Rules for startups | Hacker News Reader

Rules for startups

blogmaverick.com

52 pointspjharrin38 comments

"11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you."

It always amazes me how much money startups spend on PR instead of development or other necessities. Cuil comes to mind.

Rule 0: These are advices, generally true, but not necessarily in your case. Use your best judgement instead of blindly following them.

I think in this particular case they are not even generally true, just occasionally.

I see this as: "Here are potential problems you may have, here is how I prevent them." I found it an interesting read for his itemization of the problems; YMMV with his solutions, of course.

Re coffee & sodas: Cuban should check out the relative health effects of the antioxidants in coffee and the high fructose corn syrup in sodas and retract that idiotic comment.

I agree with your point but I would like to point out that not all countries use high fructose corn syrup. Coca-Cola in South Africa uses regular sugar.

Coca-Cola everywhere in the world except the US uses sugar.

Plus good coffee is much better for you than any of that 'instant' stuff. But I think his point was more you don't need to spend 5000 on a coffee machine, especially when stepping out for a coffee is a good time to socialize with colleagues.

You can also drink tea. That does not involve an expensive machine.

How about: $20 coffee machine, (free) tap water, and a $10 ground coffee in a can from the grocery store?

It's not that complicated.

How about: if it's that big a deal, ask the people with whom you're working on this what they'd prefer, then work out some kind of compromise.

handing out 100 dollar bills seems like something that pets.com would do.

I think they handed out stock options like free cheese samples. At the time, these were ironically thought to be worth far more in value.

This is one of my favorite of Mark's articles on HN. The advice about PR firms and cost cutting was great, and the bit about doing what you love, rather than something you're looking for an exit plan was even better.

on schwag:

I was kindof thinking of distributing free T-shirts when I speak at LUGs and/or to customers who express interest. At $5-$10 each, well, it might be a dumb idea, I'm not sure. Average customer gets me $10/month or so in revenue.

See, I was thinking that my target market (cheap Linux hobbyists and cheap micro-businesses) might actually wear free shirts. I would think the value of the schwag as advertising directly correlates to how much it is used in public by the recipient.

The thing is, as I'm self funded, the credit crunch doesn't mean anything, so long as I keep my consulting gigs. I'm buying hardware right now like it was 1999. This next month, after I get my new capacity up, I am going to need to spend some money on advertising.

I do ok for the relevant google searches, and my target market is very technical (yes, I could vastly expand my market by making it easier. I'm working on it, but my core customer base is people like me- people who don't click on ads.) so I don't think buying 'sponsored results' from google will make much difference.

Great article and, IMO, much better than that recent one by Calcanis on saving money with your startup.

Interesting, I was seriously considering a PR firm for one of my startups. I had met a PR guy from the Bay Area at a wedding and considered using his company. Good to know.

"Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for closers." Awesome. But he follows that up with "Sodas are free." Wha? Please share your free soda hacks.

Is soda cheaper? I don't know, but I would guess it's cheaper than espresso and close to the same price as store bought coffee.

If you make it yourself, coffee is really cheap, and I say this despite buying good-quality, Fair Trade beans. Paying coffee shop rates, however, is a rip off (Starbucks, I'm looking at you).

Also figure that if drinking it improves your productivity at all, it's money well spent.

Hang onto a McDonald's cup and keep asking for free refills.

And take a cup out of the trash for unlimited free coffee!

"Coffee is for closers" == "I've watched Glengarry Glen Ross way too many times"

It is an entertaining movie though. But I think there is a rule about using that phrase in real life.

The same applies to the:

We're adding a little something to this month's sales contest. As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac Eldorado. Anybody want to see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you're fired.

Short quotes are a lot better for use in real life, if you're going to quote something to make a point.

It's a great line from a great speech, and it was perfect for this context.

Pretty sure he was referring to Calacanis' horrible post on how to "save money" by buying a $3,000 to $5,000 espresso machine.

Yes.

I think espresso machines get a bum rap - there are cheaper, and more importantly, more maintenance/mess free alternatives to big commercial barista machines.

Cheap espresso machines are almost universally crap. This is certainly one case where value correlates to cost.

Point is, if you really want an espresso, go to a fricken coffee shop.

I guess it's more of a coffee maker, even though it has crema, but where I work everyone loves our Senseo: http://www.macys.com/catalog/product/index.ognc?ID=136943...

Which is even more funny because Cuban is a major investor in Mahalo.

I agree: never buy an expresso machine. An good espresso machine, on the other hand, is probably a good investment.

s/an good/a good

Jeebus, that's two errors in my own comments I've caught this week. And I'm an obsessive copyeditor.

In his defense, they spell it expresso in France. Either way you should be able to a good one and a grinder for less than about US$2000 most places. If you can afford to have several employees, spending $2K should be doable.

This sounds more like religion/zealotry than it does startup advice. Just because you have a good business idea doesn't mean you have to commit to it for life. Nothing wrong with having an exit strategy in mind. It may be years before you see it, and that does have to be OK.

But if Cuban is so gung-ho, why isn't he still at his startup?

He didn't exactly say don't sell. He said don't plan to.

Billions of dollars free and clear, you'd have to be an idiot to turn down the deal he got from Yahoo.

Pretty sure it wasn't free and clear... he got YHOO stock out of it. But he was smart by hedging against downside using stock option synthetics.

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