What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Startups 4 Years Ago | Hacker News Reader

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Startups 4 Years Ago

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377 pointsamirkhella55 comments

He's right. The most important thing we tell each YC batch, immediately after interviews, is start now. Startups should be building stuff and talking to users, and not much else.

having done a startup with no "network" at all, and one knowing of and taking part in the tech startup community, I do think there is massive amount of value added when you are a part of "the scene"

You gain a network who will push your startup, introduce you to customers, investors, partners, media, you get some knowledge shared from people in the same situation, tools and methods they used and sometimes its just comforting being part of a group of people in the same situation who you can all relate with.

obviously a lot of this comes as part of the package with YC, imo one of its biggest attractions.

(and obviously this definitely cannot be done in place of building a product / talking to customers)

Introducing people is easy for us, but we need some ammunition to make introductions effective. We need to be able to say not just please meet x, but please meet x, who have built an amazing y.

At the risk of being pedantic, and because I know a large percentage of folks do not understand what you are saying, by "amazing" do you mean something with a lot of users and proof of traction? Not something that looks cool, is an incredible program, or most programmers would think is awesome? Because the average user of HN's opinion of "awesome" and yours might be very far apart.

When I say to investors that something is good, I mean good from their point of view. Which means that users do or will love it, and the market is big.

This is a gem of an advice.

I think this is something that many people (Industries?) mistake about networking.

Your version is better then the alternative, and both are leagues in advance of "Hi, I'm X, I might want Y from you in the future". Leagues because it's an approach that's nonsensical and belongs in the past.

Great description. What else besides "have built an amazing y" is good ammunition for an effective introduction?

The founders are formidable. But that's not something one can change as rapidly.

there is massive amount of value added when you are a part of "the scene"

I won't spam you with a link to our new startup that lets do you exactly that (just check my profile), but I can't stress enough how important the network is. The number one mistake I have seen technical founders (like myself) make is to code one more line of code, rather than talk to a real user or an influencer. There is always one more line of code to write.

There's a multiplier effect at work, though. If your product sucks, no amount of networking is going to save you, because everybody you shop it to will just say "You're f___ing crazy if you think anyone will ever buy this." While if you build something awesome but nobody knows about it, well, nobody knows about it.

The sweet spot is to have something that's good enough that users will sit up and say "Hey, that's kinda useful", and then get it in front of lots of users.

Building up my network is exactly what I'm focusing on right now, because when I came up with the idea, I quickly realized nobody I knew could directly help me and what I want to do is going to require a solid team. I figure I'll spend another few weeks or so on hardcore networking (YC deadline, coincidence?) and then shift over to really building the product.

One of the nice things for me is that entrepreneurs/engineers also count as potential customers/users so I'm still advancing my cause this way. By not being shy about what I'm trying to do, I've gotten a lot of genuine interest and useful feedback.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that network effects are a major component of my momentum right now and that even though a focus on developing the product is good, building a good team quickly and finding the right support are worth the upfront investment.

I disagree.

Obviously, building product is the sine qua non of a startup. But, there's a huge difference for companies that can build a great product, and then access the YC brand and network, and those that don't have access to that brand and network.

There's a number of companies that build a great product, but then they need access to a network for advice and funding. If you're going to get funded via Angel List, for instance, you have to have some form of social proof.

I am a little more pragmatic about this whole thing, without HN I really wouldn't have realised the benefits of MVC, Memcached, JQuery, SEO, github, the options for charging for an app, Python, the concept of bootstrapping, timing attacks, how easy it is to become a contractor, incubators, even the realisation that you don't need funding to setup a web app. And many more that don't pop into my head now. It's made me a more confident programmer.

There is a lot to be gained in coming here and reading the blogs, the advice. Perhaps more from the comments. Admittedly there is a fair bit of noise and distraction too.

There are benefits as well as negatives, I think it's one of these cases of all things in moderation. I go to the occasional startup meetings and developers meetings near me for fun and relaxation, not because I think it will gain me riches. Because it interests me. Occasionally it motivates me (seeing Rob Wilmot (freeserve) and Joel Gasgoine (myonepage/bufferapp)).

While get it done and ship is a lesson I sorely need beaten into me at this last stage of development, I for one do not begrudge myself these distractions.

I agree, I've got the same value out of these things as you. But pretty much all the people I know who have had some amount of success with anything didn't know these things and didn't care.

They just hacked something together and didn't stop...

So I think the value you are describing comes a fair distant second.

Great post!

AFAIC, Success = (BuildingStuff) * (TheValueOfEverythingElse)

If you're not building stuff, it doesn't matter how much value you get out of everything else. Zero is still zero.

Sorry it took you 4 years to learn that lesson. It took me a while too. I don't really know how long because I don't look back. I suspect none of us should.

