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It might be a starting point but it doesn't provide the fundamentals to get you where you want to go.

This reminds me of what pickup artists teach. They teach tactics for how to get in the door, and forget about the fundamentals of actually building a real relationship.

Managing/balancing debt might play a role in friendships, but friendships are not about debt. They are about people who care about each other's lives.

I'd much rather have a friendship rooted in love/care than in manufactured debts. I wouldn't see the latter as much of a friendship.

A few thoughts coming from a guy who used to be a shy introvert.

- Making friends involves truly connecting with people. Connecting with people means caring about them. The first step is to give a damn about everyone around you. How are they doing? What do they care about? What makes them tick? What problems might they be having?

- People love to talk about themselves. Ask them good questions, and actively listen (because as we said above, you care about them!). The more you get someone to talk about themselves, the more they'll usually end up liking you.

- Help people. It might be an old lady across the street. It could be a co-worker. Or, the person moving into your apartment building. When you can, help people (again, because you care about them :))

- Notice a trend here? I'll repeat it again. You are doing things because you care about others. The best way to stop being an introvert is to get out of your own head, and get into the head of others.

- Lastly, you'll be uncomfortable a lot. Some conversations will fizzle out. Some people might think you are weird. You might be out at a bar and have no idea who to talk to, or how to start talking to someone. Spend time being uncomfortable. Learn to deal with it. Sooner or later, you'll make small bits of progress. When you do, repeat what you did to make that bit of progress.

Hope this helps some!

In the grand scheme of things, 30 is still young! At least I have to believe so, being 33 :)

I started out as a hardware guy, and moved slowly over to software over the last 5 years. The great thing about CS is that there is so much you can pick up from material online. Just takes time and work!

This is very exciting. If experience points to the hypothesis that this could work, it has to be worth at least trying. At the very least, YC will learn a lot. At best, YC will be thought leaders in creating a new way to approach and angel/seed investing. I don't see how anyone could think this is a bad idea to try for at least one YC season.

I agree with this.. "why?" is the right question to ask before choosing to do anything. But unless I'm mistaken, this isn't what your article is about.

Sure, I think the main problem is the title of the post. "Forget Self Improvement" a pretty broad statement for how little you say about one part of self improvement. I suppose it served its part in creating controversy (and views), but I wish bloggers didn't resort to this.

This is ridiculous. The only useful thing is the suggestion to find what you love. But the author says nothing about the path to finding what you love. This isn't easy for everyone. There is a reason many people go through several career changes in their lives.

Here is my view on self help. Self help is about trying to cultivate the thoughts and processes for being the best version of your self. It's about actively creating your own thoughts, motivations, actions, goals, dreams, etc. There are a variety of ways for one to think about this stuff: books, conversation, workshops, or self reflection. But it is valuable stuff. Suggesting to forget all of this is horrible advice.

Yup, I agree. Why not both?

Sounds like the right thing is to find a big problem that you can be passionate about.

I think it is easy to confuse market research and product research with the MVP. I don't even quite know the difference according to Eric's definition.

What seems to make sense to me is to simply follow the name. It is the minimum work for a viable product. A splash screen is not a product. A video is not a product. A wireframe is not the product (unless it contains the minimum form of the product). Thus, all of these are not MVPs.

Determining if something is a product should be easy. Determining what is minimum but still viable is much harder.