Ask HN: So I quit my job to focus on my startup... | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: So I quit my job to focus on my startup...

35 pointsxefyr49 comments

Who can recommend good books/articles on negotiation?

And.

How about good freelance/temp resources to pay bills until I become ramen-profitable or secure funding?

Perhaps the second question becomes irrelevant if pg is listening...

I am surprised at the negative responses you've received in the last ten minutes of posting this, it is very much against the spirit of what usually occurs.

1) The book that I've seen mentioned the most often in the area of negotiation is not actually directly on that topic. It is just a general book on "getting it your way" - Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people".

2) I am in NYC, there are local python-nyc and ruby-nyc user groups, and they get a decent amount of traffic with people asking for help on various projects, a lot full-time, but occasionally a part-time gig offer comes up. Research the equivalent in your area.

Thanks Yuri! I appreciate your support, or at least constructive evaluation :)

I'm familiar with the book - I'll give it a go. As for my areas, mostly I'm finding people looking for full-time deals related to hadoop/hbase/lucene. Thanks for the reminder though, I'll look "harder".

You can also read "How to get Rich" by Dennis Felix

+1 for Felix Dennis & How to Get Rich. Holds a permanent place of honor on my bed-stand. He shares his steps and missteps on his way to becoming a self-made bill-eee-on-air. Owes much of his success to negotiation. Fun read.

If you actually want to make your startup work, avoid freelancing. It's way too easy to get sucked into spending all of your time consulting, and it's pretty difficult to be fully mentally engaged in multiple projects. Also, the hardest part of freelancing is when you're just starting out. If you don't already have clients or a reputation, you'll spend all of your time trying to find clients and bidding on projects.

During this time, you won't be making any money, and the money you do make will probably be shitty because your clients will be the kind you find on craigslist that want you to build them "a facebook for X" in exchange for a sandwich. More importantly, all of this time will be time you didn't spend developing your startup.

I second this, pick up work when you absolutely have to and no more. I usually tell everyone I'm always open to contract work but then set my hourly high enough that it creates a nice filter.

And if you do have to freelance, make a portfolio online with samples of your work. If you don't have any good samples, make them up for dummy companies. Print business cards that have your contact info and what you do written in plain English. Don't spend money on advertising (especially if you don't have any to start with), rather send messages to everyone you know notifying them of your new offerings and pass out business cards at every opportunity. Use Facebook, Twitter and other social networks to your advantage in spreading the word about what you offer.

I've also heard offering commissions for referrals works but I have yet to get any leads like that (maybe it's just my friends?).

This is my general opinion regarding freelancing as well; I have every intention of building a product company and no interest in "consulting". Would you say, if worse comes to worst, it's better to get a 'day-job' outside of the field than to pursue contact/freelance gigs coding? If freelancing too much of a distraction to pursue at all?

I once asked a very good negotiator for the best book he could recommend on negotiation, and he directed me to Start With No. (URL: http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2...)

I've read it, it made sense to me, I've noticed a number of good negotiators doing things it suggests and my (admittedly few) negotiations I've done since have gone much better.

Ben, you should give this a read "Bargaining for Advantage : Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People" By Richard Shell - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=921079

Getting to Yes is a pretty classic negotiation book:

http://www.amazon.com/Getting-Yes-Negotiating-Agreement-With...

I'm the guy who quit with OP. In fact, his lead engineer (on paper). There's an interesting dynamic when two people quit at the same time. Game theory time!

We do have a fair amount of leverage when it comes to negotiating severance pay, due to our knowledge of distributed architecture.

But yes, we're committed 150% to the startup. And submitted our YC application a few days ago :)

If you have knowledge they need why not just offer to provide consulting services back to the company while they transition. This way you get to eat and they get a smoother transition.

Looks like you guys are doing something in the database space. Good luck!

"... Who can recommend good books/articles on negotiation? ..."

Negotiation is as much about non-verbal as it is verbal. So what's a good way to learn negotiation aside from watching "Lie to me" ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lie_to_Me or "Hustle" ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hustle_(TV_series) ? What about playing and learning poker?

In any sort of negotiation it helps if you can understand a) where the person you are negotiating with is coming from and b) what they are really thinking.This is where playing poker can help. To win you sometimes have to bluff (or lie) about your hand. People who are superior at understand and reading what others are thinking can use this to their advantage so try some books on psychology. A good start is understanding "cognitive bias" (how individual psychology can influence individual decisions) ~ http://psychology.wikia.com/wiki/Cognitive_bias

Another good reference ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ekman

"Who can recommend good books/articles on negotiation?"

The best book on negotiation, bar none, is "Bargaining for Advantage : Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable People" By Richard Shell. http://www.amazon.com/Bargaining-Advantage-Negotiation-Strat... (looks like it is out of print, but used copies seem cheap enough)

"looks like it is out of print"

There's a new edition out:

http://www.amazon.com/Bargaining-Advantage-Negotiation-Strat...

To the OP: Seriously, if there is one book you are going to read on negotiation, make it this one. The things you learn using this book can be put to use.

