Don't be a Lonely Planet Entrepreneur- startup mythology's death of capitalism | Hacker News Reader

Don't be a Lonely Planet Entrepreneur- startup mythology's death of capitalism

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Let's torture the metaphor a bit: learning about a city from the other people in your hostel will probably teach you a lot about nightlife, but it might not let you discover that the local museum has an amazing permanent collection of wood-block prints, or that there's an incredible local tour guide who does an english-language walking tour of historical points starting once a day at 9AM. Your dorm-mates probably won't get you to the top of Mount Fuji, lost in the English countryside, or working for board in a private farm in the south of France.

When you're traveling, the experiences accessible from the Lonely Planet strategy have the potential to go much deeper than what you can learn from the guy in the next bunk. That doesn't mean that you want to bury your nose in the guidebook, but it's probably not a bad idea to use it once in a while, either.

I'm as pessimistic about the Magical Internet Business Model (tm) as the next guy, but I still recognize that there are businesses that cannot be founded via bootstrap methods. Thanks to the magic of the cloud, you can now very quickly and cheaply build social-media-whatzits, sheep-throwing widgets, and 99-cent digital hoo-hahs for the iPhone. But you are not likely to build the next Amazon or Amgen or PayPal in your bedroom, using Heroku. Your method of travel strongly influences the places you can go.

Great comment. On the metaphor end, while traveling I usually wind up moving around based on meeting people who live in the country, it usually leads to some really memorable but non-flashy memories... no Mount Fuji's, but lots of hole in the wall spots hanging out with great people, off the wall drum concerts, and more of the day to day experiences of being in another country.

I think the cool part of your comment is the implicit point of timeframe- if you have less time, your best bet is to make sure you have a great experience by going the big bang route- making sure you hit the top of Mount Fuji and making sure you hit the major parts of the country. If you have more time, or are sure you'll return, you can just kind of fall forward through the travel experience and see what happens.

Relating it back to business, if you look at Starbucks or Walmart, they expanded aggressively, but there was a 20 year time-frame there for building out the business. They had time, they used it to the full for sure, but they also were able to execute on their long-term plan. I think the whole raise funding -> one year runway -> sink or swim flow is just an odd way to build a long-term business.

We started off approaching things from that perspective, it didn't work, and we fell into our current approach- my viewpoint is completely dictated by my very limited experience. Our long-term plans are massive in scale, but our short-term plans are two week ship periods to grow revenue and give us a more solid base to operate off of.

The point is, if you want to be an entrepreneur, be prepared to go boldly into uncharted territory, without the guidance, perhaps even despite the guidance, of others. You will find yourself in places you have no business being and you will make it your business to be there. You'll learn the local customs and maybe even change them. Some people will help you out, others will screw you over, but ultimately you'll be riding on your wits, ambition and luck.

It's an excellent metaphor.

the premise seems a stretch.

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