First-Time Startup Entrepreneurs: Stop F*cking Around | Hacker News Reader

First-Time Startup Entrepreneurs: Stop F*cking Around

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156 pointsPStamatiou62 comments

Some of this is good, but I don't really like this particular bit:

Think about the opportunity cost here. You could be off making six figures but you decided to swing for the fences with your startup. That takes guts. So why would you slack off and waste time?

Maybe you didn't leave the 6-figure job solely to "swing for the fences", but also because you wanted a different lifestyle? I know "lifestyle businesses" are perennially unpopular in parts of SV, but part of the whole point of being your own boss is that you really can choose to, say, spend 10% of your workweek attending meetups, even if it doesn't produce a monetary ROI, and you don't have to justify it to your employer. One thing I do agree with in that regard is that it's worth making sure you aren't doing things just because they feel productive, but really aren't, which endless meetings can sometimes fall into. But, participating in interesting communities and culture can be worth its own opportunity-cost price of admission.

+100. I can tell the guy writing this essay is young. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'd love to be young again too. But when I look back over my twenties I don't find myself wishing I had worked more hours on my startup.

Was your startup successful? Knowing that would help readers decide whether your advice is credible.

That would be interesting but anecdotal. It wouldn't establish credibility of the advice one way or the other. Similar to survivorship bias examples. Most famous example I can think of is the 37Signals guys. DHH has talked about how he wasn't exactly burning the midnight oil when he built Basecamp, but instead did it part-time. That worked for him but may not for others.

Beyond that, it depends on what you value in life. The commenter probably doesn't care about being the richest guy in the cemetery while someone else may be obsessed with keeping score. Not saying one way is better than another - to each his own.

It's more about context. GP could be saying "I wish I hadn't worked as much on this startup because it failed and the time was wasted" or "I wish I hadn't worked as much on this startup because it was a huge success and would have been successful even if I worked less".

Maybe it's not about succeeding or failing, and he is talking about how you spend your time; your life. I read the article as "you are a startup founder, forget about having a life and get to work!"; I would be surprised if the writer turned out to be older than 25, it's a mindset typical of that age.

Perhaps in the future, even succeeding, you'll look back to those younger days in which you put aside everything for your pet project and realise you lost the opportunity to have great experiences with your friends, boy/girlfriends, spouse, kids and/or family.

Remember, working passionately in what you love is great, but forgeting that you are not a working machine, and that you work to live, not the reverse, are perhaps more valuable advice for your future self than all the books on productivity in the world combined.

The startup was successful in that it had a good exit for me and my investors. As a going concern it was a failure.

My point was that, as I've gotten older, I've found that my most meaningful experiences have come from seemingly random encounters with people. The startup world is full of interesting people, but they all are kind of the same in terms of their daily lives and motivations. I wish I had spent more time in my twenties connecting with people who care about things besides venture capital, IPOs and the latest technology stack.

To that end, I now go out of the way to stimulate more random encounters. I'd rather take a salsa dance class than go to a big data meetup.

Thanks for saying that. Comments like yours have prompted me to reconsider my goals as of late. For a couple of years now, I was sure that I wanted to live the startup dream: move to the Bay Area, work for an early stage startup (or even pursue my own), let it take over my life, compete compete compete... However, now I'm not so sure that's how I want to spend the rest of my twenties.

I would still love to work at a startup at some point, but I'm not going to rush into it. I want to take advantage of my youth to discover more things that make me happy. I want to travel—a lot. I want to learn new languages. I want to meet amazing people. I also want to design and build things, but I don't think that it has to take over my life.

I'm very fortunate to be where I am now: fresh out of college, already doing something that I enjoy, and making enough money to be comfortable while working a reasonable number of hours per week. Do I have to dive immediately into the startup world to be happy? I don't think so.

Here are a few other posts that have hit home recently:

http://mrooney.github.com/blog/2012/07/01/freelancing-a-6-mo...

"In short, I felt that given a finite lifespan, there were more fulfilling and enjoyable ways to spend some of my healthiest years than 40+ hour weeks in an office."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4213386

"I think the kind of worry in this post is a response to the world born out of hyper-competitiveness, and I don't think its a healthy one."

