it another six months seems a waste of both. This is the problem with startups, you just never know. Should I work on growing my brand and banking sales, or stop and spend a bunch of time deciding on a logo? The branding will come if the product and the business model are there. Also, some of the most famous brands have the simplest logos: The Red Cross Apple Subway Ralph Lauren Zippo Adidas Nike Google Ikea Dyson Coca-Cola Pixar
- jkestner 12y ago
  Agreed, but simple doesn't mean they didn't spend a lot of time/money on it. (NeXT paying Paul Rand $100K comes to mind.) Many logos are an evolution over years. http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Subway http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Subway http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Adidas http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Adidas http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo Since we're talking about startups, can't forget Facebook's original name/logo: http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Facebook http://logos.wikia.com/wiki/Facebook
- striking 12y ago
  Also: the Nike Swoosh was made for $35. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swoosh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swoosh

uuilly 12y ago

Brilliant post. Most of these points hit home for me. One of the things I've been honing in on recently - which you do as well - is effectiveness. Brilliant developers who don't ship aren't effective. People who don't distill a product down to just what's necessary aren't effective. You hit on this concept - and many others - in a number of spots. Thanks for sharing.

jdiomede 12y ago
True, and this is one of the harder lessons to act on. Brilliance in = brilliance out, right? At the most basic level shipping product can be the difference between fail-pivot-success and fail.
obastani 12y ago
I didn't really understand this one -- what does it mean to be a brilliant developer who doesn't ship?
- chudi 12y ago
  someone who can code complex algorithms in an environment like a topcoder contest, acm, etc. and can't finish something in the real world.
- r00fus 12y ago
  Perhaps someone who is brilliant but perfectionist and not interested or capable of doing the work to glue/shim a canonical example into a working product. Some folks are good at the former, others are good at the latter. The really good ones are comfortable with both.
- fudged71 12y ago
  This is closely related to the "Raw Technology Persona"[1] A developer who can talk you through an entire stack and why specific tradeoffs were made on specific pieces of the architecture... yet hoards code on their box without committing, works on stuff without telling other people, and claims that things are progressed much further than they actually are. It's an ego and accountability problem. Someone like this might prefer to refactor your entire stack multiple times, partly due to shiny-new-framework, and partly due to the lack of understanding that from a business perspective you often have to work with what you've got. I think it's less about perfectionism and more about inexperience with balancing business tradeoffs with technology. There's a great series in Forbes specific to CTOs undergoing this "meltdown" [2]. In it, they mention a few warning signs including: never saying no, missing deadlines, low morale, and poor estimation of timelines. [1] http://www.citoresearch.com/it-management/why-cios-and-ctos-suffer-raw-technology-persona http://www.citoresearch.com/it-management/why-cios-and-ctos-... [2] http://www.forbes.com/sites/danwoods/2013/08/26/avoiding-a-cto-meltdown-part-2-warning-signs/ http://www.forbes.com/sites/danwoods/2013/08/26/avoiding-a-c...

plongeur 12y ago

> 16. I still don't know any real investors What is this supposed to mean?

oe 12y ago
I read it as "don't spend your time trying to find / meet (real) investors", along the lines of #47 "You're probably either building or fund raising." Also that meaningful investments don't necessarily come from traditional, real investors.
mkagenius 12y ago
His younger self doesn't know any real investors. He needs to get more connections. (My interpretation)

kendallpark 12y ago

> Tech news (and news is general) has a very low return on time invested. Prefer books and conversations So true. Should probably block HN.

norenjr 12y ago
I don't think HN qualifies as tech news
gedrap 12y ago
Personally, I found that my ROI for time on HN is a decaying function. During my first year here, it was extremely valuable. I've read about many things that I didn't it exists, read comments written by far more experienced people. However, a few years later, there is a lot of repetition and normally I stick to HN newsletters and filters by points.

tdaltonc 12y ago

> It's really easy to become hyper-critical and respond to every idea with "yeah but that won't work because of x". This is lazy, don't do it. This should be one of the HN guidelines.

gopher2 12y ago
Good idea, I think that it already might be. They just had that highly commented post about avoiding "gratuitous negativity"

gmarx 12y ago

I disagree with the generally accepted one- build something you want. This is a fine thing to do but the overwhelming majority of good software business ideas aren't for consumers or developers. The overwhelming majority of workers who have problems that could be fixed by software are not developers. Lots of opportunities out there...

