Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pg | Hacker News Reader

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Going back to school is not identical with giving up. Some founders go back to school and keep working on the startup while there. However, those do so much worse than the people who work on the startup full-time that going back to school seems, in practice, not too far removed from a death sentence for a startup.

Off the top of my head, I'd guess we've had about 8 startups where the founders went back to school. It doesn't only happen with summer batches. Founders from winter batches do it too.

Usually the reason is that the startup isn't doing very well. However, that judgement depends a lot on how determined the founders are. One reason we now shy away from funding people still in school is that they often unconsciously want the startup to fail, because the idea of dropping out frightens them.

A lot of startups look bad after 3 months. Someone who's out of school and has to make it work or get a job in a cubicle will say "don't worry, we'll figure out how to make it successful."

Were there any of the (approx.) 8 groups where you felt: "These guys are really close to having something. It's a huge mistake for them not to continue pursuing this."?

Yes, but that is not surprising, because the biggest predictor of success is determination. In startups, merely being determined to succeed tends to make it so, if you're reasonably smart and flexible.

The Kikos are the only startup so far that has died of causes not of their own making. As everyone will soon realize when they launch justin.tv, they did not fail because of lack of balls.

Startups that execute with the end in mind do much better than those that code with ambiguity. Unfortunately, I feel that YC might be encouraging startups to not strategically plan ahead due to the emphasis put on "The original idea is not important because it will change anyway". Yes, ideas do change, but that does not give us the excuse not to make a long term plan before they do.

Startups should always have a week long tactical plan and a rough strategic goal stretched upto three months.

"If you don't know where you're going, you will end up somewhere else."

python_kiss "If you don't know where you're going, you will end up somewhere else."

I prefer "Wherever you go, there you are"

python_kiss "Startups should always have a week long tactical plan and a rough strategic goal stretched upto three months."

It doesn't matter how well you plan, you're going to run into brick walls. Most startups run into one and say "Oh damn, I guess we lost, let's go home." (secretly relieved to be giving up) -- other startups say "Brick wall? Where's my sledge hammer, this thing is toast!"

I gotta love a fellow buckaroo.

As far as a typical outline or long term goal, from my experience with YC's quite a few of them have goals way off in the horizon.

I do have to agree that a certain extent of the whole plan should not center around one solid idea, but an idea that can easily be remolded. This industry changes so fast, and it has no room for others that cannot change with it.

Personally, I had a sledgehammer going into this from the get-go. I'm just waiting for those walls to finally use my shiny new hammer on.

I gotta agree with you.

Though everything in this argument depends on the relativeness of things, in general I do think as ADD'd coders we love to simply code the next thing that comes to our mind. And that has its advantages. But as I've realized, it can be super healthy to explore the other end and instead of simply coding the first idea you get, to do few days of contemplation of making the initial idea better.

Get idea - Process idea - Code

I think there is too much of "Get idea - Code it" going on in this audience. A little mix can really help.

From what I gather on justin.tv, it seems we'll continually be seeing some interesting things coming out of that team, independent of the success of this new offering.

I would guess that most people afraid of dropping out lack the entrepreneur's mindset. That is:

Purpose of school (to the entrepreneur): Train to MSPW

Purpose of startup: MSPW

When viewed from that angle, the only thing to fear is that you won't be able to hack it yet. (no pun intended)

MSPW?

make something people want

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