Flip the stick
sivers.org
sivers.org
("You're doing some fascinating things with crowdsourcing. It's something I've been diving into as well, and have some ideas for you. At very least it'll be a good conversation. Can I treat you to a quick after-work drink at Tres Agaves across the street from your office some day next week?")
Of course, if it's something you can legitimately add value to (e.g. you actually have been diving into crowdsourcing or whatever) then your approach may be the way to go.
Great post.
By the way, if anyone actually wants to buy me a drink at Tres Agaves (which is very close to my office), please let me know :)
To go back to the example of offering an idea to help with whatever, that's really just going to be a waste of time for most people. I'd much prefer the person simply say they want x/y/z and would like to meet or talk. Call it obvious flattery, it's also honest and efficient.
So, I'm not trying to say a less experienced person should come up with something to try to help the more experienced person; I'm saying that if a less experienced person wants me to help them, they should show that they are likely to get it done with minimal hand holding from me. Helping other people is fun, but I'm only going to do it if it's not that much work for me and it's only satisfying if they pull through and get the thing done.
In a way I may be agreeing with your initial post; it's just that you don't flatter technical people by complementing them; that just makes us feel weird. you flatter technical people by asking their opinion/knowledge, or letting them help you in ways that are easy for them. (the line between flattery and asking for free help is a thin one. A lot of that depends on the more experienced person's assessment of the less experienced person's potential and ability. it also has to do with the level of responsibility expected of the more experienced person; if you expect me to keep track, organize, or follow through on something, that's /work/ and I expect to get paid. If you want to ask my opinion on how to solve an interesting question, that's fun, and it's somewhat flattering that you think my yammerings are useful. a paper could be written on when it is good to ask for free help, and when it is bad to do so. )
Honestly it sounds like we are very nearly on the same page, though this quote is a bit odd to me. I don't think it's fair to define "technical people" by saying that compliments make them feel weird. I should point out that I'm not the one that has talked about flattering as a tactic.
I think we completely agree on having something interesting to talk about as a helpful quality.
Reciprocity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini
It's such a simple thing to do and at the very least will give you something to take pause on or motivate you to get through the rest of the week.
I'm think if I was in this situation, I wouldn't capitalize on this and just shove the card in a drawer - having no clue what to actually call the guy about, or be too afraid to ask for something.
Pretty soon the guy offering the shitty end will wonder where all his consumers[1] went.
[1] I hate that term. It invariably is a signal that whatever is being offered is shitty.
I really admire your quick thinking but I feel that you don't always have an opportunity. I have been to lectures where as the lecture is over, the speakers seem to be escorted out.
Establishing a personal connection is difficult. One of the things I love about HN is how accessible everyone is, but not everyone provides a point of contact.
"Shitty sticks" are usually a result of disadvantageous power dynamics, often set in place by the mistakes of previous generations, and therefore not so easily flippable, given the massive number of people who benefit from keeping them in position.
Take, for example, the relationship between VCs and entrepreneurs. VCs make entrepreneurs pay legal expenses, often ask for outrageous terms and returns (participating preferred, multiple liquidation preferences), and tend to demand such a degree of power as to ruin the company. That's, without debate, a shitty stick. The simplistic solution, "become a VC", doesn't make any sense. 1. Most entrepreneurs don't want to be VCs, and 2. most of them can't join that club.
Well, the examples Derek gave were of starting a bank or becoming a distributor, but that's not the only way to flip the stick. When you've got a rough idea, an unproven business plan, and some smart but unproven people you're going to get bad terms, because the vast majority of rough ideas, unproven business plans, and smart but unproven people's companies flame out.
You could flip that around by working up any of those - turn your rough idea into a concrete, functional product. Prove the business plan (easiest way is revenues). And then after you've had some successes under your belt, you get money at great terms in the future.
The person with less leverage always gets the shit end of the stick. There's usually a lot more smart-but-unproven people with hazy unproven ideas that want financing than there is venture money to go around. Hence, bad terms. But there's also nowhere near enough companies raising money on a solid, proven growth trajectory being run by credible people. If you get that going on, you can raise crazy amounts of money on good terms.
"Flip the stick" means you don't have to accept the position of lower leverage and the bad terms that come with it, the shit end of the stick. There's more ways to accomplish that than just "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em".
Right, but bad VC terms shouldn't even exist. There are a lot of bad ideas out there and a few good ones. VCs are "supposed" to be the ones who can pick out the good deals; that's why they get paid their high salaries. If the deal is good, the terms should be good because the VC wants the founders to have high morale and a successful company. If the deal is bad, the VC shouldn't fund it at all.
I wouldn't be insulted or offended if a VC rejected me. I'd expect quite a few rejections. Multiple liquidation preferences are an insult; it says "we think you're fucking pathetic; here are some scraps".
A willingness to oversimplify the world certainly makes it a lot easier to write the kind of motivational drivel that this post aspires towards.
Is it not the case that our minds often like to tell us bleak stories that turn out to be far removed from reality? So maybe, reality doesn't necessarily need to be as complex as our minds might try to make it?
But once you've taken the step of removing the arbitrary obstacles from your path, only the real ones remain. Which may sound a little depressing, but hey, once you're this far, why stop?
Personally, I don't think that harsh criticism is necessarily a bad thing. (I mean, the aforementioned comment was perhaps written without reading the article, I mean it doesn't make much sense in the context of the author actually doing those things... but I personally don't think that negative comments are always bad things.)
One thing I hate about the real world is that nobody ever calls me on my bullshit. I'm not saying I think K5 is the optimal form, but in many ways it's better than a place where everyone is always encouraging me and telling me what a great guy I am.
- You're really trying to inspire some kind of substantiative, rational discussion and not just verbal sparring. K5 sort of was and sort of wasn't. It was both a discussion-place and a playground. HN is supposed to be much more a discussion-place.
- The harsh criticism doesn't give the poster any means to fight back. "Motivational drivel" isn't a criticism that someone can argue against, nor is "This kind of comment makes me wish we had a moratorium on signups or a $5 fee." So that criticism is useless for promoting discussion, or even for promoting any kind of further on-topic thought at all. It routes the conversation toward more flames.
I strongly prefer total Mad Max flamewar arguments, but it tends to drive away a lot of people who have a (well-meaning) tendency to try to take any criticism, and deal with any critics. I mean, you see threads on here complaining that people downvote things without explanation! Obviously the posters of those threads would be gone in an instant if trolls started outright insulting them all over the place.
>(Then clean it, so it's not shitty for anyone else again.)
That means you're in a position to gather the resources to make a difference in these problems, even if you can't start today.
Oh, wait.