gedrap 12y ago
You have a point :) Building something you want usually means that you have a deeper understanding of the problem. Also, chances are, that you are familiar with the market, alternative tools, etc. Which is a must for creating a good product. Actually wanting to use it adds a little bit of passion which definitely counts in the early stage.
- gmarx 12y ago
  clearly there are advantages if such an opportunity presents itself. Of course if you are a programming by trade, chances are it will present to a lot of your peers as well

rottyguy 12y ago

Going through this now after a few false starts. I initially picked a problem that everyone's been complaining about forever --HR/Recruiting/Resumes. Seems riped for solving but... 1) Getting engagement is tough in any idea. Extra tough here b/c writing/submitting resumes is not an everyday thing and really a pain point! 2) I knew very few people in the Recruiting industry (see #1) which made getting spun up that much harder. 3) While I agree HR/Recruiting has lots of problems, I really wasn't passionate about the space. What this means is that during the down times, and you'll have plenty of those when you think to yourself if all this work is really worth it, you really need to draw deep. And if you can't convince yourself to keep moving forward, it eventually spirals from there. I'm now playing in the local space and much happier (even though getting engagement is still a btch!) :-) I do have a question to the community 1) When is it time to "start the company"? (eg through IRS) 2) If you have an existing company entity (from another failed startup attempt) that didn't have a lot of entanglements, is it better to change the name of that company to your new startup (after passing #1 test) or better to shutdown and restart? Just trying to understand if there are any (longterm) downside to a simple rename.

gearhart 12y ago
WRT when you start the company - I only have experience from the UK market, but here you're doing a tradeoff; on the one hand there are a lot of programs and benefits for startups (like SEIS tax relief), so it's beneficial to be 'young' for as long as possible, but on the other hand, some big companies have purchasing requirements that, to protect them from immature, risky startups, only permit them to purchase from a company that has been around for a certain period of time, often years. As a caveat to that, however, most people tend not to use incorporation date to decide whether you're a startup - start of trading, or fundraising rounds are the most common alternatives, so if you've not done either of those things your previous startup would be, for most purposes, a clean start. I personally would set up a new one just for cleanliness, but then that's a very cheap, easy process in the UK, I don't know if that's also the case in the US.
cbhl 12y ago
My local incubator's advice was "incorporate as soon as you can afford it, maybe slightly sooner than that". Incorporating limits your liability. If your businesses screws up before you're incorporated, then you are a sole proprietor, then you can lose everything (say, your house, if you own one). Granted, it was a college incubator, so they gave that advice knowing that a bunch of students were at an exploratory stage that doesn't warrant the overhead (fees, taxes) of a company.

paulhauggis 12y ago

This is a great article. Here is my experience with startups: -1 co-founder was a designer and after I finished the product (I'm a developer), took 6 months to make changes that could have taken a week or two. Without a boss telling him what to do, he had no motivation to finish anything in a timely fashion. This failed before it got off the ground, but I built lots of nice libraries that I still use today. -1 co-founder (a developer) gave up after he had to work on the boring parts. A few years later I gave him another chance. We were going to start a consulting business together and I figured, because he already had clients, that things would be different from our previous experience. Well, he took me to his lawyer and wanted me to sign these completely 1-sided contracts where everything I built in my off-time was owned by both of us (he knows I had other companies). He also wouldn't take any risk and give me ownership in his current contracts, but I had to give up mine. Before I even had a chance to tell him no, he changed his mind once again and wanted to "wait a month". 3 months later, I politely told him I wasn't interested and he now works a 9-5. -The last time in my poor decision making was partnering up with someone that had no tech (besides checking email, etc) or business experience. I was to do all of the development and I figured he could learn the business and marketing skills along the way. His job in the beginning was to do all of the content-creation (which is not easy). Well, after alpha 1 I built the entire site and he created 5 articles (which was enough to get some people testing it). He was unwilling to learn anything about marketing (because I was better at it as he said) and wanted to farm out all of the content creation to other people (which is a good idea, but not at this stage in the business..especially when we are strapped for cash). So now we are in a situation where he has nothing to do and my job is to: get customers, design the website, fix bugs, and make business decisions. I'm basically running the entire business myself and he, as an equal partner, is sitting around waiting for things to happen. So what does he decide to do? Comes up with un-realistic ideas for future business plans that of course only involve things that I will be working on and not him (since he has no tech experience). I also had to fight against his ideas and continue to convince him that we shouldn't be working on the next "Facebook for X" and on the task at hand that had a real chance at making money. This involved hours and hours of phone calls and meetings that took me away from the site that was in alpha. That was another issue: nothing could be explained by email to him, only by phone or in-person. Everything eventually fell apart and it was a very frustrating experience. He was also a good friend, which made it even more difficult. I feel like some people like the idea of running a business, but have these un-realistic expectations when it actually comes down to doing the work. I've learned some hard lessons, but I think it will help me in the future when it comes time to find another co-founder.

