The Early Early Stage | Hacker News Reader

The Early Early Stage

blog.keen.io

90 pointsdorkitude9 comments

It's pretty hard to start a startup while you have full-time employment you're relatively happy with, both because of physical time constraints and reconciling the risk mentally.

In the past I felt exactly like these guys did: apply for incubators, which will provide both validation and financing, which makes a transition a lot less painful. It's one thing to tell your wife, "yeah so I quit my $125,000 job to work with Joe on our startup, which is really just a bunch of unreleased code at this point" as opposed to, "yeah so I quit my $150,000 to work with Joe on our startup, but we're in YC, which is like Harvard for startups, and we're getting over $150,000 in funding, and like half these companies raise venture capital really quickly after the program." Hell, it's a lot easier to tell yourself that.

A few months ago I wrote a post about my experience interviewing at YC and getting rejected, and I mentioned how we didn't continue working on our idea, and a lot of people asked me why. And the most honest answer I could give was, "I felt it was too big of a risk to take off my golden handcuffs without Paul Graham's approval," which sounds kind of absurd but is the most plain explanation I can give.

Well it's been over a year since then and I've realized two main problems with that way of thinking. 1) All an incubator can really do is amplify your ability to conceive of ideas and execute well on them. But if you can do both of those things well anyway, then you'll be successful regardless of acceptance or not. 2) If you refuse to embark on starting a startup without getting accepted into an incubator, then you're limiting yourself to "incubator-friendly" ideas, which is generally something that is consumer-facing and disruptive in some theoretically huge market (or eventual market) (e.g. AirBnb, Dropbox) or is a tool/platform that can improve the startup ecosystem of tools and platforms (which it seems like Keen.io is, if I understand their value prop on their home page correctly).

So congrats to the Keen.io for getting into TechStars, and I'm sure their product will be great, and they'll go on to be successful without having to sacrifice much more than going out to dinner a little less and downgrading their Netflix subscription. But it's very possible they were going to be successful anyway.

Just for context, I'm the author of the OP.

First, thanks for the thoughtful reply. I remember your post about your YC experiences, and it was great, especially since I was considering doing something like this and really identified with it. I think I probably would have quit my job anyways, but getting into an accelerator like TechStars really made it a no-brainer.

I'd like to raise the point that the idea you apply with doesn't matter a ton. It should be good enough to show that you're not stupid, but that's about it. We've already changed what we're working on significantly based on early customer development and discussions with the amazing TechStars mentors. It's actually been a little hard to convince myself that the reason we got accepted was like 90% team and only 10% idea (totally made up numbers, of course, but you get the drift).

I completely bought into the concept of an accelerator validating your idea, and that was really just kind of wrong (at least in our case).

Anyways, thanks again for the comment. Here's hoping we'll be as successful as you suggest. :)

Thanks!

All good points. You're not alone: I think most teams apply to accelerators for some blend of validation, cash, and credibility. In my mind, however, none of those facets is as important as education.

If a seed stage startup only has 2-3 people, they're certainly missing some competencies, contacts, and personality types that could greatly increase their chances at success. Nothing beats having the engaged mentorship of super smart people, people who have seen the world from other angles and can pinch-hit to help round out the team.

In our case, we're three capable software engineers, and we're building something really cool... but had we not gotten exposure to TechStars, our deficits in areas like go-to-market strategy (we had thought, "But it's applicable to every vertical!"), varied communication ("Our customers are excited about it, so of course investors will be!"), plus a million things to come, would've been much more encumbering at best, fatal at worst.

It sounds to me like you guys are more focused on getting into an incubator and less focused on starting a company. Maybe it's just the gist of the post, but you guys do realize that this is, for lack of a better term, the 'real deal', right? Every choice you make has consequences, and spending so much effort focusing on incubators when instead you could be doing the "schleps" that pg talks about may be opportunity squandered when you have the time together with this idea as a priority.

Balance in all things. Incubators are surely helpful, but they surely should not be your primary focus right now, and you're setting yourself up for failure if you are banking on getting into one. This is a zero sum game, and putting creative energy into a YC application when it could be going into a product is a real choice, and I hope you guys are aware it's a choice. I'm not saying it's the wrong one, but this post led me to feel you are looking at the goal of starting a company similar to getting into college. It is not. It is not a game of one of one or two big victories and resting on your laurels, but instead a game of many small ones (hopefully peppered with a few big ones as well :)) If you are focusing just on the big ones then you are doing it wrong and will likely join the 99% of those who do not make it. Incubators, funding, and so on are a means to an end not an end in itself. Remember that and carve a path that makes sense for your company and your team, not one that you think is in line with what everyone else is doing.

Fair comments, and completely accurate. But you're responding to a post that was focused 100% on what our experience was when applying to an accelerator. So yes, it's going to sound like we're only talking about that stuff and not everything else that matters more (like execution). That's not the full picture of us and what we're working towards. We'll have future posts that are (hopefully) interesting and aren't at all about the accelerator process.

FWIW, though, it's hard to overestimate the value of getting into a program like TechStars. Forget about the money (although it's awesome that we have enough runway that we won't have to raise immediately following demo day if we don't want to). It's the network and relationships and simply amazing people that we get to meet. Of course that's not enough, but it's crazy valuable. I know for sure that we're already more successful because of it.

Thanks for the comments!

I really connected with this post, because my startup is also in this "early early stage". It's only been a month or two that we've actually taken our idea seriously, after coming to the realization that "woah, we could actually do this!"

Too many blogs like to focus in on what it's like in the "early stage" but not enough focus on that stage before you get funding, when everything looks much scarier and your idea feels like total shit. Hopefully this post will help many other startup founders to realize they're not alone. I've added this to my "suggested reading" list in my company, as I think my cofounders will appreciate it as much as I did.

Congratulations getting into TS Cloud. I can't wait to see all the amazing companies to come out of the program. Beware of "Mentor Whiplash", I hear it can be a real problem.

I've thought of quitting my job to start a business. I know it would give me the best chance of success. With that said moonlighting makes much more sense to me. It has much less risk and if the business fails I'll still have something to fall back on. Getting into YC and TS feels to me like winning the lottery. With acceptance rates around 2%-3% it doesn't seem like a realistic option.

"Mentor Whiplash" is real and has already been felt. Whether or not it will get worse remains to be seen. :)

Getting in to one of these things is a bit like winning the lottery, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try for it. Regardless, there have been successful businesses started with both the "fuck my job, I'm going to do this full-time" and the moonlighting approaches. Do what makes sense and feels right for you is all I can say.

So happy for you guys!

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