I feel like there’s an ‘all or nothing’ attitude recently around starting a business which doesn’t make sense to me. Either you’re making millions and have 100 employees or nothing.
I work in a company that has 5-10 employees, nobody is working their ass off and there’s steady income and gradual growth. Our CEO is not a millionaire, but he enjoys his work and the company he works for. There is no plans for fast growth or VC funding.
Can anyone explain to me where does this obsession with VC funding and huge growth come from? I feel like if you grow your company by more then 50% YOY you will end up with a totally different company culture, and you might end up hating your own company.
You’re on a website which is run by an arm of a prominent venture capital firm.
What did you expect? Us all talking about the successful McDonald’s franchisee in Wichita, Kansas?
You’re consuming news from a portion of the overall economy where there are high stakes, big bets and a lot of money involved. Outsized, massive multi-billion dollar outcomes are the name of the entire game.
Because in the current market you can get yourself a better lifestyle burning through VC cash than by trying to get that cash from the paying customers.
To me it just feels as though the "get rich or die trying" mentality is something more alluring to people, whereas success stories from slow, steady growth makes more sense but is less hyped.
On this site, "startup" is short for "high-growth startup". Of course you can open a neighbourhood restaurant and it will be a startup, just not the kind people like to talk about here.
On HN "startup" means the kind of business whose ambition is to be a household name, used by millions of people if it's in the consumer space, or all the major customers if it's in B2B.
That kind of thing tends to require a business that grows a lot while generally not making free cash, which is why it needs outside investors. Those investors see a lot of these firms and this is one take on the accumulated learnings.
I agree with you and see your point, but many businesses (especially B2C and high-tech) can't get to profitability without millions in venture capital.
Venture capital is high-risk and high-reward, and investors won't gamble millions without a chance for a massive return.
Massive returns usually happen at large scale.
If you want more companies like yours and fewer like, say, Twitter, then venture capital would need to be a charity.
I'd argue that a lot of people are just following the tune painted in the media and culture as a whole without thinking through whether or not that's what they want.
It's a real shame that building a company has become about racing to the cash (with very little conscious reasoning as to why) and not about building meaningful products, services, and teams that will be around for the long-term.
As a guy running a "tiny" company that just did a little over 100K in revenue its first year, I couldn't be happier. There's only three of us (two of which are contractors) and the current goal is to intentionally limit our team size to no more than 20 over the next few years.
Obviously there are multiple schools of thought. There are companies/people who don't go for funding and sustain on revenue from customers. Basecamp is a great example. They never used the funding they got from Jeff Bezos, instead putting all the money in a hedge fund. David Heinemeier Hansson, a partner at Basecamp talked about why they made this decision in a Tim Ferris podcast episode. He thinks that a company should be built for the long run instead of making a spectacular exit. These are the companies you usually don't hear about in the news. It's not to say that these companies don't grow but do so gradually, at their own pace. THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS.
There also companies/people who think they need an exit strategy, rapidly iterate and grow, get multiple rounds of funding from VCs or angels, then sell it to one of the bigger tech companies. There are so many examples of these types of companies. You only need to visit Techcrunch or one of many tech news sites.
There are other types too. The company I work at, we do put in great work, have steady growth. We did get funding from VCs but working towards self-sufficiency. Funding was necessary to keep the company alive, while delivering great value to our customers. In the end it comes down to what kind of a culture you want to set for the company and what you think will be good for the company and the employees.
>I work in a company that has 5-10 employees, nobody is working their ass off and there’s steady income and gradual growth. Our CEO is not a millionaire, but he enjoys his work and the company he works for. There is no plans for fast growth or VC funding.
Contrary to many responses, the drive for growth is a consequence of human psychology and hence how things evolve in business. Humans are fundamentally dissatisfied creatures, and this translates into ever-increasing hunger for profit in businesses.
As a business owner, you cannot decide in isolation that you want to not grow because that decision is impacted by your competitors and customers. If your competitors decide to grow really big, your small business will get threatened. This is exactly what's happening with Amazon. A mom-and-pop shop may be happy not growing, but it's at the risk of not existing at all.
It depends on the product and business model. Some kinds of companies can scale organically. Some need lots of initial investment. If one needs lots of initial investment, the investors are going to expect a large return.
I have successfully run a consultancy for fourteen years. This is very bootstrappable, but does not scale well. Conversely, one cannot make the next Tesla using one's own capital.
