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These are tough lessons to take at face value. Unicorns are even harder to replicate so their path to success is also fraught with unique challenges. The whole

These are tough lessons to take at face value. Unicorns are even harder to replicate so their path to success is also fraught with unique challenges. The whole "keep going" and "don't give up" mentality is admirable, but it's also admirable to know when your product-market fit isn't there, or when it's time to close up shop. A healthy dose of skepticism and reality is the needed yang to balance the yin of persistence and resilience.

zabramow 11y ago
Agreed. But you don't need to investors to figure that out. You can get that from your users or customers.
jl 11y ago
It's true, not all ideas are good and it's important to be flexible-minded about these things. But as I mentioned, the Airbnb founders knew from their own experiences using their product and from their user base (albeit small at the time) that Airbnb felt like a good idea. I've seen founders give up based on the equivalent of these 7 rejections from investors so I wanted to remind people to persevere. I'm sure glad the Airbnbs did.
etblg 11y ago
The key may be in the fact that we call them 'unicorns'
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  Indeed. One thing I've realized over time is how common it is to suddenly realize something, perhaps years later than you should, that should always have been blindingly obvious. I like to call such experiences "duh-piphanies". What's interesting is that this happens all the time technology and invention. Take something like the "hesco bastion", it's just a giant, foldable, wire reinforced cloth sided bucket that you put dirt and rocks in using earth moving equipment. It's something that could have been built a hundred years ago. But it wasn't invented until the '90s, and since then they've seen widespread adoption in a huge variety of uses. Similar examples exist in every industry. The rise of Google is a true Unicorn tale. The story of hardcore CS nerds rebuilding a product that was already ubiquitous with a crowded market and re-inventing it down to the algorithmic level, defying every norm on the way there. But most innovative products have some element of blinding obviousness about them. Uber? Maybe we could use the worldwide communications network that every has a constantly connected terminal to in their pockets at all times to dispatch cabs instead of, you know, telephones or just having cabs circulate in high-demand areas. Dropbox? Network file storage that leverages the speed of the modern internet and modern storage technologies to remove the hassle of dealing with networked files. Square? What if people could just run an app on their portable computing devices which are already vastly more powerful and constantly internet connected instead of using crusty custom-built PoS hardware and systems? Stripe? Imagine if banking embraced the technology of the late '90s. And so on. 90+% of the "Unicorns" are just the sensible application of technology to already well-known problems, and just doing it well and monetizing properly. That shouldn't be so exceptional, but somehow it is. I think that's more an indictment of the silicon valley way of doing things than anything else. And the thing is, the rate of return to VCs when a Unicorn hits is so big that it covers the losses from all the bozos.

zabramow 11y ago

Agreed. But you don't need to investors to figure that out. You can get that from your users or customers.

jl 11y ago

It's true, not all ideas are good and it's important to be flexible-minded about these things. But as I mentioned, the Airbnb founders knew from their own experiences using their product and from their user base (albeit small at the time) that Airbnb felt like a good idea. I've seen founders give up based on the equivalent of these 7 rejections from investors so I wanted to remind people to persevere. I'm sure glad the Airbnbs did.

etblg 11y ago

The key may be in the fact that we call them 'unicorns'

InclinedPlane 11y ago
Indeed. One thing I've realized over time is how common it is to suddenly realize something, perhaps years later than you should, that should always have been blindingly obvious. I like to call such experiences "duh-piphanies". What's interesting is that this happens all the time technology and invention. Take something like the "hesco bastion", it's just a giant, foldable, wire reinforced cloth sided bucket that you put dirt and rocks in using earth moving equipment. It's something that could have been built a hundred years ago. But it wasn't invented until the '90s, and since then they've seen widespread adoption in a huge variety of uses. Similar examples exist in every industry. The rise of Google is a true Unicorn tale. The story of hardcore CS nerds rebuilding a product that was already ubiquitous with a crowded market and re-inventing it down to the algorithmic level, defying every norm on the way there. But most innovative products have some element of blinding obviousness about them. Uber? Maybe we could use the worldwide communications network that every has a constantly connected terminal to in their pockets at all times to dispatch cabs instead of, you know, telephones or just having cabs circulate in high-demand areas. Dropbox? Network file storage that leverages the speed of the modern internet and modern storage technologies to remove the hassle of dealing with networked files. Square? What if people could just run an app on their portable computing devices which are already vastly more powerful and constantly internet connected instead of using crusty custom-built PoS hardware and systems? Stripe? Imagine if banking embraced the technology of the late '90s. And so on. 90+% of the "Unicorns" are just the sensible application of technology to already well-known problems, and just doing it well and monetizing properly. That shouldn't be so exceptional, but somehow it is. I think that's more an indictment of the silicon valley way of doing things than anything else. And the thing is, the rate of return to VCs when a Unicorn hits is so big that it covers the losses from all the bozos.