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Comment by throwaway158497 | Hacker News Reader

Also, This series is good, although sadly, I dont see much new content being added.

https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/lessons-from-a-failed-s...

Also, if I were to give one advise to startup founders. Ignore all advice online about how to succeed. It's mostly whitewashed stuff. Unless you know the founder privately, 1-on-1, it is useless. The only honest ones are from failed founders.

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Whitewashed as in the secret sauce is kept secret to avoid giving away leverage?

No. Whitewashed as as in give an aura of we did no shady things, we never faked anything, we did not have to give an extreme discounts to anyone, all our discussions with customers were straight forward. We just walked into people's offices, gave presentation and they were a contract, there are no externalities to our product, we are very profitable and stress free at each step of the journey.

Also include, 'We didn't have rich parents, Who didn't provide us with connections and more importantly didn't provide us with the safety-net required for taking risks'.

Startups often use dirty tactics and connections to grow, but will later go on to say they just worked hard and found product market fit. The public example that comes to mind is reddit astroturfing their community to grow it, and that's a really mild example. Startups can do some pretty evil shit to get going.

I've contacted founders who completely deleted that experience from their Linkedin and pretended they were never involved with the startup, others wanted to seek YC's permission or were charging a fee to speak with me...crazy

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