I took a social entrepreneurship course where the professor insisted that entrepreneurs had to think big and scale.
I thought, “The dry cleaner down the street he a competitor advantage by memorizing the face and account number of every customer. Even if they don’t scale beyond one shop, they’re an entrepreneur”
Single proprietor businesses generally don’t hire PR firms to hype themselves up. That’s why it’s not in the press.
I havent read all responses above, so excuse me if this is repeated information.
To answer your question, you have to understand how VCs operate. How they raise money from other institutional investors, rich folks etc and how they need to return that money in a finite time (4-5 years) Everything comes down to money for that reason.
Most startups are vision driven. The more impact you make the faster the more successful the company is. In most cases, impact is catalyzed by big VC funding or getting a lot of employees.
>> Can anyone explain to me where does this obsession with VC funding and huge growth come from? I feel like if you grow your company by more then 50% YOY you will end up with a totally different company culture, and you might end up hating your own company.
Startups need an exit strategy.
Employees want to work 5-10 years max and end up with millions to retire peacefully while working in an intense environment which serves as the story of their accomplishment for the lifetime.
Then they plan to follow their other life goals like going on a world tour with the family or watch their kids growing up or creating their own small lifestyle business. It can be anything.
The key realization is that most employees do not want to work for you just because they have found themselves in such place.
When I was new in the industry, I put a lot of blood/sweat into building a company. Today, I can't force myself to put the same amount of efforts even if I want to.
The idea is to raise money fast, hire experienced people for ancillary services and develop the application in a way so that it is able to hold up till IPO. Defer all costs (application maintenance, vendor lockins, IP infringement risks) for post IPO. Create the Hype around the product which gets you eyeballs, subscriptions, MAU and other metrics which translates into the valuation. Once you've caught market attention, the solution can always get more love post IPO.
The market pressure to produce returns post IPO results in the broad application of the company's IP, resources, and talent. This might spin up new industries.
Once the employees have cashed their equity, it's up to them to stay (if they are enjoying the position) or leave (if they've other life goals).
A lifestyle business, won't be able to achieve this for each of their employees. Even very few startups achieve this for most of their employees.
I read the comments before clicking the link, and found myself agreeing with commenters who complained about this line:
> In addition, if people are working less than 8-10 productive hours per day, then they are clearly not being as productive as they could be.
I almost dismissed the book as a "yet another VC-driven, work-your-people-to-burnout story" but really, there's more to that. I've found it an excellent read so far and it's very concise, it wastes zero space on nonsense. I realized that I don't have to agree with everything an author writes to be able to get value out of a book. Warmly recommend you check it out.
"Our team knows this isn’t a 9-5 company. We stay as long as it takes to get the job done."
“Let’s just wait across the street from your company’s parking lot and watch the front door."
"a first trickle of employees left. I asked, “Are these your VPs and senior managers?” He nodded looking surprised and kept watching. Then after another 10-minute pause, a stream of employees poured out of the building like ants emptying the nest. Rahul’s jaw dropped and then tightened. Within a half-hour the parking lot was empty."
I track my productivity very assiduously. For some tasks, such as writing, it is next to impossible to be productive for more than 5-6 hours/day. Your brain gives up after a while.
I think we have to stop looking at productivity as a universal metric. Each person defines his own way of being productive. Some people subscribing to deep work only consider deep work as productive work. If I can just write code in my comfort zone for 2 hours should I consider that productivity ? I'm not sure.
From my experience, a lot of a founder's time is spent in non deep work. Taking calls, traveling, talking to users, understanding user feedback, writing product features and coding up some or most of the features. So the actual deep work is perhaps very limited - in desiging features and coding them up. How do you measure founder producivity when the tasks are so varied. IMHO such a measurement exercise is futile.
An interesting article; i was reading the replies to this. So here is my take. A UK 40++ entrepreneur.
I have been there and done that - made good £££ from the first boom in 2000. Since then tried a couple of startups all of which failed, for one reason or another. Sadly we did burn through quite a lot of investor £££ in the process and gained no personal value other than experience.
What I think I have learned is that building a small business with around 5-10 people and making a regular salary of £200k a year is a much more enjoyable existence than trying for the millions and never quite getting there.
Working for a large corp, contracting etc is depressing (other than doing it abroad which was fun for a few years and allowed me to travel in my 30's).
