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Comment by haploid | Hacker News Reader

I'm really astounded by some of the comments here, almost as if I was browsing the TechCrunch echo chamber. This is certainly not bad advice.

The ratio of "we just got funded" to "we actually developed a valuable product" stories I see in the tech press is getting to astronomical levels. I view this piece as being in response to this trend that really ought to be clear to anybody.

When the bubble pops, having a working, profitable product will be far nicer than having a contact list stuffed full of VC contacts that are now( post-bubble ) scared shitless of doing any deals for any valuation whatsoever.

Then again, pg says there's no bubble, so disregard this and party on. It's different this time.

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"The ratio of "we just got funded" to "we actually developed a valuable product" stories I see in the tech press is getting to astronomical levels."

In the tech press. But amongst all enterpreneurs it is still quite low. For example no one would fund me, the noname hacker without a working product I can tell you that for sure. As I've browsed angel's profiles I saw that a working product with some customer/user traction seemed to be the absolute minimum for most of them to consider funding a startup. (I've seen something like 'social proof' in those angel-application forms, which may change things for some people, but not for me.)

Comments critical of this article acknowledge the existence of people for whom this is good advice. The comment I see failing to acknowledge the other side is yours. "This is certainly not bad advice.". For whom?

I'm really new to this game, but it just cannot image how going around talking about an idea could be remotely productive. I've got a lot of ideas - so what? It seems to me that if you fall into that category, then this is probably good advice. On the other hand, it's probably not a bad idea to set out some sort of target for a prototype or whatever so you don't spend all of your time and resources in development. It just seems like a better conversation starter to say something like "Look at this!" rather than "I've got this great idea!"

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