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Comment by _xczx | Hacker News Reader

12 startups in 12 months? That's just strange.

I think he's trying to take the same approach that mobile game developers do - generate lots of smaller titles instead of one big one so you have more chances of hitting it big.

I think that game a month challenge was primary meant to be for fun, learning and to motivate rapid prototyping. It has nothing to do with generating big hits.

More like "12 (weekend/hobby) projects in 12 months".

I am planning to run a similar challenge, and I have been struggling with correctly naming it, since I won't actually be creating startups (no actual business plan, no nothing).

I think 12 sideprojects in 12 months would be more appropriate, at least to the approach I'm planning to take.

Regarding this project, I follow the creator on Twitter and he announced it yesterday I believe, and today I was thinking about it and ran into the same question "does the money go to the website or to the friend?".

Logistically, I don't think paying the friend would be something easy to do (does Stripe even allow for something like that?). Going 100% to a non-profit would leave no room for profit, so I would personally go with 80/90% to a non-profit of choice and keep the remainder as a fee.

Or one startup that pivots 12 times a year.

That's actually utterly idiotic; as in “12 songs in 12 months” or “52 paintings in 52 weeks”. One does not routinely come up with good ideas or get inspired.

This is so wrong I don't know where to begin. Your comment is also blatantly ignorant of the high output of artistic work that was produced "on spec" during the renaissance and other artistic periods.

52 paintings in a year was not uncommon for painters that are now revered as old masters.

Good ideas and inspiration are, despite your opinion, largely a product of routine.

The routine of capturing thoughts and directions followed by the routine of planning, implementation and possibly review.

The idea of a tortured artist throwing a smattering of paint at a canvas in frustration because his "spark" is gone is largely a figment of the modern imagination.

Art has been made to order on demand for most of history.

EDIT TO ADD: Downvoting without a response? Thanks for proving my point.

As you can prove to yourself by rereading the parent comment of mine, I have stated not that “good ideas and inspiration are not a product of routine”, but that “good ideas and inspiration do not come up routinely”. To further explain my thoughts, let me add that one need not be inspired or have a good idea to train themselves (training is what the kind of routine we're talking about ultimately is), but need be wishing to train and have some idea, which need not be good.

It is a fine method of developing one's art/science/etc... skills to regularly practise, but not a fine method when it comes to startups and founding companies, think I; for such things happen to have consumers, people who may be favouring the product and incorporating it to their daily lives, which will be disrupted when the founder loses their interest in that product and proceeds to the next month's startup.

They may have had a goal of building 12 web sites in 12 months, or 12 blog posts in 12 days, but this person chose to launch 12 startups each month, and launch those to press. Launching companies regularly is dissimilar to painting regularly. (TBH, I did not double check if this serial founder is referring to some ordinary web application as startup)

Good ideas do come up routinely.

Well, according to http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html you can literally go and find good ideas right now and every day thereafter.

It is also the basis of the Lean Startup Machine weekend (phenomenally popular).

You can train yourself to have ideas. Good is just an evaluation system.

People may indeed be incorporating a new product into their lives and the Founder will need to manage customer expectations and fallout. A high likelihood of discontinuance does not disqualify his attempts from being a startup.

The truth is, from a validation perspective the OP may have stumbled onto a supremely successful model of idea validation. Build it, tweak it, pump it for 11 months. The next project has 10 months. The next 9. Etc. Compare the metrics after one year and choose the most successful.

However, the statement that good ideas do not come up routinely and is false. They may just not be routine for you

come up: (Of an issue, situation, or problem) occur or present itself, especially unexpectedly [1]

inspiration: A sudden brilliant or timely idea [2]

If an entrepreneur trains via founding companies, then, should an architect train via filling the city up with half-arsed buildings? Nowhere in the pg article does occur something like “build random ideas into companies routinely”. Also, in that write-up is writ:

> If you're not at the leading edge of some rapidly changing field, you can get to one. For example, anyone reasonably smart can probably get to an edge of programming (e.g. building mobile apps) in a year. Since a successful startup will consume at least 3-5 years of your life, a year's preparation would be a reasonable investment. Especially if you're also looking for a cofounder.

[1] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/come-up...

[2] http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/inspira...

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