We now have a funky office, a very tight team of devs. I guess in some ways I modelled on what Joel did.
After everything, I have learned "bootstrap" + "lifestyle business" is the best route to have a happy and productive life. Our business is a digital agency - mostly wordpress sites for SME market, a few apps etc. Its regular and good money. it is no way as interesting as some of the "startup" ideas we tried over the years, but no VC still on my shoulder anymore :)
> What I think I have learned is that building a small business with around 5-10 people and making a regular salary of £200k a year is a much more enjoyable existence than trying for the millions and never quite getting there.
Ive had my consulting business for about 18 years. We are around 45 people now and this year I should make about 1MM in profit. I envy my friends who have made millions in a fraction of the time, but for every one of those there are maybe 50 who are employees (somehow I know too many people that have made 10MM+ selling a company).
I'm 20 years old and have a web and design agency with a co-founder and currently two employees (+ flexible workers). I can relate.
When I was younger (I know how this sounds) I read "The Lean Startup" and drank the Koolaid. I was feeling like a failure because I wasn't building the next big thing (tm) although I had an IQ of 152 and wrote code since ages. I think that some aspects of the startup bubble can be seriously bad for mental health. I've learned to accept myself and the world and cut the bullshit and "will to power"-esque thinking. Sometimes I still have feelings of unmet potential, but fortunately I now understand that a fast-growing startup is one of many solutions (and sometimes not even a solution at all). I can now learn to allow myself to find peace.
Requiring proposals and updates written down is a good idea. If you allow people to bring up an issue or proposal that they have not already written up in the meeting, someone always comes up with idea on the spot, and tries argue it as something well thought. If they are clever people they can throw the whole meeting off.
For the loudest voice in the room problem, speaking order that starts from the most junior and ends with the most senior member is the best (I think it's sometimes used in military). When junior members speak first it's easier for them when the boss has not given his opinion.
The junior to senior ordering makes so much sense. I didn't realize it until now how affective it is, and how I try to always encourage that in my teams.
How do you handle situations when you see a need for this but don't want to step on the toes of others? From my experience, some people react poorly to hearing that type of feedback or approach, and while I try my best to avoid those working environments it does happen from time to time. In those situations, I try to encourage, inspire, and explain why it's important.
If you are just an employee and your company hasn't employed this you can do it on your own. Simply build a consensus by meeting people 1:1 before the meeting. When you do this you are no longer as dependent on your in-meeting performance.
> In addition, if people are working less than 8-10 productive hours per day, then they are clearly not being as productive as they could be.
So, are people expected to be in the office for 12+ hours a day? Nobody is 100% productive from the moment they step in the door, every day. The fact that the author even wrote the number 10 here makes me a bit angry.
I'm only about 1/4 of the way through, does he have a section on employee burnout?
You definitely should read the whole thing with more attention to this aspect - getting productive hours out of employees is an extremely difficult task, but it does pay off big time. This can be achieved with the "fun" environment at work, with meals at the office, with very clear goals and alignment on those goals, with a bigger ambition in mind, with creative compensation schemes, flexible hours, remote work schemes, and with a lot of other things. That's why there are "managers" (not necessarily) CEOs who can get this productivity out of people, and those who cannot.
Author namechecks Thirteen Days, the harrowing account of the Cuban Missile Crisis and a world on the brink of annihilation. There is also a terrific movie adaptation. In it, Secdef McNamara talks about how the positioning of submarines and aircraft carriers about the open seas is actually a coded language. And by making moves and counter-moves, what the US and USSR are actually doing is communicating intent.
Another classic is Ron Howard's Apollo 13. One of the few movies that depict the engineers as heroes. An inspiring watch for the whole team. And Damien Chazelle's upcoming Neil Armstrong biopic might make for a similar outing.
Crisis management, perhaps more so than innate technological superiority, can yield distinct competitive advantage. And this is where actually learning from precisely the type of case study found in the YC network makes sense. Knowing that you can stay calm, slow time, take deep breaths, and react rationally because others have dealt with far more on their plate than you ever will.