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4213736

"His mission statement shouldn't be that he wants a better epitaph. Other people get to write his epitaph, and by that time he'll be fucking dead. It's out of his control. What is in his control: whether his life was meaningful to himself. Did it express his unique talents, did it give him and others joy, did it help others? Did he make his own rules about how to evaluate his life or was he a slave to the caprices of fame and fortune? And this is about so much more than just a career."

You might like this one, too: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-yo...

Yeah you should go for it. Do the things that make you happy. I used to live in Sunnyvale for a few yrs working for a big corp. Then I quit and moved to Vietnam. Best decision I made ever. Didn't make as much money but wouldn't trade it for the world

I know "lifestyle businesses" are perennially unpopular

I would like a private forum for people building lifestyle businesses.

Micropreneur Academy? It's not the perfect fit for everyone, and it's not free, but I've heard good things.

I have been a member in the past, and recently re-subscribed. It's a good resource.

I would prefer a free forum but haven't had the energy to start one myself. If you are interested in a "lifestyle business" or "micropreneurial" forum, shoot me an email and I'll see about putting together one.

Email in my profile.

Startup Guild seems to have attracted mostly micropreneurs, check it out: http://startupguild.net/

Email sent. I would love something like this that's free and open.

There is also http://thefoundation.io/, free forums carry far too much noise and arm chair experts imo. I've also heard good things about micropreneur academy and looks like startupplays.com/ might be trying to get something going.

I have a problem with that item for a slightly different reason -- my own experience and an increasing amount of published research shows that slacking off a fair amount is actually productive.

I rarely have breakthrough "A-Ha!" insights into thorny code problems I'm working on while sitting in front a computer actually thinking about the problem but I have them quite often when out on a long walk being "unproductive" and not even consciously thinking about the problem. Once a problem reaches 3 or 4 levels of indirection my subconscious is way better than my conscious brain at solving the problem in an elegant way and I choose to "slack off" daily in order to take advantage of that.

I do that too. As for the OP, I think when he says "unproductive" that he is talking about tasks which appear to be important work tasks, but which actually aren't.

Some examples (mine, not his): spending a few hours watching Google IO videos on scaling to a billion users, or a few hours tracking down reporters trying to pitch them your pre-alpha demo.

This link has been passed around here heaps, but it's Rich Hickey talking about how that "downtime" like you spoke of is not only part of the problem solving process, but it some cases that it's the most important part! http://blip.tv/clojure/hammock-driven-development-4475586

This article is specifically for startup founders. Startups are very different from lifestyle businesses.

Er, no. Lifestyle business is one of the three positive outcomes fr a startup.

The widely accepted definition of a successful startup assumes rapid growth followed by a liquidity event.

Lifestyle business aka "living dead"/zombie company is one of the negative outcomes for a startup- maybe the most negative.

I would have thought the definition of a successful startup would be profitability on top of paying founders decent wages.

If there are external investors it is probably true that a liquidity event is the goal but if owner funded or bootstrapped I don't see anything particularly bad about a lifestyle business that is profitable enough to support a good lifestyle.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a profitable small business that can sustain its founders. I've done it, I think it's great.

I'm just saying that lifestyle business!=startup.

There's some confusion about the definition of a startup.

Nobody would argue that a sandwich shop that makes $200K a year is a startup, but some people would call a SaaS webapp making $200K a year with no plans for rapid growth a startup.

This article specifically applies to startups.

Personally I'd call both startups for the first 2-3 years of business.

I really fail to understand how that would be more negative than a drastic implosion, followed by complete bankruptcy. What's your thinking here?

I completely disagree with the Grandparent post overall but the advantage of major blowup is that you have a clear clean end and can try something else. If you get stuck in something you don't yet see as successful but it hasn't completely failed you might keep trying when the company can never achieve your aims.

With outside investors you may be contractually stuck in all sorts of ways too.

Doesn't it depend on what your aims are, and who are the most important stakeholders (i.e. whether investors are involved, etc)?

I'm still not seeing it. I think the definition posted there is self-assuming.

