Joel Spolsky: A new business is like a shortwave radio. | Hacker News Reader

Joel Spolsky: A new business is like a shortwave radio.

inc.com

89 pointswyday19 comments

This is excellent advice, but be careful about following it too literally: you could end up iterating on Artix or FamSpam.

You can draw a straight line from the abandonment of Artix (pg's first startup, making online art galleries), through Viaweb (startup #2, acquired by Yahoo!), to the founding of Y Combinator and the creation of Hacker News. And, as his recent keynote (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=487686) reminded us, Chris Wanstrath's decision to abandon FamSpam helped bring GitHub to the world.

It's hard to imagine any amount of 'tuning' leading Artix or FamSpam to fame and glory; in both cases, the way forward was to start anew. In startups, rapid iteration is a key to success---and sometimes you have to iterate at a higher level of abstraction than a single startup.

Totally agree with your last bit. "sometimes you have to iterate at a higher level of abstraction".

I think, anyone who wants to start a business should look at things on higher level. They shouldn't limit themselves on idea-level. Instead, they should look at business and life as one. That way, probably the advice of "never give up" sounds more relevant.

If having your own business is one of the goals in life, then, probably the only time you are pronounced failed (and should give up) is when you die (end of your runway). Otherwise, running out of cash, work on failed idea and things like that, for me, is just a temporary obstacles and you still have chances to keep playing with the knobs. Probably this link below illustrate the point better. http://tinyurl.com/bjh8wd

When we start looking at things in this high-level, i think the case of FamSpam to GitHub sounds more like another dial on the knob.

Just my 2c. :)

(inspired by http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=424043)

Awesome, an Inc. article inspired by a Hacker News thread. That, to me, is a perfect example of the quality of comments on HN.

Quick, what are the minor adjustments you've made to the dials in your business that made a huge difference?

If only I was allowed to talk openly about the specific problems I and my fellow product engineers solved in the semiconductor industry. Let's just say that the setting of a single knob can make the difference between a fab that produces millions of dollars of profit and one that produces millions of parts that are broken and will eventually be scrapped (hopefully before they are sold to customers as part of their cell phones.)

There's a legend about the Intel shipping clerk who single-handedly destroyed a sizeable percentage of his fab's output by being too diligent. He wanted to make sure the company wasn't being shortchanged, so when a box of wafers arrived from the silicon supplier he would open the box, carefully count out the wafers into a pile on his dusty desk, then put them back in the box and send them on into the fab.

Forgive my ignorance, but was the output destroyed because he was ruining the purity of the wafers by removing them from the box?

You got it.

Human environments are filled with dust, salt, and oils. When I was trying to finish my Ph.D. -- which required me to build some semiconductor lasers that were reliable enough to be tested more than once -- I eventually reached a mental state where I was so focused on cleanliness that I felt vaguely uncomfortable touching anything, including objects in my own home, without wearing gloves.

I'm much better now.

I think the whole point of the article is that it doesn't matter. You've got your own unique radio with your own unique dials. Start twisting.

Ok that comment didn't make me want to hear the stories any less --- which is I assume why Spolsky wrote his anecdote about monthly subscriptions.

I think tuning little things or finding right combination of things is right on. For example, if you watch Chef Gordon Ramsay's Restuarant Nightmares TV show, he does the same thing. He comes in to a failing restaurant observes how it is run and tries to change Menu, Interior decoration, etc to make it successful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Ramsay

In the bastardized US version of the show, he seems to mostly be turning them all into the same restaurant. Also, his makeovers don't have a great track record (check Wikipedia, and also Yelp). I also think the advice you'd distill out of the show is pretty superficial:

* Reduce your menu to simple, accessible dishes with a restaurant "specialty".

* Reduce price.

* Source fresh ingredients.

* Redecorate.

What annoys me most about the show (even the BBC version) is that personnel changes never seem to be on the docket --- you have people that clearly shouldn't running a kitchen, and at the end of the episode there they are, plating Ramsay's sauteed skate wing.

That's not true. Some of the great earlier episodes had HUGE blowups between Ramsay and the not fit for kitchen people. Watch the Babylon, NY episode, or the one about the Indian restaurant in NYC.

I think you fail to consider that the places he goes into are usually owned by a family or a clueless person. He can't go in and say "well, honestly since you asked to be on my show, it's clear that YOU are the problem. You'd be better off if you just closed."

Uh, clearly he could choose not to "take the cases" of restaurants that were structurally incapable of improving. And yet his producers do, because they are the ones willing to embarass themselves on this show.

More importantly, the fact that Ramsay is willing to yell and bare his chest for the camera does not change the fact that he does not seem willing to stick to his guns and demand that they fire the old guy in the kitchen and hire a talented Ecuadorian to take his place.

My opinion is that is entertainment. I don't think it is turning the knobs, instead it is manipulating the video tape to show you what they want you to see. And he is an outsider making the changes, the original person is not doing it themselves. In a startup, the original person needs to be coming up with ways to turn the knobs and try different things to see what will work. It seems they choose people for the entertainment and shock value. Same thing with the "We mean business" show on AETV. I recommend a different source of inspiration...

Don't business fail also just because they run out of money?

You can have all the morale in the world, but if you run out of money and you need to pay your rent, you have to move into something else.

You don't have to move on to something else, you just need to get money to pay your rent, then keep chasing your dream. That could be a 1 week to 1 month delay, but it doesn't mean you have to give up. To me, morale means keeping yourself positive and moving toward what you want, even when everything else is negative and horrible.

Think about this statement:

"I am willing to do whatever it takes to get what I want."

(If anyone is interested, I can point you to the source.)

AFAIC, that statement = "all the morale in the world".

Do you really think that someone who says and truly believes that statement would ever run out of money?

Sure. Do you think that someone who truly believes that they can fly won't land smack on their face if they jump off a tall building?

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