I'll share an anecdote. A small independent media outlet once got wind of a redesign I was working on and reported the story. The client was incensed as they were planning a full marketing rollout and had "lost the narrative". We were still months from launch. But rather than get into a blame game and lose more time. I suggested a soft, beta launch with media blitz immediately. After a week of jamming to polish our working prototypes for general availability, we were public facing, with laudatory feedback and the client appearing on CNBC ;)
Weeks later, as it turns out, it was revealed I was in fact the source of the leak. An unscrupulous reporter had called my office posing as a contract employee of the client and asked about a meeting time and place. In replying that it would be at my office that afternoon, they had confirmation that in fact the redesign was in progress!
I'm about a quarter way through this book and I'm enjoying it so far. This line, however, didn't resonate with me:
> To encourage 8-10 productive hours, serve dinner 8-10 hours after morning stand-up.
As a person who enjoys life outside of work, the idea of having a job where they were serving me dinner every day is baffling. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
They serve dinner every day where I work. I simply go home earlier than that. Nothing happens. It’s quite simple really.
On days where I happen to need to stay late, it’s a really nice convenience. For people who go to the gym after work and come back to eat, they save money by grabbing a quick dinner meal at work.
> Agenda
>
> Spouse
>
> Connect- listen to each other’s day for 5 minutes each
I had to laugh at this. Setting aside only 5-10 minutes a day for your closest confidant and life-partner? Good luck with that marriage.
One of the ironies for me of people who slave away with the hope of scoring the jackpot, is that they often justify it by telling themselves and others what they'll do once they're financially independent, when in reality you can probably do most of those things now already.
Want to travel the world? You can travel worldwide for a year for about $10k to $20k.
If you have a wife and family, they're alive now. There's no guarantee they'll be alive even tomorrow, or that you'll be.
Delayed gratification and sacrificing some of the present for the future are both definitely good and necessary, but should be done within due measure.
>You can travel worldwide for a year for about $10k to $20k.
Or take shorter vacations for very little money. I’ve recently discovered the world of “travel hacking”. There are many blogs[1] that outline ways to optimize travel reward points programs and greatly reduce travel costs.
"One of the ironies for me of people who slave away with the hope of scoring the jackpot,"
There are other reasons as well to work hard. Some people enjoy the prospect of potentially denting the universe a bit. But yes, if financial gratification and financial gratification alone is the goal it's a tad silly.
Yeah how ridiculous! Loved ones should honestly be our number 1 priority. That work is so demanding of the majority of our free time while we are alive is a travesty. Work used to have meaning when we would hunt, gather, or farm. You did that along side your friends and family. Now we isolate ourselves for 8 to 12 hours a day earning money to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. And for what? Is humanity progressing? Is a claims adjuster contributing?
A crude look at Crunchbase apparently indicates that 'one founder is best' and 'four founders is worst'. [1] Though it's not exactly a scientific assessment, the numbers do paint a rough picture.
>> ...the data shows that solo founders rarely succeed. The emotional burden is just too high.
I am a solo founder and yeah, I completely agree with this. I severely underestimated the emotional burden of going it alone. I am in a much better state now, but it was definitely a struggle. If I had to do it over again this is the main thing I would change - be more open towards and work harder towards finding a co-founder.
I am a solo founder and I have been a non-solo founder in the past and being a solo-founder is 100x better. I think it depends on the type of person you are and what is important to you.
The biggest advantage of a co-founder IME is that you balance each other's waves. When one of you has a down week, the other can have an up week. If you're a solo founder and you have a down week, the whole company has a down week. This balance keeps progress consistent.
If you study coaching, or organizational development techniques, you'll find that most practices are consultative -- defining goals, as well as how the coach/consultant will work with an individual or organization. You then evaluate where the person/org is at, where they want to go, and develop various plans and interventions to get there.
I point this out because this document skips all that. It says so in the first page - this is written by someone who targets young founders in SV. Quite a narrow niche. This document is one specific playbook, for that specific niche.
Sure, young founders in SV may want this. And if you do, too, the info is good for you. But there is more than one way to run a company, more than one desired outcome, and more than one set of answers in what you should be doing.
> YCombinator has a near-blanket policy of only accepting co-founder teams (ie- no solo founders), because the data shows that solo founders rarely succeed. The emotional burden is just too high.
But YC application FAQ states that this is not true. Although practically speaking from speaking to other startups, I have noticed that only startups with co-founders made it to the final round. This is just based off my experience and talking to other startups
In my batch, there were definitely a bunch of solo founders. However, they (almost) all had something special about them: a strong existing team, a strong background, or a strong previous startup success.
