Tim Ferriss Needs A Startup To Invest In | Hacker News Reader

Tim Ferriss Needs A Startup To Invest In

fourhourworkweek.com

40 pointsTheHeasman46 comments

I would also invest 100k-1mi in a company that's growing 10% month-to-month and had 10k+ paying users.

No companies in such position should need to raise that amount money. It's not completely useless, but: you can't hire talented developers with it, you could spend cash with office and 'stuff'... My point is, if you are profitable, raise 20mi, 10mi. 100k won't make much difference.

Maybe you want to work specifically with Ferriss, but the truth is, profitable startups are in high demand (because there are none) and they are the ones choosing partners.

I don't think these kinds of startups would work with Tim for the money. They'd work with Tim because he'd turbocharge their growth. Tim is a better partner than the vast majority (maybe all) of the other VCs chasing these fast growing startups. Tim can offer money and massive exposure. Other VCs offer just money. Take your pick.

I think these companies would work with Tim for just the exposure and press.

This is why he wants to preferrably be first money in. It's smart. He needs to be careful though. If he does this and a high valuation is had for future money but the company doesn't do well, then VCs will be cautious of future hype.

Maybe it came out undervaluing Tim's help (which is worth much more than 100k), we share the exact the same opinion. I'm sure that with Tim's help, any startup would get a huge investment within weeks.

Is it possible to short startups? Because I would love an opportunity to short Tim Feris, even if only by proxy.

If there's one thing he knows it's marketing and hype, pretty sure that'd be useful for a startup with a proven business model.

The base rate for all startups, regardless of hype, is not awesome.

its possible. just find a counterparty who wants to take the other side of the bet.

people short unshortable assets in finance all the time by getting the bank or a marketmaker to take the other side in an "over-the-counter" (OTC) agreement.

You just make up the rules and there's a signed document.

i.e. "bets backed up with legal documents".

And... I, for one, would probably take the other side of the bet against Tim Ferris in the short term.

Are we making a bet? Because we'd need to work out some sort of terms.

The nice thing about shorting a stock in the open market is that it's easy to peg it to a fall in price.

For a privately held company it's much harder.

Hard to short a guy with a massive following. He can sell pretty much anything to his loyal fans. And there are a lot of them. You'd be better off shorting Tesla and Elon musk. Take away all their government subsidies and all you're left with is hype.

And a car that seems to have achieved something that others haven't, is licensing its technology to Toyota, and is selling cars that people want and are excited about. Other than that, yes, just hype.

Yeah, I have to be honest I'm not really a buyer of Ferriss. No hard evidence, just not convinced by him.

If he were true to his own principles I would expect each employee at that startup has only to work 4 hours a week. Would love to see how far they get with Ferriss' success strategies.

That's actually not at all what he preaches. He's just an advocate of minimizing work you don't want to do and don't do the famous idle-work/pseudo-work the whole day (I can work 12 hours a day, adjusting power point slides, but that doesn't really make me productive).

I still have my issues with this approach. This only works in my opinion for reproducible tasks that are easy to explain. If have tried working with VAs numerous times. You need to calculate the time it takes to write a detailed brief on exactly what you want and usually have still to go through the project. Even with mindless tasks such as adjusting power point slides - if it is really important it makes sense to do it yourself. By the time you are done with it you know that you have exactly the product you had in mind free of any screw ups - except your very own. Unless of cause you have found the 'perfect' VA.

Don't hate on other people, because you didn't have had the success you wanted/expected from working with VAs. Maybe your approach was wrong? Also: automating redundant tasks doesn't necessarily mean using VAs!

I hate on people who promote subjective viewpoints / experiences as universal truth. The underlining idea ('don't define yourself by the hours you work') is certainly valuable but it is cooked up by a mixture of recycled self-help 'for the working professional' recommendations that are mixed with the promotion of unrealistic expectations.

I don't think the 4 hours book was written for high-growth startups. The point was to automate work so you can do 4h of work per week which should generate your target income - no less or more. In fact, the book had a section where he criticizes people who just maximize income/growth.