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the next best time is right now ;)

Maybe the best quote I ever read. Never heard/read it before but I will probably quote it over and over again for the rest of my life. If it's from another language I'll probably get a pretentious tattoo of it.

I finally live according to that dictum now, but it took me 37 years to get to that place.

Facebook itself is brilliant testament to that. They entered an insanely crowded marketplace, with many leaders way way ahead of them. The were as late as late could be to create a "Social Network". It would be like showing up to a potluck at 2AM with a tray full of appetizers.

And then they mowed everybody down.

Appetizers tend to be good snack food, and by 2 AM most people are hungry again and need something to sober up with... so actually your analogy works better than you probably intended.

So if its 2am and you're holding a tray full of appetizers, show up any way? (Next best thing, after all.)

Absolutely

Optimum tempus plantandi arborem annos XX, proximus ad presens tempus.

You might have more luck than google translater, but at least it sounds right.

Is there some hidden meaning to '20 years ago', am I missing something?

Many varieties of trees take a couple decades to grow into something that adds a lot to the landscape.

It is better to make $5 a month on something you created than spend a million dollars on learning how to build the perfect startup.

The more I learn about startups the more I realize that the answers are not found in a book or on a blog somewhere. Startups are about synthesis, not instructions. That means until you execute, you don't know what you're doing. Hell, you don't know what you're doing even after you execute.

Also the more I learn the more I realize that me sitting around and writing comments like this are a big part of the problem. Both for me and others.

Back to work.

Absolutely agree. Execute first and make $5 online instead of reading books on how to make your first $1 million.

But I don't see you writing this comment as a problem. If it reaffirms your beliefs, results in you taking action, and teaches someone, you have just taught two people something. Back to work...

I am Milton from Innotech and I hate my life. I'm stuck where I am because I am working full time and a full time student. But neither is really satisfying. I can't seem to raise enough capital to get my ideas off the ground and I can't seem to think of any good ideas that require no capital and can be completed with only a few hours a week.

But I will graduate eventually, then I will make more money and get out of debt. until then all I can really do is watch things from the sidelines and keep learning.

If you've gotten used to both full time work and full time study at the same time, then you shouldn't have any trouble finding the time and energy to work on projects outside of work hours when you graduate! Hang in there.

I did the same thing, and I can assure you that it's a wonderful feeling from the other side. It is, however, hell to go through.

Especially when you realize your red stapler is missing.

Reminds me of my favorite violinist, his one of the cleanest players you'll find: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mixnMzHUYxA

Once he was asked what music piece he thought was most difficult to play, his reply was something like: "Either you can play a piece or you can't, there is no difficult, difficult leads to friction in your playing"

The 'not best' players when faced with difficult passages will consciously or subconsciously have fear of it and stress out, this is will cause tension and can be picked up by the viewer.

Milstein's was known for taking any musical piece he liked and 'hacking' it till he knew it inside out, for every passage he will try all sorts of fingerings. An average player will be content to play one fingering well, relying mostly on muscle memory, but Milstein would study a piece and really play from his head, at each moment he could choose between different fingerings. Thats how he thought and practiced, and if you look at his performance he is always relaxed because his preparation is so thorough and he played from his mind.

Good post, I've been through a similar situation. I worked for some large evil company, and needed all of those meetups and blog posts to validate the idea that I wanted to work on or at a startup. But I am not sure that cutting them out totally is a good idea. They do help you build your network, and some people you meet at these events CAN actually be helpful. Maybe like with alcohol, it is good in moderation. But I agree, it is easy to get swept up in the spirit of entrepreneurship but never become one.

I think networking, from a business perspective, is a lot like display advertising. It's more about building credibility for when you need it later than about the immediate sale. You want people to say "Hey, I've heard of that guy before."

Several competitors, when they wanted out of the business, approached me about buying them out for cheap. I even went through with one of the deals (the customers and some of the other assets, but not the name, of tilenetworks now belongs to prgmr.com. We'll be announcing a KVM product at some point based on the tilenetworks stuff.)

But much like advertising, it's not much use until you have something to buy or sell.

Great post!

I would add one thing about momentum: don't be afraid to say "I'll get back to that problem" and focus on keeping the momentum going. This has made a HUGE difference in my project. A feature could have stopped me in my tracks, I bypassed it to keep development going and now it turns out that I don't need that feature. It could have stopped my process for weeks, but now, not at all.

Just, keep track of those things so you can get back to them later.

Great article despite the irony of advising people to not read it.

I know a lot of people who could tell you the name of every startup that launched on TechCrunch last week. Pretty much none of them have been successful. My advice to most of these people is "take a month off of the blogs and actually do something."

If you spend your life watching the waves, you're never going to catch one let alone make one.

But if the first time you've seen the sea was when you ran into it with a brand new board, the waves are going to catch you.