I agree, I specifically said "you get stuck in something you don't yet see as successful" so it only really applies when you are unhappy with the current outcome (which may be modestly profitable).

It was not meant as a definition but an example of a possible case where bankruptcy is beneficial.

I was just trying to express a situation where massive failure is worse than modest ongoing profitability (zombie company) as the great-grandparent comment suggested was always the case for start ups. If you look at my other posts in the original thread I disagree strongly with the great-grandparent about the definition of success but I can understand at least the possibility of circumstances when full blowup is better than drifting along.

I fell over that sentence as well. I have an issue with the money obsession-over-everything which seems to drip from the US on the world. Money is nice, but if it's a focus, it's a poison often. It changes you and people forget they have this one chance at life when making their life all about money. You won't enjoy it so much (or at all) if your mind's primary focus is making it; it's (from experience with millionaires) very hard to 'de-learn' it. There is a good chance you'll be focused on money the rest of your life and thinking you like it while other people perceive you as a bitter old fool.

Anyway; there are many things you 'could be off' to and don't because you choose something else. And yes, companies (your own or others) need to make money; I see that it does, and you'll get rich if you deliver good stuff and watch your bottom line (which HN doesn't like, I know; you still should). It might take a bit longer, but your success rate will be higher. Don't think of what you could've or should've, focus on what you love and perfect it, it'll come.

I think one of the things that I find hard to do wrt to time management is whether to take meetings or not. I've tried both ends: both taking all meetings, and taking no meetings. I've found that taking all meetings, the vast majority of them aren't useful (to them or to me). In taking no meetings, I was able to focus, but I do wonder what could have been.

So where's the middle ground? Usually, I find that my default stance is 'no'. I have work to do, and I have to guard my time. So I'll only take meetings that are interesting. But I think after reading this, I'll have to also add 'need genuine help' to the criteria.

I think something that Stammy could have added under "Workdays are Sacred" is how to say 'no'. What if it's a warm intro to someone that doesn't heed genuine help?

How about just telling everyone that wants to meet that you work from (for example) some coffee shop from 3-5 on Thursdays? Then you can work or meet with the people that come. And nobody is "scheduled" so if three people show up then things will just work out. Or maybe you'll introduce them to each other if the meeting isn't useful.

I've heard people call this "office hours" too.

This can work well. I usually take Fridays to do this kind of thing, or maybe Monday mornings if it fits better.

That would also have the advantage of letting you get more feedback. Maybe websites don't have this problem as much, because the interactions are more standard and it's easier to gather data, but seeing 3 people use your iPhone app is a pretty big data point for UI.

If you guard your time you won't make connections that make your limited time multiply through the help of others. Likewise you can probably do a little for someone that would help them a lot forward.

Don't take meeting when you have work to do. If someone is asking for a meeting so someone can be a witness to their existence, push it to the weekend and take only the most interesting.

If there's something concrete you can fill them in on, or be helped with, be concise, clear and direct about it. There's a lot about startups that you can, and should be learning on your own all the time.

Work meetings can be doubled up during events, lunch, or coffee. Keep it on topic and on time. Getting together after work is an option too, it doesn't interrupt working time.

meetings should have a purpose and a good manager guides the meeting towards that purpose and minimizes the superfluous. if people are generally bad communicators or a poor self-motivators, meetings can be a good way of keeping a project moving forward.

managers that want meetings simply because that is what they are supposed to do are not giving enough consideration to everyone's time. sometimes a meeting can simply be a managers way of giving an over worked team a break (hey let's watch this TED talk) but the pointlessness there, again, has its purpose.

My biggest problem is meeting when the other party is subtly trying to hire me.

I love meeting people, I love brainstorming ideas and revenue paths, I love hearing new perspectives, I love going out of my way to try to help people. When someone pings me for a meeting, I get excited and rearrange my schedule to get together. Maybe I can introduce them to a key contact, or help with some specific engineering challenge, or point out an unconsidered customer acquisition path. It's amazingly disappointing when I finally ask "so, how can I help you?" the answer is "join our engineering team."

