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Comment by gregpilling | Hacker News Reader

>> You haven’t hit 10% week-over-week growth on any meaningful metric (revenue, active users, etc)

Isn't this one a little extreme? I started a company in 2004. In 7 months we had sold $92,000. It was slow going, since it was a manufacturing company. In the 8th month we sold $40K, the next month was $60K, the next $72K.... the point is that I never achieved 10% growth on any metric for 7 months, and then it grew like crazy. Had I known how hard it was going to be, I wouldn't have started. Now that I have been through it I have no fear of doing it again. The company has now shipped its 100,000 product (lift kit for pickup truck).

It is a nice honest essay. I just think the one point was too extreme. It is extremely hard to tell when persistence turns into stupidity. I have been both persistent and stupid. I guess if she has spent three years pursuing the vision and it didn't work, then she knows what she is doing.

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Maybe your revenue wasnt't growing 10% week-over-week, but some metric probably was (maybe you weren't measuring the one that was - like value of leads in your pipeline). Or who knows, maybe the $28k commission we've made on $350k of merchandise sold (8% commission for those wondering) in the past 7 months is about is explode.

We're not shutting down, we're changing course and there's no reason we can't make more money doing what's next. I am betting we will grow revenue dramatically with our new direction.

More context: http://refer.ly/please-read-referly-discontinuing-rewards-pa...

In our case we faced a lot of market confusion about what problem we were solving for the customer. There was also a seasonal effect I didn't understand until I went through it for several years.

I wish you luck with your new direction. I am sure you thought deeply about your choice, so it is probably the right one.

Seasonal effect is the worst sometimes, we had similar issues that encouraged us even in the face of other evidence. Thanks for your insights, I'm glad it ultimately worked out for you.

I assume the 8% commission average would then be being split with the user? Running anything with an affiliate model is though and getting tougher. Some people running that are essentially spam do well but the higher quality stuff ran by a small team or individual is struggling, from where I see it anyway.

Edit: Out of interest: your best customers, how were they mostly generating commission? Quality Content? Personal Networks? Existing Traffic?

Zombification, a fate worse than death.

Major props for separating the mission from the vision and going with the mission.

I tell myself (and whoever asks) that I'd be okay if our startup turns out not to be viable, but I'd never forgive myself leaving our potential as a big fat question mark. We finally started a beta last week so answers will come in time, I just hope that if it ever comes down to it, we also pick mission over vision.

Best of luck with the next incarnation of Referly.

Interestingly, I think the key challenge is knowing when you've removed that question mark. The post attempts to provide guidelines around that, but mileage certainly varies and there are gray areas.

I think a tougher question (for me anyway) is when you have moderate, sustainable success, but not the stratospheric rise that you envisioned at the outset. At that point, the decision becomes tougher because walking away means that you are giving up something of significant value. I have also found personally that I like building businesses, but running them? Not so much.

So, the business becomes an anchor, keeping you from a greater vision/mission. At some point, you finally realize that it has to be sacrificed in order for you to get back on track, but precious years can be wasted under the illusion of success before you get there.

You are still a zombie, risen upon us by the benevolent necromancy of Paul Graham, believing that without 10% weekly growth in "some metric you weren't measuring" you, somehow, at some indeterminate point, became a "kind of" failure.

I think she's quoting pg, but pg lists the condition of that growth to be the time a startup is in the YC class

    A good growth rate during YC is 5-7% a week. If you can
    hit 10% a week you're doing exceptionally well. If you
    can only manage 1%, it's a sign you haven't yet figured 
    out what you're doing.

http://paulgraham.com/growth.html

I thinks the growth value really depends on when your compagny will become beneficial. Were you losing money on the 10th month (the one at $72K)?

I lost money for the first 7 months, almost everything I had. Started taking money out in month 9, on Valentine's Day Feb 14th. We were quite profitable by the 10th month, and we bought a building at the 12th month.

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