I engage in my own startups as if there were nothing else in the world. But the instincts I have come from my own participation, and also by consuming startup news in time I can easily afford.

The problem with all the blogs/interviews/features about strategies or lifehacks or whatever is that if it hadn't worked, would they have bothered to write a blog about it?

Meaning, hundreds of other people might have tried and failed with the exact same thinking, but you don't hear about them, making success stories seem more significant than they really are.

I think the "wasted time" the author refers to is, in fact, time needed to get ready. Some folks won't need as much of it (or any at all), others will need more.

In the end, finding that "fear of not starting" is incredibly important, but I posit that could only be found by the author after his "walk in the wilderness".

Bhahaha. I bursted out laughing when I saw Milton.

I agree with most of the points, but one thing I've learned in my years doing web startups is making sure their is a need for your product. Lots of Lean Startup principles are unbelievably useful at showing your idea has legs before investing any time or money into it.

I use technology entrepreneur sites for inspiration when I'm getting sluggish after working the day job all day. Devoting more energy to "learning about being an entrepreneur" can be really unproductive. The best learning will be done by doing. I agree with this link.

Now it's time to go back to work!

I stopped reading techcrunch a year back. I will stop reading HN for the next 60 days

I think a valuable complement to this is the idea of finding the fastest minimum viable product you can create and start getting feedback on, and if the original idea would take months to launch, then trying to plan a path to it through a space of increasingly involved products that are viable at every step from the most quickly launchable initial product, even if that doesn't bear much resemblance to the original idea.

    I stopped reading startup news and blogs for few weeks, and I realized I didn’t miss anything related to my products.

Fallacy?

The way I understand the message is that you don't need startup news. By reading startup news, you feel productive and informed, but that doesn't contribute to actual time building your product.

Who cares how much Quora, Groupon, Fb, etc are valued. Who cares what new feature Gmail has or what new tablet Apple is coming out with. Most startup news is filled with these headlines that don't impact your startup.

By not surfing HN, Reddit, etc., the author was able to focus on building his product.

I turn to HN when I hit a road block. Sometimes I learn something new, but a lot of times Im just procrastinating.

Truth. Theory and practice are not separate, they are one. I am learning this myself right now. I finally realized the only way to change the fruits (results) is to the change the roots (actions). Consuming empty information are like consuming empty calories. It adds nothing but confusion and wastes nothing but time and energy.

BTW: Favorite HN post of the month. :)

Great post. The discrepancy between the title and the URL made me smirk, even though it was probably not relevant.

"work now and talk later"

this is just dead simple lesson in theory but why it takes time to actually practically feel this?

i think i will read and re-read only this post for few days. no more popurls.

Good advice; Do you have other startup advice? I'd love to read all about it!

Isn't irony great; momentum and actually doing work is super important. Really good post.

Great, great post. To honour it's spirit: it should also be the last post I read on HN. Before long another four years will have passed by.

I wish someone had told me about startups 4 years ago :-).

really great!

Don’t be an entrepreneur by association. Be an entrepreneur by action and results.

That's one of the best things I've ever seen on HN. It (unfortunately) hits close to home.

Whenever I get an idea nowadays, I do something to pin it to my reality, and to make it tangible. I do it in a quick and ugly way, then figure out how to do it better, and learn only what I need for that.

Perfect.

After reading a number posts/articles similar to this, I feel like I'm pretty lucky to have gone the route I've taken. Being young and full of myself and thinking I can do pretty much anything I put my mind to is also a big factor, I'm sure. But it's also of course had negative impacts.

When I left my old lifestyle ("rockstar" lol emphasis on the quotations) I immediately dove into the little side project I was working on while in the band... and said, "Alright I'm gonna turn this into an actual business. Should be pretty easy... there's definitely tons of bands and management out there who would use it and I've already gotten most of it done." Little did I know, after working on it for a month, I saw vast potential in the basis of the project and decided to start over but make everything insanely flexible. Being arrogant as I was, I figured it wouldn't take more than a month or two. But of course it added on a few more months of (hard!) work and now almost 8 months later I'm literally less than a day away from actual release. (Look out for a rate my startup thread, hopefully tomorrow! ;))

Now, my determination (more like obsession) to get it 99% to what I'd imagined it to be months ago has led me to probably a situation that could be better. I probably could have released the app months ago at 50% and received awesome feedback along the way molding its design to exactly as customers want... while having a much larger customer-base and awareness than I do currently (practically none! :()... but I was afraid it would get a bad reputation early on and turn off more customers in the long run. But now in retrospect, if I'd known this from the beginning I'd have gone in a direction that allowed me to release much earlier without compromising the app's reputation. My mind was just so set on that one full idea I had from the beginning. I guess next time I'll be more prepared!

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