IMO the bar should be much higher for solo founders. If you have 2 people, then it's twice as many resources to check all the various boxes you need (sales, design, technical, etc) - otherwise the solo person has to credibly be an amazing all-rounder (which is rare).
That's the core dynamic IMO... then add on the emotional burden part to that and it makes even more sense.
But then again a bad cofounder fit could actually lead to MORE emotional burden too... so obviously it all comes down to specifics.
Side tangent, if you’re looking to share a draft book like this with a bunch of people, https://betabooks.co is a good option. Specifically designed to handle heavy load of readers and look great on mobile, etc.
I just want to say that I really love that they're using the pronoun "she" in the beginning. It is refreshing to hear when most business books are directed using male pronouns.
Amazing write up. I have been through it (now in a second startup) and can relate to most of it. This is like the book I can read as summary of my journey through startup world.
> “If we were to make you the following offer (state the offer in full detail, including cash, equity, benefits, etc), would you accept?”
If they say yes, then make them offer.
This is most effectively done on a paper note, passed between classmates, so that there is plausible deniability if they say no /s
This is a funny tactic because it should not work with a thoughtful negotiator.
"If we were to make the offer" is de-facto an offer, it's just not official, and though there might be a legal difference between an 'if we made it' and 'actual offer' ... for all intents and purposes, it's the same. It's the start of the negotiation.
A half-smart negotiator would simply say: "Yes, if you included moving expenses" or whatever they would say otherwise.
Is this book available as a printed book? Would love to buy a copy. I have read disparate parts over the years, but this one is concise and covers a gamut of topics. It might even help in running a research group!
> In addition, if people are working less than 8-10 productive hours per day, then they are clearly not being as productive as they could be.
Am I the only one that immediately thought about employees as the Clueless on the Gervais Principle[1]?
It looks to me like they need to sell this dream of exiting big for people to sacrifice everything for the company. However everyone forgets how absurdly low the chances of winning the lottery is.
It's essentially the carrot on the stick.
Maybe I'm wrong and it's easy to win on this "game"? I'd love to see some data on how many actually become millionaires after killing themselves on the startup grinder.
> Hire an x-CEO to come in as a “1 day a week CEO” to implement this system. She should be able to do so in 6-8 weeks. Have her then watch you run the system for 2 weeks to ensure that you are doing it correctly.
I was under the impression that the accepted gender-neutral pronoun to use in this case would be "they". Any idea why "she"/"her" is used? Is this a new phenomenon?
I coach tech startup CEOs (and tech investors) in Silicon Valley, most of whom are young technical founders. They include the CEOs of Coinbase, AngelList, CoinList, TrustToken, Bolt, Shogun, Speechify, etc.
typeliftr|7 years ago
I work in a company that has 5-10 employees, nobody is working their ass off and there’s steady income and gradual growth. Our CEO is not a millionaire, but he enjoys his work and the company he works for. There is no plans for fast growth or VC funding.
Can anyone explain to me where does this obsession with VC funding and huge growth come from? I feel like if you grow your company by more then 50% YOY you will end up with a totally different company culture, and you might end up hating your own company.
askafriend|7 years ago
What did you expect? Us all talking about the successful McDonald’s franchisee in Wichita, Kansas?
You’re consuming news from a portion of the overall economy where there are high stakes, big bets and a lot of money involved. Outsized, massive multi-billion dollar outcomes are the name of the entire game.
That’s why you get that feeling.
john_moscow|7 years ago
kasnaka|7 years ago
TwelveNights|7 years ago
denverkarma|7 years ago
lordnacho|7 years ago
On HN "startup" means the kind of business whose ambition is to be a household name, used by millions of people if it's in the consumer space, or all the major customers if it's in B2B.
That kind of thing tends to require a business that grows a lot while generally not making free cash, which is why it needs outside investors. Those investors see a lot of these firms and this is one take on the accumulated learnings.
smt88|7 years ago
Venture capital is high-risk and high-reward, and investors won't gamble millions without a chance for a massive return.
Massive returns usually happen at large scale.
If you want more companies like yours and fewer like, say, Twitter, then venture capital would need to be a charity.
rglover|7 years ago
It's a real shame that building a company has become about racing to the cash (with very little conscious reasoning as to why) and not about building meaningful products, services, and teams that will be around for the long-term.
