Things about being a founder I wish I had known two years ago | Hacker News Reader

Things about being a founder I wish I had known two years ago

speakerdeck.com

136 pointsantr26 comments

This is very helpful deck in the context of B2C (business to consumer) companies who are looking for funding. The deck does not contain the text, so here is the text of all high-level points in the deck:

1. Identify your perfect customers --Focus on them and on nothing else.

2. Stop writing code. --Did you talk to customers yet?

3. Investment != success --It's a means to an end.

4. Investor meetings aren't job interviews --Build a relationship over time.

5. Talk about your idea --startups die from obscurity but thrive on feedback.

6. Be careful with hires --Trust your gut feeling.

7. Don't worry about engineering --Worry about getting users.

8. It's a marathon, not a sprint --90% of the time, it's about endurance.

9. Don't study the outliers --Study real business.

10. Your relationship with your co-founders is critical --Don't "go to bed" angry.

11. Relax. --You're going to make mistakes. It's fine.

Author can be reached at gilad@smore.com

While spam filers work well, posting someone else's email in plain text seems rude IMO.

Fair. Although the individual did post it in his slide deck to be reached for contact.

I think the concern is that there are crawlers that collect plaintext addresses, so typing out an address is a different level of disclosure than including it in an image.

At least he had good intentions, I wouldn't call it rude like Rentric did.

Slide 16:

"Be careful with hires and team

...

If you aren't sure and don't like the person after a week, fire them. There's enough people that you WOULD like after a week"

I moved hundreds of miles for my last two jobs. If I were fired a week into a new job in a new city by a boss who "wasn't sure and didn't like me after a week", I would be devastated.

I would rather get 100 job rejections than have to go through one experience like the last bullet on slide 16.

And thanks to the web and social media, the world has gotten much smaller. If a company gets a reputation for treating hires like that, especially in the tech field, they will only get applicants desperate enough that they are willing to be treated like that.

I agree that the author is taking the suck-it-up-and-fire-when-you-must advice a bit far there. Also, per the preceding point on that slide,

Your first 5 employees are like 5 bullets in your gun. Each hire needs to make an impact.

if employees are like bullets, firing them would be key to having them make an impact.

[Yes, I know what the author meant, but the gun/bullets analogy is distracting while providing firing advice. I did still like the overall presentation.]

Good point. I did not consider people relocating for the job. In that case, I would want to try the person out before actually hiring her. If that's not possible, then obviously I wouldn't recommend ruining someone's life logistically for the sake of getting a better hire.

My main point was that after a week you'll probably either get along with an employee or not get along with them. In my experience, if you don't get along with someone, it usually does not get better over time.

How many people have you fired after a week?

Have you ever been fired after a week?

TBH, I've never been fired. I have fired a handful of people. All of them have been fired after more than a week (in some case, much more). I believe that all of them could have been fired earlier, saving both us and them a lot of time and trouble.

I know this is a black-and-white type of argument, and in real life things are obviously more complicated.

Or maybe some of them could have been mentored away from the problems they had? Or maybe someone could have done a better job not hiring them in the first place and not starting a relationship?

I don't agree so much with the implication of "VC meetings aren't job interviews, they're relationships." Jobs are relationships, too. In fact, your employees are often sacrificing more than your investors to be with you. For your investors, it's just money, and they have enough or they wouldn't be risking it in investments. For your employees, it's their livelihood, health insurance (in the US), families, and 8+ hours out of every day--time which is key when in your life, time is really all you ultimately have.

In other words, don't be so non chalant about employees. They're people too.

I couldn't agree more. I would never want to work for someone who is able to fire anyone after only a week for whatever reason (assuming he does good screening of candidates, otherwise the problem is his broken hiring process and I don't want to work for him in that case either).

That's why the screening process is so important, and should not be rushed.

Instead of firing the person, you could make every effort to find a situation for the person that's a better fit for him/her. Almost all people can add value in some way. If they can't, you probably wouldn't have hired them in the first place.

while a week might be really short to draw your conclusions on a new employee, I would probably be living in a hotel for at least the first couple of months before moving... to reduce risks...

Isn't that very good reason to work remotely - certainly for a trial period

For additional discussion, check out the previous time this was posted:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5357123

My favourite comment is the top.

>> Question: "So why didn't anyone tell me?"

>> Answer: "Because it wouldn't have mattered."

I think "stop writing code" is decent advice in principle, but is practically difficult. A few points:

1. If you have no domain experience or expertise, you shouldn't just stop writing code, you should stop what you're doing. A lot of startups fail before any code is written because the founders know little to nothing about the market or industry they're targeting.

2. While it is absolutely possible to sell software before it has been written, unless you're well-connected and have trusted relationships that will deliver customers on tap, to get meaningful conversations started, you will often need to have something to show, even if it's mockups or a basic prototype.

3. A lot of startups write too much code because they try to support use cases that they think are important. Ironically, some of these use cases are actually discovered through conversations with potential customers, which highlights the fact that it's not simply enough to talk to people you hope might become your customers; you need to know how to talk to them.

A question that's been on my mind. Since this deck discusses B2C startups, how to do you reach out to a consumer on a telephone to determine if they would be a good customer? How do you figure out what that consumer wants?

I see all the advice to do all of this stuff before writing code, but I see others that suggest "failing fast" by building something and seeing who ultimately uses it and what they use it for.

Let's say I wanted to make a picture hosting site (I don't), I would find my unique selling proposition and build a site around that, get the URL out in front of people that probably want to host pictures, then see how many of them sign up and how many ultimately use the USP feature that I built.

In my case it's not as broad or generic a concept, so I can't throw a URL out there and just see how many people sign up for the site. I mean I can but I can't expect that to actually work, for anybody to actually show up.

I know there are online communities out there I need to reach, blogs that focus on the target audience I am reaching for, and quite possibly thought leaders.

What am I missing when it comes to building and marketing a B2C product?

What does it mean by identify the perfect customer?

Does it mean to find the customers that you know needs your product and focus on them first? Persuade customers that may or may not need your product later?

it means you make a list of 20 companies (existing, real companies) that you think would be your perfect customer. This is a very good tip as it helps you focus resources. The biggest benefit is that you define the characteristics of your customer segment. In fact, it becomes very simple to find out if your product is suitable for this customer segment since you can contact any of those companies (or similar) on that list and test product fit.

"Don't keep looking for greener pastures" is something I needed to hear.

This is excellent, agreed on all points

Great post :) thanks ...

Great post :)

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