I see dead startups | Hacker News Reader

I see dead startups

vlaskovits.com

54 pointsTristanKromer14 comments

This is by far the most difficult problem in startups: Should you persevere or pivot?

I think Paul Buchheit's advice is probably the best way to decide. He says to (paraphrasing) "find 100 people that love your product".

It's not enough for you, or a tiny number of people to say your thing is good. You need a sizable (but still very small) number of people to love your product.

It's kind of a "wisdom of the crowds" solution. You might be wrong, your friends might be wrong, but if 100 people love your product it's very likely that you're on to something.

Yes, but are these people friends/family/colleagues, or actual stakeholders or potential users? Obviously more weight should be given to the later.

The problem with the metaphor "you're dead but you don't know it" is that at the end of the movie, Willis' character accepts his situation -- pretty easily, in fact. The startup founder is unlikely to see the light so quickly.

How to break free of the delusion? Maybe by pondering the opportunity costs of not pursuing a new startup worth at least 2x (pick a reasonable concrete number) of your current one? Using real, achievable numbers might make it easier to take that leap of faith.

I think most dead startups suffer from "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" syndrome (sorry, had to toss in a metaphor of my own) -- knowing how difficult it was to get the "dead" startup off the ground, it's difficult to face starting over.

I was a cofounder of what I used to call "the most successful startup that could never make any money". We got press consistently, did some cool partnerships with big companies (always free), and were driving steadily away from any kind of a revenue model. My partner got stubborn and, frankly, arrogant about the business, despite its professional amateur status, and I had to finally leave. He could not be made to see the light, no matter what I or anyone else said. Now he runs it as a calling card to get himself speaking gigs at conferences.

After writing this down, I'm not sure there was anything I could have said to convince him to spend his time any other way. He's not a math person, so opportunity costs are lost on him. There was nothing I could do but let him man the boat alone and drift off into the night.

We are running a "startup" which is not a success nor a failure. This is the worst because we are not dead, but neither are we quite alive either;

We have a (fairly well known) product, but with only 263 customers acquired over 2 years. It brings in about $6,500 per month. The income does not increase much from month to month, but seems relative stable. We are two people working on this and the small income reduces this to more or less a hobby project.

So to keep with the analogy, I guess you could call us a zombie startup.

I realize that there are to few data points, but I would love to learn if others have been in the same situation and what they have done.

What you have there may not actually be a "zombie startup"; projects like yours were once known as "businesses", although that's a term that's fallen out of favor in the last internet-decade ("calendar year") on post-modern journalist hubs like TechCrunch and community forums like HackerNews.

I quickly went over to my "bookshelves" and dusted off some ancient collections of business knowledge, and it seems that, prior to the current internet-decade, the classical advice was to simply continue operating, looking for slow, steady growth, and enjoy having your own "business" rather than working for someone else. Clearly, this sort of advice isn't valid anymore; if a startup doesn't lead to a $100 million dollar exit in 3 years, then it has failed and just doesn't know it yet. I think most startups would advise you to abandon your customers and build a social network, as those seem to have good odds these days of leading to success ($100m in 3 years).

(...with tongue firmly in cheek. :-) )

I don't see the lesson - nothing is offered to help distinguish the walking dead from the wounded warriors. Sure, if we all had a crystal ball we'd stop fruitless pursuits lots quicker. So what?

Yeah, this thing was miserably devoid of any content -- just some new names for the same ol' thing, driving traffic to some dude's blog to collect some internet fame (and a little money for the ads that my browser doesn't display).

And I fell for it. Phooey. Guess this means I should get to work this morning.

Since he uses The Sixth Sense as his main metaphor, I should point out that I figured out "the twist" before seeing the movie, since I watched it after many other people. Everyone talking mysteriously about "THE TWIST", made it pretty obvious, in combination with the trailer.

I suppose we could extend this experience to startups. Everyone who hears the constant "bubble" talk, and knows about the .com crash would probably be wary of being dead already.

[edit: Serves me right for trying to constructively engage a tortured analogy]

What, exactly, does bragging about how you foresaw the major plot point of a 10 year old movie add to this discussion?

TFA uses the metaphor of a ten year old movie, not me. In fact it presents the plot twist as part of its main argument - people don't realize that they are trapped in a dead business model, and are shocked when they find out.

The fact is that these "twists" are not particularly surprising after everyone talks about them all the time. If you are shocked by the possibility of having a dud business, then you are a fool.

And no, I wasn't bragging about figuring out the plot. I was pointing out that a "twist" loses effectiveness, if everyone knows that it exists, and is looking for it.

His comment was playing on the article's analogy to make another one, that everyone should see this coming. It was a fair point, I found. Your comment, however, added absolutely nothing to the discussion.

The knowledge that he's as smart as my ten year-old who figured out the same thing?

Is the concept offered by this article so difficult that a new analogy needs to be on the table to help people understand it?

I'm sorry but that was a pointless article. I get the point and the author makes a good statement, but was the Sixth Sense business really necessary? Boo hiss.

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