Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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>Given HN's general focus on growth and funding, I think it's great/important for an article/concept like this to be given some reach. [...] , it's refreshing to see an article like this

It's interesting how people get this inaccurate perspective. It's an interesting phenomenon where the majority (incorrectly) believes they are the suppressed minority. (I feel there must be a name to describe that phenomenon but I don't know what it is.)

The HN community actually is heavily tilted towards no-growth or low-growth bootstrapped companies. (I use "HN" to mean the HN discussion forum and not the YC fund.) Spending any time on HN and noticing what type of business articles are popular would make that obvious. Also, a relevant quote from dang: "Far more HN commenters (and voters) identify against VC than with it.": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13931617

Examples of this are the very popular David Heinemeier Hansson (DHH) articles that make a case for staying small and avoiding VC money that pressures you to grow fast:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14694434

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13668746

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13929398

Those get upvoted to the front page and commenters pile on in violent agreement. There's no need to be "refreshed" by the advice to stay small -- it's basically the default sentiment on HN.

I found your comment a bit abrasive, yet you’re lacking the grit to support it besides just anecdotal evidence (just as the parent comment).

I have yet another opinion - I’ve seen a wide variety of articles on HN from how to grow fast to how to stay small. We’re not going to stay productive by arguing without data.

>support it besides just anecdotal evidence

If it isn't clear, "dang" is one of the longtime moderators and I'm confident he's seen enough quantity of posts over the years to have an accurate pulse of the HN readership.

There are virtually zero articles giving the advice to "take VC money and grow grow grow" that made it to the front page. (If you have examples, please post them.) The YC fund emphasizes exponential growth startups but in contrast, the HN discussions downgrade it.

This thread's article from Antoine Finkelstein and the DHH posts that I cited are much more popular with the HN crowd. I'm not complaining about it; it's just an interesting observation.

I couldn't disagree with you more. Everyday, I read articles about VC. How to pitch, how to prepare, how to strategize a startup to ensure future growth, scalability, etc.

Let's just take an article from our own backyard: https://blog.ycombinator.com/ycs-essential-startup-advice/

Almost 800 points on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15331016

Quoting the article, "Growth is always a focus for startups, since a startup without growth is usually a failure." This is article doesn't apply to folks who want to stay small (the discussion of this topic ~ 3 people company).

You could have approached your argument a little less strongly - simply stating your opinions. Authoritative didactic statements require data to back it up otherwise it just sounds abrasive and completely unproductive.

>Everyday, I read articles about VC. How to pitch, how to prepare,

Ok, I see the misunderstanding. I wasn't talking about the existence of any VC startup related articles. Yes those do show up on HN. I wasn't talking about those.

I was talking about a very specific type of startup article that would advise you that "staying small is suboptimal and won't make you happy. Instead, if you want to be happy, you must get big by getting VC firms to invest in you." It's the the type of advice that's the opposite of what this article and DHH's articles are about. There are no such articles giving that type of growth-for-happiness advice on HN's front pages.

The "YC’s Essential Startup Advice" that you cited is meant for people who've already bought into the "startup" mindset and is mostly "build product fit" advice and not "growth=happy" advice. It's not a counterpoint to this article's advice nor counterpoint to the popular DHH articles.

(I see that you participated in that previous thread's discussion so it may seem like YC startup advice dominates here. You wanted tactical advice on starting a small business that wasn't AirBnb or Uber and that article didn't cater to that scenario.)

>Quoting the article, "Growth is always a focus for startups, since a startup without growth is usually a failure."

Yes, that quote about "startup=growth" is relevant to YC's and Paul Graham's definition of "startup" so it's their tautological statement in the context of their blog post. It's not advising that entrepreneurs of small businesses will find happiness by chasing growth. Yes, a small bootstrapped business that stays small is another definition of "startup" but that's not the "startup" YC/PG are talking about.

To restate the context of my comment, the gp (onassar) wrote, "I think it's great/important for an article/concept like this to be given some reach."

... which he is agreeing with the advice of the article to avoid VC money to stay "happy". He framed it as if that "happy=small" idea was some "lone voice in the woods" that everybody on HN needs to be reminded of. My point is that onassar must have some false impression because that's already the overwhelming sentiment on HN.

>it just sounds abrasive

Did you also find Daniel Gackle's (dang) comment abrasive?

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