But isn't his whole project highly contradicting a criticizes people who just maximize income/growth mindset? Shouldn't he at least go for social entrepreneurship, or even some 3rd world self-employement/small entrepreneurship strategies? The project definition he outlined looks definitely not like he would be searching for lifestyle businesses to invest in.

Let's see if he comes and comments about that! I think that his nick is tferris.

I doubt that's him. Comments/submissions history is almost all about coding (Go, Ruby, Node/Express etc. etc.)

Yep too much hours to learn that to be him!

Most likely too busy and already writing his next book on "how to own 5% of the next Google by writing a 5 min blog post".

There's a lot of negativity about Ferris in this thread, and it's clear he's a very divisive figure, not only here on HN.

But I wonder, what about those successful startups he advises? Surely, if Uber, Evernote, WordPress, and Shopify are happy with his services, he can bring something to the table?

I'm genuinely curious why all the negativity. Just in case anyone's wondering, I'm not particularly a fan of his either, but I'm open to the possibility he can add value to companies.

He seems to add value in the same way that Donald Trump does, and is only slightly less unsavory a human being.

I just can't take a judgement of unsavory seriously from someone who's chosen to call themselves cuntfart... :-)

It's really sad to see the HN community hate on Tim Ferriss so much. Yeah, he's a controversial person, and he's totally aware of that (even using it to his advantages).

But after you inserted your 4 Hour joke here, think about what you have done, that created value in this world?

Tim wrote three NYT Bestsellers and at least two (if not three depending on how you'll measure this) have touched and changed so many lives in a positive way. What have you done?

There is just one single (and dead) negative comment about Tim Ferriss in this thread.

"What have you done?"

Ask that more often, you will be surprised to learn that mostly every single person actually creates and do things that are important to others in one way or another. Don't diminish people just because their work is not broadly recognized, everyone is important.

Landscape's changed in 10 hours. Negative comments have gone to the top.

And true, but not necessarily depressed people.

Slightly OT when Tim says "US-based investable entities (which is easy)" how easy it really is?

Even if one incorporates in say Delaware, according to (say UK rules) a company is resident where the heart of the company is. And if I, as a director, am physically out of US (or Delaware), how can you claim your company is resident there? Nominee directors?

I believe the intent is that the business was founded in the US.

Not really. He explains what he means in the article.

> - US-based companies, or companies willing to create US-based investable entities (which is easy). Shopify started in Canada, for instance.

The business can be founded anywhere as long as it has a US based entity.

Very true. Wasn't aware Shopify was started in Canada

OK so incorporated in US but paying taxes wherever in the world?

Mm what a pitty that we are only lacking 10000 paying costumers to meet the requirements...(we are about to launch in a couple of weeks, 0 tracktion by now) Anyway here it is www.apparly.com

You need to look at your copy again - missing words, and missing spaces galore on this page: http://www.apparly.com/providers. Even in the title! - Are you [a] provider.

They need to look at every page, even the home page:

What is Apparly? [We are] an Appstore that lets you choose how to pay.[space]Download Apparly, [and subscribe, buy the license or 'Pay per use' the program you need] needs rephrasing.

Our application list Browse the list of Apps available for subscription, pay per use or sale.[space]Let us know if you don´t find what you are looking for.

Good luck though, looks like a good start and you just need to do some final polishing

Thank you, I am not coding the home page and made the text edit on the file. It takes some time to know how it looks well as I'm not a programer myself and the guy uploading this is not of the team. I hope to nail it this afternoon! By the way would you mind If I ask you for a short test once we launch?

Thanks, I know, working on it, just uploaded this version yesterday, but some texts are not showing what they are supposed to (the initial texts were just giberish and meant to be replaced).

great idea, just bookmarked it ! thanks

No, thank you! We are really in the costumer search moment that pg writes in his last essay. We are about to start looking for costumers. Would you mind to give it a shot once we have launched?.

Don't expect more than 4 hours of mentoring!

Damn weak.

I find it interesting he states "No enterprise software".

It's because he can't add much value to enterprise software companies. He has broad reach to consumers, not businesses.

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