How to write good startup advice articles
swombat.com
swombat.com
It's like the affiliate marketer, the self-help guru, or the Dr. Phils of the world who've made a name for themselves only by selling you and others into it. There are several startup blogs and schools of thought that I'm thinking of here that are no different.
It's like the publishing industry. For every great book or blog you read there are thousands of other crappy ones. People in the startup/venture business who have the strongest track records though are also the same people who write the best startup advice.
That's why I love reading posts by Mark Cuban, PG, Paul Bucheit, Derek Sivers, Fred Wilson, Howard Lindzon, Andy Swan, the list goes on... real wisdom is always hard-earned.
In the last six months or so, I've felt the same way about a lot of the users here on HN. It's a joke amongst my friends who also read this site that we wish there was a "PROVE IT" button next to each comment... just as a way to tweak all of the people who like to talk like they've come down the mountain with stone tablets to tell us how to do things.
That's not to say that everyone here who has taken the time to offer advice and suggestions to others is full of it, of course. Yet I still think you should hesitate to take a lot of what people say with any degree of importance until you know that their background justifies it.
How cool would it have been if you could go back and read Mark Cuban's blog or PG's blog before they were successful? Don't you think that even reading about their struggles before they were successful might help to keep you motivated as you may find yourself with similar struggles?
I bet if you looked back at the posts of anyone who's a real success today before they proved themselves you wouldn't see them preaching as if they know everything. I think that's a big problem in the startup/venture business, some people seem to develop larger personalities online than they do offline.
This thread, and my response to it, was related to giving out startup advice. I'm not against blogging at all and I think it's great that you're doing it. I plan on starting a blog soon myself, but until I earn my stripes I'll always think of myself as a student.
What's awful are the articles written by first-time entrepreneurs or wantrepreneurs who have yet to do anything. They're mostly harmless, but sometimes they give horrifically bad advice. As a rule, most of the great entrepreneurs I know don't blog.
If you take even one step on the way, there are a lot more people behind you than ahead of you.
Ultimately people have to become smart enough to make their own judgement about the information you provide. So long as you don't present yourself as an authority when you're clearly not, I don't see anything wrong with sharing your point of view. In fact, it is, among other things, a great way to learn - from the feedback of others who might read your points and explain why you're wrong.
Stop writing "startup advice" articles and put that energy into building your freaking product.
Your advice above is a great example of terrible startup advice. You're over-generalising from your personal situation and experience, you're not including any context, you're being too brief to be convincing, and you're presenting this advice as a one-line comment in an online forum, which gives it little credibility.
For those who are not looking to sell books, invest in the next big thing, give lectures, or provide startup consulting, "work on the product" is about the most non-terrible piece of advice anyone could possibly give.
Before I even start reading, I want to know if the article is by someone who has actually done a start-up.
Most people do identify their startup in their bio, anyway.
The trick is to walk the fine line between entertaining and vacuousness -- lack of substance. Having a solid recommendation helps, but that's only because it's a clear goal. Some of the best articles I've read appear to be completely entertainment-based, yet leave the reader thinking in a new way they hadn't thought before.
Based on a dare from swombat, I tried to do this with today's blog entry (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2124230), but missed the boat. Satire is very difficult.
There is a tension between being too direct and being too general. To Edw512's point, if you clearly identify your target, it's much easier to walk that line.