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DenisM 12y ago

Any first-person accounts to support "Linear growth can be worse than no growth"? Seems like something important, but not quite clear; a couple of real world examples would really help.

simonswords82 12y ago
I guess the underlying message here is that a product can limp on with linear growth, sucking the team's time and energy that they could be investing elsewhere. Conversely no growth is a clear call to action that the product sucks, and needs to be abandoned!

dmritard96 12y ago

Advice is a good one on here. I would phrase as: "The vector sum of startup advice is 0 - choose carefully and quickly"

gaius 12y ago

Nothing in there about not giving up half a market salary for "options" on 0.001% of the company. Rule #1 in my book.

robbyking 12y ago

> Linear growth can be worse than no growth. This one is huge. I had a manger once who confused linear growth with vertical growth, and as a result our entire engineering staff was spread thin trying to make progress on a large variety of mediocre products.

zerooneinfinity 12y ago
Can you explain this in more detail? Why is linear growth worse than no growth?
- kstenerud 12y ago
  Because it has a tendency to lull you into wasting time on a product that's not going to make any real money.
- jacobn 12y ago
  You get fooled into thinking you're on to something, when in reality it's a zombie. Which can be a great lifestyle business, but your (potential) VC backer may be less enthusiastic.
aytekin 12y ago
Not all linear growth is equal. 10 sign ups a day != 10,000 signups a day. Linear growth can be OK and even profitable.
jkaljundi 12y ago
Still don't get it. Let's say a linear YoY revenue growth of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 million. Or the same for net profits. Why is that worse than no growth?
- Nicholas_C 12y ago
  I think the key phrase is "can be worse than no growth". Linear growth of 5% a year on small base sucks and can be worse than no growth because it provides an illusion of progress. A team could be working on something with a much greater return instead. If a team saw no growth they may have abandoned the project entirely instead of pushing onwards through mediocre or lackluster growth (relatively speaking) for a longer period of time.

gdubs 12y ago

A lot of great items here, but number one resonates the most. One of the most common problems I've seen on any project I've ever worked on (my own side-projects included) is a difficulty in saying 'No' to things. The list itself would benefit from the same advice -- cutting it down to half as many items would have upped the overall quality IMO.

mindfulgeek 12y ago

Thanks for sharing! I learned too many of these the hard way... I think I could say that about most things I've learned though :)

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Kiro 12y ago

Regarding 46 I can't help to think "why don't you just learn to program and build it yourself?". Most ideas are simple CRUD apps anyway.

josu 12y ago
Because comparative advantage. Do what you are good at, and pay for what you are not good at. Spending time on learning has an opportunity cost. If your opportunity cost is low i.e.: your current income is low, then maybe learning to program is a good idea. But if you make 200$/hour, you are better off finding a technical cofounder or outsourcing it. besides, having a technical cofounder lets you focus on other areas of the business. At least this is how I see it. The Woz/Jobs tandem would be a paradigmatic example of this.

yzh 12y ago

This is a great list, the only missing part here is: WHY? It would be nice to have a short description of the reason attached to each item.

nicholasdrake 12y ago

i think there's way too much group think in the Valley. it's carlota perez's overadaptation, overlearning the lessons of the recent past..

