Startup Lessons | Hacker News Reader

Startup Lessons

mattmaroon.com

28 pointsmqt29 comments

Hey, what is with the black backgrounds? Maybe my eyes are unusually weak but I just can't read pages with black backgrounds. I mean, it's not a preference -- I just can't. (Which is also a tip to designers out there.)

Anyway, here's what I use on those pages: http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html (there's one called zap colors)

For most hacker founders though -- $500k is a much better sum to raise than $5 million. Do you really want to have to hire marketing people, give up board seats, give up more of your company than you should, and significantly reduce the % probability of success?

For many founders, raising $5 million is like pouring gasoline all over yourself when you're on fire.

Syndicating a bunch of smart angels who have been there and want to help you may be harder to do, it's probably the right call for most startups.

Who is Matt Maroon? I see his blog posts always get a lot of attention here. Just a quick bio would be appreciated!

Poker player gone YC entrepreneur gone HN hero FTW.

What was the startup?

http://www.draftmix.com

Also writes some of the most wittiest comments on HN. But for some reason, most of them get downvoted. :-)

He's the Kim Kardashian of YCombinator - you are not really sure why he's famous, but for some reason everyone seems to be paying attention to him.

Does he have a fat ass or a sex tape?

I guess that's better than being the Paris Hilton of YCombinator.

However, I wouldn't call any YC founders "famous".

I don't know who Kim Kardashian is, so I'll just take that as a compliment.

Read more MediaTakeOut. You'll know with time, oh yes, you'll know with time...

I have a feeling that in this case, ignorance is bliss.

Actually, on a more serious note, I'm disappointed that you don't know who she is. If you want to be an entrepreneur, then you need to be aware of things that are outside of your field. You need a diversity of information, not just pre-filtered information.

You don't need to follow her antics, but being totally unaware of her shows a serious hole in your exposure to popular culture, which would make me wonder how you can create a product for the masses, when you are not aware of what media they are consuming.

You see what I'm saying?

I started a company that was funded by YC. It's Blue Frog Gaming, and our first product is Draftmix.com

Patent trolls serve no useful function. There already is a secondary market for innovation. Companies buy and sell patents all the time, and the buyers often use those patents to create innovative products. The problem is the patent trolls, which I define as a company that owns and litigates patents without actually using the patents for anything. You should have to be using the patent or at least show a clear intent to use the patent to be able sue people for infringing it. This part is probably more complicated than I'm making it out to be, but that is clearly the intent of patent law, so it should be changed to reflect that intent.

I think patent holders should only be able to sue for lost revenue. That is, damages should be limited to what they would have been able to earn from the invention if nobody else had been using it.

> Patent trolls serve no useful function. There already is a secondary market for innovation.

Are you saying that independent inventors should not be compensated or that they should only be compensated when they sell to practitioners?

If you sell a great idea to someone who ensures it will never be realized (patent troll), you should not be compensated--you have caused the destruction of a great idea from the world of possibilities, which is akin to vandalism.

Patents are intended to spur innovation, but when there is no production, the greater good suffers.

Patent trolls buy patents with the intent of licensing them to people who produce. In fact, they often as such spur on production. They sue only when a patent is infringed upon. It's not typically their goal to do so, their goal is to license.

Right, but now there is a toll on the bridge to producing that item. If the best items command the highest toll (license price), great ideas are now de-incentivized. The public good has not been served.

The need for a patent license prevents, delays, or slows the idea from being executed upon by adding a cost to it, and the execution is the valuable part.

I still don't think you understand. There's always a toll for any patent you didn't register. Patent licensing often lowers it. Buying a patent is often more expensive than renting, especially if the renting is non-exclusive. Patent trolls often buy the patent and license it out to multiple companies, creating competition and lowering the barrier to entry.

The best patents commanded a high price even before there were patent licensing businesses. In fact, now the amount you can make off of a great patent is higher because the demand is.

It's really only because they occasionally sue that people complain, but without lawsuits their business model wouldn't work.

Why would I start a business based around a patent when I have no guarantee the licensing fee won't be onerous?

There is always a toll--if there is a patent. Why would I pat someone on the back for licensing me something that was once free, until a BS patent was created and sold to an extortionist?

>> lowering the barrier to entry

I think the difference is that I am stepping outside of the current system to make my point, and you're saying patent trolls and licensing improve the current system. It seems clear to me fees in general are disincentives. I agree with you that a lower fee is a lower disincentive, but still more of a disincentive than no fee at all.

Individuals without defensive patent portfolios are at a severe disadvantage in the current environment.

Without the current sham system, there is no "toll for patents I didn't register." This is not to say that there should be no system--only that the system is broken and does not accomplish its aims effectively.

I think the innovations we've seen over the last 100 years of our current system would be proof that you're wrong. American inventors have made huge leaps and bounds in every area in which innovation is possible. I don't see how it's possible to look at the last century and say our patent system is anything but amazing.

There is no way to to look at America over the last hundred years without the patent system, or better yet, with a more functional system. So those innovations, while great, are not proof of anything.

I would contend the system did not start going off the rails until more recently, anyhow.

Angels are just wealthy people who typically sums of between $10 and $100k, with $50k probably being a good average.

Did you accidentally the verb? (sorry, couldn't resist).

Oh, I somehow omitted the word invest.

Certainly the trolls go too far sometimes, but on the whole it’s a respectable business model, and one that I think encourages, rather than stifles, technological progress.

I think this is sort of missing the point. Proper trolls make their money by stopping the application of that invention or by significantly raising the cost of applying it.

If the patent is owned by a troll it is more likely that anyone applying it will get sued, rightly or wrongly. In fact, it is almost always wrongly in a sense because if the patent troll didn't exist, noone would be sueing.

So with one hand they provide some cash to inventors. With the other they take more off the application developers. The difference is probably huge & is split between profits & legal bills on both sides.

It's like a tax on innovation.

Startup lesson 1: Better have a marketing plan. EDIT: That is assuming you already have a great team building the product.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com