Why being broke is the best startup strategy | Hacker News Reader

Why being broke is the best startup strategy

4mojo.wordpress.com

120 pointsnickler32 comments

Great write-up, thanks! Although I disagree on one point:

> “you’ll never make it as an artist, because you don’t have to make it as an artist”. Basically, feed yourself with your craft, and you’ll soon learn whether you’ve got the stones for it.

If you only do art and live off it, you then need to sell it. Which means you need to adapt to your customers' taste, if you want to eat. This all makes you more of a businessman than an artist.

(Update: slightly off-topic: I think this also probably is the root of today's copyright controversy. If you don't make money from your art, you don't need to go to great lengths just to make sure no one steals it.)

Related, a quote from Francis Ford Coppola on the matter of art and money: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3491678.

> If you only do art and live off it, you then need to sell it. Which means you need to adapt to your customers' taste, if you want to eat.

Not that I wholly disagree, but Gustav Klimt's Hygeia is a pretty nice counterexample to this notion: http://klimtpaintings.blogspot.com/2010/09/hygeia.html

How is it? It seems like it agreed with the taste of his customers.

The assumption that the artist needs to change his taste to meet the demands of his audience breaks down when he likes the same things as his audience. It's still 'authentic' he did not 'sell out' etc etc.

You're arguing about wording. The premise is that the artist cannot create what he wants; rather, he must create what his audience wants. If what he wants happens to be what his audience wants, it's a happy coincidence. In truth, one could argue that the artists tastes were changed before, molded and adapted to where it is today. The artists with a larger audience merely adopted earlier.

Admittedly, artists create for the audience in the end, and many a great work exists thanks to someone's desire to be famous. However, there's probably a line between that and selling art.

But then I'm sure there are examples of people who struggled to make living from their art, and yet did not surrender to everyone's taste. It's hard to judge either way.

But, you don't need to sell to everyone. Just find a group of people willing to support whatever your tastes dictate you create. When your interests don't seem to mesh you can always create a pen name to sell keep differentiated fan groups separate.

As for me, I'm all for it, especially since today's technology makes this possible!

However, I'm still against the extreme measures mentioned by OP, like dropping any other income and feeding yourself with your work. In such situation it becomes hard to distinguish whether you really just found your target audience, or you needed to subconsciously alter your taste to suit their taste because you were running out of money.

Apart from that, it's just that the prospect of living off the support of few people—who are free stop paying any moment—seems a bit risky to me personally (I know I'd abandon any authenticity and start making what people want in this case).

My understanding is that this work was widely reviled by those in the medicine faculty. They saw themselves as modern healers; he represented them with prescientific imagery that they considered grotesque. (The images he chose for the faculty of law were a more extreme example.)

Well said, and an interesting point made.

The lines are blurring between art and business, and some would go so far as to call the startup process an art form, albeit a shaky analogy.

Art, purely, is somewhat misappropriated here, when I think the better word for my intentions was 'craft'.

I agree, but only with the it-depends disclaimer. The dependency: the person.

I personally agree with the sentiment as it applies to me. I'm the kind of person who responds (at least, has historically responded) in a similar, no-bullshit, hyper-focused mentality. But the back-against-the-wall, fight-or-flight type of situation doesn't always yield a similar response in others. I've seen others where the weight of the situation deviated from their ability to focus.

The thing is, even when most of us in this industry (devs & engineers) are faced with "no other options", that's really a creation of our own mind. Last I checked, if you're competent, you still have options at your disposal (other startup opportunities, consulting/contracting, etc.) While they may not be your life's dream, they do keep you fed -- and often beyond meager means. When one is in that situation, even the risk of going broke is lowered.

Website: https://nickler.biz/

I really relate with being all in. I like that term better than 'fully committed' because to many mnba's use it and don't know it means actually working, not sitting around and watching someone else work and because you can see them working, then you too are somehow 'fully committed'. Sorry I digress. Looks like I have some issues to sort out.

Being broke focuses your mind, yes. And I can certainly say that if you hire a 20 person team to do what a 4 person team can do you may find your ability to get work done increases by 10% but your ability to create bugs goes up 10 times.

On the other hand I can say that I hear from some startup every week that wants my services and I have to qualify these "opportunities" very quickly because most of these people can't pay a market rate for my services, and often can't pay at all.

People in a situation like that generally aren't going to get good talent -- and in my speciality, I commonly succeed at projects where 75% or so of people who (i) get paid and (ii) have some specialized training fail.

The actual reason: you never want to get there again (i.e. being broke)

Now that's a real motivator in life! (especially if you've been "rich" before)

A state of feeling "unsafe" is an incredibly powerful motivator that can drown out almost everything else. It can link work directly to your survival instinct-"I have to move or my life is in danger."

While the fear of going broke can certainly instill the feeling of unsafety, other factors can too. Near death experiences and losing a parent at a young age are both examples that are frequently present in people with high levels of success (moreso than in the average population)[1]. Even a run-down living environment can help.

[1]: The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle

"There isn’t any question of motivation, because the luxury of choice is removed. There is no think, only do."

Love this. Been through it, and I agree that the focus leads to doing your best work. It naturally makes you strive to make sure of success .. not leaving anything to 'chance' - because you can't afford to.

This is really true. If you have money stashed away then you need to lose quite a bit for that fire to get lit undr your ass.

It's primarily got to do with getting comfortable in asking for money. And also doing whatever it takes to get that money.

This is probably the most effective startup requirement there is.

I disagree. Perhaps having been broke at one point is sufficient, but even then, if you are an entrepreneur motivated by passion, then money has nothing to do with it.

Maybe we're talking about two different types of entrepreneurs here, those who are in it for the money and/or fame, or those who are in it because they can't help themselves.

I didn't get the sense he is in it for the money in and of itself. He's talking about money in the sense of survival. You have to eat, and food isn't free. When you have to succeed just to survive, your options become clear and you have no choice but to act. It can't help but be motivating.

I launched my first successful startup within a month after we went broke failing with two previous startups. The need to get stuff going helps A LOT!

I really like the Nickler website, by the way- it's good looking and memorably different.

I also really like the website. Your "view the demo" link seems to be broken, though (it takes me to the login page instead of into the demo). EDIT: Okay I signed up, looks like you haven't opened it up yet.

I disagree, it has a cool design but I think it's too cute/different for a b2b invoicing product. To me it says "we are a trendy startup that might not be around very long" rather than "we are a professional company you can trust to handle an important part of your business".

Agreed, part of our rethink and rebuild process dealt with exactly this point. Thank you!

At least for me, the pinwheel is accessible and gives the website a baseline of "being fun."

My problem was the page appeared to randomly change whilst I was reading the text.

Of course, what had happened was my mouse had crossed over the wheel, but it took a second to figure that out.

Looks a like an interesting product. Good luck.

It's really hard to read, I wish the text would contrast more with the background.

This is this first time I've seen Ayoudo mentioned--looks like cool stuff!

Looks like SF bay only, more or less. Sad, seems like a neat idea.

Check out http://www.taskrabbit.com/ for more cities.

Oh, thanks for that, it looks awesome. I should show some of my friends that, maybe they can get some work there.

I think they're Vancouver based, I'm told they're in 15 cities now. The iphone app is nice.

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