As a guy running a "tiny" company that just did a little over 100K in revenue its first year, I couldn't be happier. There's only three of us (two of which are contractors) and the current goal is to intentionally limit our team size to no more than 20 over the next few years.
ilangorajagopal|7 years ago
There also companies/people who think they need an exit strategy, rapidly iterate and grow, get multiple rounds of funding from VCs or angels, then sell it to one of the bigger tech companies. There are so many examples of these types of companies. You only need to visit Techcrunch or one of many tech news sites.
There are other types too. The company I work at, we do put in great work, have steady growth. We did get funding from VCs but working towards self-sufficiency. Funding was necessary to keep the company alive, while delivering great value to our customers. In the end it comes down to what kind of a culture you want to set for the company and what you think will be good for the company and the employees.
paraschopra|7 years ago
Contrary to many responses, the drive for growth is a consequence of human psychology and hence how things evolve in business. Humans are fundamentally dissatisfied creatures, and this translates into ever-increasing hunger for profit in businesses.
As a business owner, you cannot decide in isolation that you want to not grow because that decision is impacted by your competitors and customers. If your competitors decide to grow really big, your small business will get threatened. This is exactly what's happening with Amazon. A mom-and-pop shop may be happy not growing, but it's at the risk of not existing at all.
Earlier I had similar thoughts of "why grow", but now I understand better. I wrote about this in a blog post: https://growth.wingify.com/startup-complacency-the-flip-side...
mcculley|7 years ago
I have successfully run a consultancy for fourteen years. This is very bootstrappable, but does not scale well. Conversely, one cannot make the next Tesla using one's own capital.
mathattack|7 years ago
I thought, “The dry cleaner down the street he a competitor advantage by memorizing the face and account number of every customer. Even if they don’t scale beyond one shop, they’re an entrepreneur”
Single proprietor businesses generally don’t hire PR firms to hype themselves up. That’s why it’s not in the press.
philbo|7 years ago
JonoBB|7 years ago
Don't let the hype/marketing make you think otherwise.
subashp|7 years ago
To answer your question, you have to understand how VCs operate. How they raise money from other institutional investors, rich folks etc and how they need to return that money in a finite time (4-5 years) Everything comes down to money for that reason.
madsvj|7 years ago
thirdsun|7 years ago
(I'm not affiliated with them in any way, just a fan of the product and someone who sympathizes and agrees with their views.)
xstartup|7 years ago
Startups need an exit strategy.
Employees want to work 5-10 years max and end up with millions to retire peacefully while working in an intense environment which serves as the story of their accomplishment for the lifetime.
Then they plan to follow their other life goals like going on a world tour with the family or watch their kids growing up or creating their own small lifestyle business. It can be anything.
The key realization is that most employees do not want to work for you just because they have found themselves in such place.
When I was new in the industry, I put a lot of blood/sweat into building a company. Today, I can't force myself to put the same amount of efforts even if I want to.
The idea is to raise money fast, hire experienced people for ancillary services and develop the application in a way so that it is able to hold up till IPO. Defer all costs (application maintenance, vendor lockins, IP infringement risks) for post IPO. Create the Hype around the product which gets you eyeballs, subscriptions, MAU and other metrics which translates into the valuation. Once you've caught market attention, the solution can always get more love post IPO.
The market pressure to produce returns post IPO results in the broad application of the company's IP, resources, and talent. This might spin up new industries.
Once the employees have cashed their equity, it's up to them to stay (if they are enjoying the position) or leave (if they've other life goals).
A lifestyle business, won't be able to achieve this for each of their employees. Even very few startups achieve this for most of their employees.
Numberwang|7 years ago
skrebbel|7 years ago
> In addition, if people are working less than 8-10 productive hours per day, then they are clearly not being as productive as they could be.
I almost dismissed the book as a "yet another VC-driven, work-your-people-to-burnout story" but really, there's more to that. I've found it an excellent read so far and it's very concise, it wastes zero space on nonsense. I realized that I don't have to agree with everything an author writes to be able to get value out of a book. Warmly recommend you check it out.
koonsolo|7 years ago
"Our team knows this isn’t a 9-5 company. We stay as long as it takes to get the job done."
“Let’s just wait across the street from your company’s parking lot and watch the front door."