If I could filter out all meetings that are secret recruiting initiatives, I'd be a happier person.

Interesting, I've never heard of a startup founder being regularly solicited for meetings with people from other companies. Is that normal?

Startup founders stop using obscenity and cuss words

Why? "Fuck" is an extremely expressive word when used properly. Entrepreneurs must have a thick skin, and know when to use "fuck" and similar words.

We'll know it's out of hand when it's commonplace for marketing copy to say "Fucking use our product, bitch!"

I think that happened in the 90s in the video game market.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c1/Daikatana_ad_-...

Yeah, that was not well-received. Though the problem really isn't the "bad language", it's the deliberate rape metaphor that makes it tasteless at best.

Using obscenities is almost always the lazy way out. Its presence signals that whatever is being said might not be totally serious. It's a marker of casual speech, and emotional thinking.

I disagree. George Carlin was a master at it, and he was anything but lazy.

As for being a marker of casual speech / emotional thinking, sometimes that's exactly what you want to convey.

>Why?

Obviously the only way to answer this is with personal opinion. For me, whenever I see a blog post with "why this fucking sucks" or other language I'm not necessarily offended. However I do feel like I'm suddenly talking to a child.

Fuck, Fucking, Fuckshit etc isn't shocking or expressive anymore. It's just an indicator of inexperience.

I can't seem to get my point across so instead I'll say I can't seem to get my FUCKING point across.

When writing I often use the word "fuck" or something similar to put a certain feel on a phrase. For effect. Not because it's offensive or a cuss word per se, but because I want the phrase to make a certain sound when the reader reads it.

It's a perfectly useful stylistic flourish when used appropriately. (just like deliberately using bad grammar can be ... or emoticons ... or sometimes even putting a delimiting punctuation, but not actually delimiting a sentence)

Is that the main point of the article? Is that the most interesting point you can make after reading it? Just because something minor in the article offends some semblence of sensibility in you doesn't make it a good topic of discussion on HN. In fact, it's just a knee-jerk reaction from you, and if anything, you're just trolling.

The article is being discussed, and certainly the words that constitute the article are fair game. I use profanity all the time. I love it. I go to the bar to hear casual assessments riddled with profanity. I come to HN to read serious discourse. Once the author sets the tone with a title of that nature, he is speaking to his audience in a condescending way that lacks respect. It's a cheap attempt at eyeball grabbing and that is why it is annoying, not that it offends anybody's sensibilities.

It's not professional and after reading the first few sentences I had lost any respect for the author, which is probably unfair but his own fault for poorly choosing his language. He's not a fucking rapper, he's guest-blogging on a tech news site. Use some fucking professionalism.

I would guess you are in the minority on this one, and vast majority of readers don't care about obscenities.

Founders who end up successful usually learn this lesson early on. It's not something you can read and understand, you just need to live the lifestyle. Don't allow yourself to get distracted, complete small but manageable goals, and just go one day at a time.

Interesting fact, everybody goes just one day at a time. That's how time works!

Don't try to constrain me with your personal measure of temporal granularity, man!

Time is a continuous domain, so they don't really go one anything at a time. (Well, unless physiology is shown to have some kind of fundamental clock period.)

It does. Experiments have shown that in lieu of all external time signals humans will natural sync to a roughly 28 hour day.

Oh and eventually go completely insane.

Really? Is there a study or some other resource I can read more about this at?

What was the observable behavior recognized in your colleagues that prompted the judgement of them slacking off?

I would also love to know this.

Me too. it appears that the author is talking about the author's friends' startup, not his own. This doesn't seem to be about actual work habits but the perceived work habits of friends that go to meetups and try to act all "cool".

As someone who has been struggling to get my first startup off the ground, this is exactly what I needed to hear. Thank you.

And my own piece of advice: if you've been trying (unsuccessfully) to launch your first company, listen to what this article is saying. Stop fighting, stop arguing, stop counter-pointing. Just listen for once. And then Do.

I think I'm going to get my fiancee to tell me once every day - "stop fucking around!"

Can't we just say "Fucking"? That little * in place of the "u" isn't fooling anyone.

TC;DR.

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