Best of luck to you with your startup! Here are some good articles about negotiation: http://www.negotiatormagazine.com/subject_index.shtml

If you are a techie, the best freelance/temp work will come from your persistently networking with people and companies that match your interest and expertise. Those may also lead to partnerships or investments or just plain old good advice for your startup.

Of course there can be a lot of difficult balancing required between freelancing and starting up, but many people make it work. The salesmanship, discipline, and customer relations skills you learn freelancing can certainly come in handy in a startup.

I've recently finished listening to "Influencer": http://www.audible.com/adbl/site/products/ProductDetail.jsp?...

From my review: "I expected this book to be less scientific and less valuable than it turned out to be. Not one of those stupid motivational books, but rather a good theory source with real-life cases as illustrations.

Some of the chapters move you away from the major subject while trying to prove a point, and discuss things like, for example, delaying gratification studies or skills acquisition processes. These topics, however, are presented in a great scientific manner (well, maybe not a scientific, but at least authors are not bullshitting with you and consider you to be smart) and are supplied with data and good examples, so it's a pleasure to read (listen to) them.

I also think this book is a must-read for entrepreneurs, as they are the ones, who must influence people all the time and be good at it. And while they usually learn to do so by practicing, this book might provide a great deal of theory to start with."

I'm also listening to the other book by these authors now - it's called "Crucial Conversations", seems like it's really useful too.

Highly recommended, and no one has mentioned yet:

Getting To Yes http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_YES

And anything by Cialdini: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Cialdini

For starters, I'd recommend 'How to win friends and influence people' by Dale Caregie and 'How to talk to anyone' by Leil Lowndes.

Freelancing to pay bills also turns out to be a big distraction. I'd recommend exploring other creative ways that don't take your focus off of your startup to pay (or avoid) your bills.

I second the Leil Lowndes.

Thirded. "How to Talk To Anyone" is an excellent book. I need to read it again though as there are so many things to remember :-)

I actually use the tip on nametags. I'm now known as "Smiley" because I put smiley faces on nametags instead of my name. I'm dorky what can I say.

I am taking a negotiation class right now and we are using the three books listed below. The professor is really great, and the books are not boring college textbooks - they're really engaging and I'd read them on my own if I wasn't taking the course, too.

"Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive" by Goldstein, Margin, & Cialdini is a great book on influence and persuasion.

Cialdini is a great resource for influence/negotiation in general, so look for other articles/books written by him.

"Predictably Irrational, Revised and Expanded Edition: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions" by Ariely is a great book on behavioral economics

"Negotiation" by Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry

why are you jumping right into negotiation skills? do you have a product yet? has someone approached you and said "we want to buy your company!"?

i know zackattack's comment got downvoted pretty badly, maybe because he was a bit too facetious in how he phrased it. but you do have some money saved up to last at least a few months, don't you?

edit: i'm not trying to be negative, i am very much for quitting to do your start up. but trying to learn how to negotiate seems like a bad sign. if anything, you should be focused on building something people want right now.

All of these questions should of been researched to death before you leaped.

Paralysis by Analysis

I started doing that when I ran out of all my previous savings. If you are confident that you can always make money, wait and give all the time to your startup before it runs out.

Congrats.

Why are you looking for books on negotiation? I don't have any other than the ones mentioned, but the first rule of negotiation is to pretend like you don't give a shit about the favorable outcome, then proceed from that premise and everything will be fine.

This is jacquesm's must read on consulting: http://jacquesmattheij.com/be-consultant

Fisher and Ury's "Getting to Yes" is the most authoritative text on negotiation and very accessible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Getting_to_YES

So what is your startup?

Fully scalable, faceted, bolt-on search :)

Google?

Agree with thomaspaine. I'm freelancer and working on others projects takes most of my time

Against All Odds by James Dyson and Pouring Your Heart Into it (starbucks) are on my list

Negotiation is about getting a good deal that both sides feel is of value to them.

I had a class called "Negotiation and Conflict Management". The two required texts for it were "Getting to Yes" and "The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator". My recollection is that these are the only two books on the topic (or were at the time) that are based on research. "Getting to Yes" is short and an easy read. "The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator" is a much meatier book. I recommend it often.

You're fucked.

The first principle of negotiation is to always have a better option.

Actually the first principle of negotiation is to make the other person THINK you have a better option. :)

yes, but there is a lot of psychology involved. if you're in a needy position, it will be difficult to fake it. and experienced negotiators will catch your BS pretty qucikly.

You sound confused. This is the better option.

He's saying, you put yourself in a precarious financial position, and you're not going to have any negotiating leverage with anybody.

We're good. We just want to be "more good". Bootstrapping cash.

I actually think that you're not good if you think appeals to "pg" on an HN thread are in any respect a good idea. Even if you were "joking".

Sorry. I am not optimistic about your guys' chances for success.

one of the regulars here posted an awesome guide about freelancing. i would look it up but i'm going to grab a beer instead =)

This is probably what you're talking about: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=848370

If not, it's good anyway.

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