"a first trickle of employees left. I asked, “Are these your VPs and senior managers?” He nodded looking surprised and kept watching. Then after another 10-minute pause, a stream of employees poured out of the building like ants emptying the nest. Rahul’s jaw dropped and then tightened. Within a half-hour the parking lot was empty."
throwawayqdhd|7 years ago
deepGem|7 years ago
From my experience, a lot of a founder's time is spent in non deep work. Taking calls, traveling, talking to users, understanding user feedback, writing product features and coding up some or most of the features. So the actual deep work is perhaps very limited - in desiging features and coding them up. How do you measure founder producivity when the tasks are so varied. IMHO such a measurement exercise is futile.
cncrnd|7 years ago
You're not that special folks, you have to work to get paid like everyone else.
eeeeeeeeeeeee|7 years ago
unknown|7 years ago
[deleted]
oldandlesswise|7 years ago
I have been there and done that - made good £££ from the first boom in 2000. Since then tried a couple of startups all of which failed, for one reason or another. Sadly we did burn through quite a lot of investor £££ in the process and gained no personal value other than experience.
What I think I have learned is that building a small business with around 5-10 people and making a regular salary of £200k a year is a much more enjoyable existence than trying for the millions and never quite getting there.
Working for a large corp, contracting etc is depressing (other than doing it abroad which was fun for a few years and allowed me to travel in my 30's).
We now have a funky office, a very tight team of devs. I guess in some ways I modelled on what Joel did.
After everything, I have learned "bootstrap" + "lifestyle business" is the best route to have a happy and productive life. Our business is a digital agency - mostly wordpress sites for SME market, a few apps etc. Its regular and good money. it is no way as interesting as some of the "startup" ideas we tried over the years, but no VC still on my shoulder anymore :)
austenallred|7 years ago
But what if you get there?
triviatise|7 years ago
Tarks|7 years ago
gadders|7 years ago
mockingbirdy|7 years ago
When I was younger (I know how this sounds) I read "The Lean Startup" and drank the Koolaid. I was feeling like a failure because I wasn't building the next big thing (tm) although I had an IQ of 152 and wrote code since ages. I think that some aspects of the startup bubble can be seriously bad for mental health. I've learned to accept myself and the world and cut the bullshit and "will to power"-esque thinking. Sometimes I still have feelings of unmet potential, but fortunately I now understand that a fast-growing startup is one of many solutions (and sometimes not even a solution at all). I can now learn to allow myself to find peace.
Nokinside|7 years ago
For the loudest voice in the room problem, speaking order that starts from the most junior and ends with the most senior member is the best (I think it's sometimes used in military). When junior members speak first it's easier for them when the boss has not given his opinion.
adreamingsoul|7 years ago
How do you handle situations when you see a need for this but don't want to step on the toes of others? From my experience, some people react poorly to hearing that type of feedback or approach, and while I try my best to avoid those working environments it does happen from time to time. In those situations, I try to encourage, inspire, and explain why it's important.
EGreg|7 years ago
slededit|7 years ago
rcfox|7 years ago
So, are people expected to be in the office for 12+ hours a day? Nobody is 100% productive from the moment they step in the door, every day. The fact that the author even wrote the number 10 here makes me a bit angry.
I'm only about 1/4 of the way through, does he have a section on employee burnout?
arsenico|7 years ago
ArtWomb|7 years ago
Another classic is Ron Howard's Apollo 13. One of the few movies that depict the engineers as heroes. An inspiring watch for the whole team. And Damien Chazelle's upcoming Neil Armstrong biopic might make for a similar outing.
Crisis management, perhaps more so than innate technological superiority, can yield distinct competitive advantage. And this is where actually learning from precisely the type of case study found in the YC network makes sense. Knowing that you can stay calm, slow time, take deep breaths, and react rationally because others have dealt with far more on their plate than you ever will.
I'll share an anecdote. A small independent media outlet once got wind of a redesign I was working on and reported the story. The client was incensed as they were planning a full marketing rollout and had "lost the narrative". We were still months from launch. But rather than get into a blame game and lose more time. I suggested a soft, beta launch with media blitz immediately. After a week of jamming to polish our working prototypes for general availability, we were public facing, with laudatory feedback and the client appearing on CNBC ;)
Weeks later, as it turns out, it was revealed I was in fact the source of the leak. An unscrupulous reporter had called my office posing as a contract employee of the client and asked about a meeting time and place. In replying that it would be at my office that afternoon, they had confirmation that in fact the redesign was in progress!
firemelt|7 years ago
chrisparton1991|7 years ago
> To encourage 8-10 productive hours, serve dinner 8-10 hours after morning stand-up.
