Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

Comment by davidw | Hacker News Reader

I don't like the sniffy tone in the conclusion:

> But it’s important to note what these napkin projects/test are not. They are not a company, nor are they are a startup. Running them doesn’t make you a founder. And while they are entrepreneurial experiments, until you actually commit to them by choosing one idea, quitting your day job and committing yourself 24/7 it’s not clear that the word “founder or entrepreneur” even applies.

I think he's right, but it comes across as a bit uncharitable somehow; pointing out the obvious, I guess. I suppose it'd be like a professional cyclist writing about how someone like myself is "merely an amateur". True, but we both know it, and it's not really necessary to point it out unless you feel like demeaning someone.

You could phrase the thing in a different way to convey the same message:

"I think it's great that we live in a time when so many people can experiment so easily, and look forward to some of these experiments blossoming into full-on startups, which I believe happens at the point when the founders quit their day jobs to work on them full-time".

Or something to that effect.

What's "sniffy" about it? Is Blank not praising the napkin projects effusively enough? It certainly looks like praise to me.

Read the sentence in context. He's trying to explain where all the startups are. We are awash in napkin experiments; why aren't we similarly flooded with startups? Well, because there's a significant risk barrier between one and the other.

And, yes, he doesn't downplay that risk barrier. That seems fair. It doesn't do your audience any favors to elide the significant difference between a napkin experimenter and an actual founder. People can and do go bankrupt over that difference.

I also have a problem with the "tone" of the article. Steve seems to be saying that unless you commit full time, you're not a business. If I start a "napkin experiment" website in my spare time and provide a simple service and people pay me for it and I turn a profit, is that not an entrepreneurial venture? Isn't it a business? Come tax time, the IRS will sure think it is.

Using the "go full time or go home" metric to decide whether or not something is a startup or a business seems unnecessarily arbitrary to me.

+1 to this.

I don't work full time on my lifestyle business but the IRS will be taking a hefty chunk this year. I wish they read HN more so they could scoff at my lack of entrepreneurship and spurn my meager revenues.

> What's "sniffy" about it?

It just felt condescending to me, somehow. "Those people are not entrepreneurs or founders" just doesn't sit quite right for me, even though I think his distinction is basically correct. Maybe I read it wrong or maybe he dashed it off quickly or something - I generally like his essays a lot.

Perhaps it's true that such projects aren't companies, but so what? It doesn't make them of any less value. In my opinion, producing something that people love and use is valuable whether it's done as a company or a side-project.

Is it true that such projects aren't companies? He lists "run it as a part-time business" as an option but isn't that already happening when "users can visit, use and even pay for" the project? Or is it not a company until a user pays and then it becomes ok to call yourself a founder?

Paul Graham wrote an essay related to this: http://www.paulgraham.com/discover.html

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