Comment by icegreentea2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by icegreentea2 | Hacker News Reader

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I like this part:

The founder gets angry. He promised the VCs 10% of Spain’s oven market. The entire market. “We can’t sacrifice any of them.”

It’s not just greed. The 5 million was raised with the entire market on the slide. The founder isn’t choosing between right and wrong: he’s choosing which promise to break.

I wonder what the author had in mind when he wrote "which promise to break". Is the founder thinking about his promises to the VCs? Or thinking between the VC and customers?

I think this is the most human moment of the entire story. Everything else is pretty standard tropes (and just like everyone in this chain, these tropes ring very very true). They're almost systemic issues.

But this is a moment where the one person who is supposed to actually have agency (the founder!) actually has a choice. I don't want to nitpick the technicalities of the choice (it seems pretty straightforward to me that getting to 10% of total market would more than justify multiple product lines), but the psychology here.

Why is the founder uncomfortable breaking promises to investors, but more comfortable selling a garbage product? Is he just hopeful?

He's coldly rational:

The investors gave him $5 million. Large commitment, large risk.

Each customer gives him 15k per unit. Even a rare large customer who buys 100 ovens gives him 150k. Small commitment, small risk.

If he breaks his promise to the investors, he can't raise more money easily. It will be very hard to find another $5 million.

If he breaks his promise to the customers with a garbage product, he can more easily find a replacement customer for the much smaller risk.

From a rational standpoint, I don't understand how investors could feel betrayed by a pivot that involves creating two ovens to eventually allow the founder to capture 10% of the market. Functionally, I can't imagine a single investor actually caring about these details. They don't care about the number of buttons, or if it can do wedding cakes, or whatever. They care that the founder and team demonstrates competence in their decision making and execution.

If a founder is able to spin and control both the loss of a major potential customer, and the low customer satisfaction rate (weak follow up from pilots) to the investors, I simply cannot imagine that doing 2 product lines is that much of a big deal.

More personally, I'd feel that if it truly were a coldly rational decision, the founder would feel confident in defending his choices (at least against any initial suggestions to the contrary) without resorting to anger.

The founder portrait is surprisingly sympathetic given what a train wreck is being described. This one stood out for me:

> The founder has it all figured out: the problem was never the plan. The problem was the execution

"Execution" being one of those magic business words, I've said this exact thing but only once lampooned thusly did it dawn on me how psychotic it is. If VC-funded startups are almost by definition about "a big vision", then the vision is never wrong -- a self-consuming logic answered by the magic of Execution.

Interestingly, what is ignored there is the founder is also the CEO here, so if the execution was bad ... shouldn't he be fired?

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