shinamee 12y ago

#18 ... hmm

shinamee 12y ago

#18 ... hmm

chatmasta 12y ago

> It's really easy to automatically dismiss everyone who starts a conversation with "I'm looking for a technical co-founder". Doing this means you miss talking to some interesting people. But be upfront that you're not that co-founder so no-one feels like their time is wasted. This is a good point. I suspect many people here have grown tired of hearing "dude I have this idea for an app..." I just graduated from college and many of my nontechnical friends who went into finance are realizing they hate it and want to get into tech startups. During college I was always busy so I shrugged off these conversations. Now I have time to listen, and it turns out, many of them actually do have good ideas and business models. They just don't know how to code them. But these are smart, well connected people who can raise money. Dismissing their ideas is foolish and could certainly be a waste. I realized I can monetize all my friends asking me to help with apps. I have a team of programmers I've worked with overseas, and I know how to manage them to complete projects. I've started offering a service to my friends where I take them from idea to MVP (usually a basic CRUD web app). I translate ideas to technical requirements, write a spec, divide it into milestones, negotiate payment schedule, and manage the project to completion. I structure the price per milestone so that my team is rewarded for hitting deadlines, e.g. Milestone X (some subset of feature requirements) pays $1000 by 4/31, or $1500 by 4/24. This has worked well for me in the past and is a good way to keep projects on schedule. I just started doing this, and I've gotten a new lead or two each week so far. None have been serious enough about the idea yet to immediately execute, but I suspect with some pressure applied they will be ready. I spoke to an alumnus from my school who graduated 3 years ago and did this in an official capacity. He started a "product development consultancy" wih a hybrid employee/outsource model, and tapped his alumni network for projects. His company completed 39 projects in its first year, all sourced from networking. If you are an engineer also blessed with a strong network and interpersonal skills, I suggest you look into this as well. You don't need to code every app that someone wants help with. Often you can help give direction, or even charge for your services of managing an overseas team. People who leave finance are a good match because they can raise funds to the point that you can offer cheap, quality service from a friend, but also pay your developers way more than median salary in their country. I think of it like arbitraging my networks and skillsets. Regardless of whether you do that, I definitely recommend putting an end to the habit of ignoring the app ideas of your friends.

hackthisaccount 12y ago

I would add: No matter what a stripper tells you, there is no sex in the champaign room.

tieTYT 12y ago

> Always refuse if someone asks you to sign an NDA before hearing their idea I hear this a lot. What's the reasoning?

Retra 12y ago
1. They are probably extremely selfish. 2. If they think they need an NDA in a conversation, then they probably don't know how to think well enough to have an idea worth hearing.
vonnik 12y ago
1) NDAs are pretty much unenforceable. If someone asks you to sign one, that means they are very new to the business, and probably have a lot of other mistakes to make. 2) It shows they don't trust you. My rule of thumb is: distrust is a disease that NDAs won't cure, and indicates much deeper problems. If you don't trust someone, just don't share with them.

zxcvvcxz 12y ago

A lot of these 'problems' and 'lessons' seem to come as a byproduct of being a part of a 'scene' to do with startups, particularly uninspiring web and mobile startups. 'Uninspiring', to me, means people doing a startup for the sake of doing a startup, not because they're passionate about the problem, have found a good opportunity/market to exploit, etc. One of the best pieces of advice I got was to not associated with losers. It's harsh, I know, but if you see people around you not being productive and successful, chances are you're in the wrong peer group. Better to have a smaller and higher quality social circle than to let your time be wasted by 'the scene'. There's a good heuristic - anytime someone calls something a 'scene', it's time to leave. It means the people are interested more in the idea of what they're doing than the real thing.

brc 12y ago
It's also one of the hardest things to avoid - associating with losers. That is because the losers tend to look for company and make it easy to join their groups, while the achievers and doers jealously guard their time and acquaintances - which is why they are achievers and doers. A neat way around this can be to start doing recreational activities that achievers do. Taking time to develop skills in whatever that is will help to make friendships and relationships that matter. This doesn't have to be as obvious as joining an expensive golf club - in fact, that club might be populated by losers in the 'golf scene' - golf is horrendously time-soaking. It could be an early morning cycling group, could be anything. It's most likely not a pub-visiting binge drinking group.

_RPM 12y ago

> The people who are really getting somewhere aren't the people who are always out for drinks I've found that true in a lot of contexts. > Everyone has a hidden stash of domains they've never used Very true for me. I have about 7 domains not being used.

chaosfactor 12y ago

P(you create a successful company|you read this guys post) ~= 0

chrisshroba 12y ago
Please avoid gratuitous negativity. http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline http://blog.ycombinator.com/new-hacker-news-guideline
- chaosfactor 12y ago
  It's not gratiutously negative - or even negative at all. It's a matter of fact. The advice in that column will not lead you to create a successful company, so take it with a healthy dose of humility and with a grain of salt. Indeed, while your post can be considered harmful, mine cannot.

giis 12y ago

Its a very good list. Completely agree with 53 and 54. Thanks for sharing it. Sometime ago I listed out my experience here giis.co.in/do.html

henryaj 12y ago

> It's really easy to become hyper-critical and respond to every idea with "yeah but that won't work because of x". This is lazy, don't do it. I've a close friend who does this -- I wouldn't even call it being 'hyper-critical'; I call it snark. It's a really negative personality trait and one I take pains to avoid. As Sam Altman said in his How To Start A Startup lectures: usually the best ideas are a little bit weird.