As a person who enjoys life outside of work, the idea of having a job where they were serving me dinner every day is baffling. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
askafriend|7 years ago
They serve dinner every day where I work. I simply go home earlier than that. Nothing happens. It’s quite simple really.
On days where I happen to need to stay late, it’s a really nice convenience. For people who go to the gym after work and come back to eat, they save money by grabbing a quick dinner meal at work.
jcbrand|7 years ago
I had to laugh at this. Setting aside only 5-10 minutes a day for your closest confidant and life-partner? Good luck with that marriage.
One of the ironies for me of people who slave away with the hope of scoring the jackpot, is that they often justify it by telling themselves and others what they'll do once they're financially independent, when in reality you can probably do most of those things now already.
Want to travel the world? You can travel worldwide for a year for about $10k to $20k.
If you have a wife and family, they're alive now. There's no guarantee they'll be alive even tomorrow, or that you'll be.
Delayed gratification and sacrificing some of the present for the future are both definitely good and necessary, but should be done within due measure.
gricardo99|7 years ago
Or take shorter vacations for very little money. I’ve recently discovered the world of “travel hacking”. There are many blogs[1] that outline ways to optimize travel reward points programs and greatly reduce travel costs.
1- http://travelisfree.com
fsloth|7 years ago
There are other reasons as well to work hard. Some people enjoy the prospect of potentially denting the universe a bit. But yes, if financial gratification and financial gratification alone is the goal it's a tad silly.
iamcasen|7 years ago
segmondy|7 years ago
casca|7 years ago
achairapart|7 years ago
casca|7 years ago
vonseel|7 years ago
lihaciudaniel|7 years ago
[deleted]
tail_risk|7 years ago
Where is the data on this?
The only public exit / ipo yc has had to date was a solo founder.
sonnyblarney|7 years ago
[1] https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/co-founders-optional/
segmondy|7 years ago
mephitix|7 years ago
>> ...the data shows that solo founders rarely succeed. The emotional burden is just too high.
I am a solo founder and yeah, I completely agree with this. I severely underestimated the emotional burden of going it alone. I am in a much better state now, but it was definitely a struggle. If I had to do it over again this is the main thing I would change - be more open towards and work harder towards finding a co-founder.
danieltillett|7 years ago
chatmasta|7 years ago
codingdave|7 years ago
I point this out because this document skips all that. It says so in the first page - this is written by someone who targets young founders in SV. Quite a narrow niche. This document is one specific playbook, for that specific niche.
Sure, young founders in SV may want this. And if you do, too, the info is good for you. But there is more than one way to run a company, more than one desired outcome, and more than one set of answers in what you should be doing.
AndrewWarner|7 years ago
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZJZbv4J6FZ8Dnb0JuMhJxTnw...
endlessvoid94|7 years ago
doh|7 years ago
alfredallan1|7 years ago
https://www.filedropper.com/foundertoceomattsbookforstartups...
PS: the link doesn’t work without cookies or in anon mode.
chrisparton1991|7 years ago
ganeshkrishnan|7 years ago
But YC application FAQ states that this is not true. Although practically speaking from speaking to other startups, I have noticed that only startups with co-founders made it to the final round. This is just based off my experience and talking to other startups
gkoberger|7 years ago
corry|7 years ago
That's the core dynamic IMO... then add on the emotional burden part to that and it makes even more sense.
But then again a bad cofounder fit could actually lead to MORE emotional burden too... so obviously it all comes down to specifics.
ztratar|7 years ago
denverkarma|7 years ago
BadassFractal|7 years ago
omeid2|7 years ago
foobaw|7 years ago
Teeer|7 years ago
Yep, very insightful. I hope I never work for this guy
memonkey|7 years ago
OJFord|7 years ago
'her company' for the abstract founder's business is just as wrong as 'his'.
ppbutt|7 years ago
subashp|7 years ago
deedubaya|7 years ago
This is most effectively done on a paper note, passed between classmates, so that there is plausible deniability if they say no /s
sonnyblarney|7 years ago
"If we were to make the offer" is de-facto an offer, it's just not official, and though there might be a legal difference between an 'if we made it' and 'actual offer' ... for all intents and purposes, it's the same. It's the start of the negotiation.
A half-smart negotiator would simply say: "Yes, if you included moving expenses" or whatever they would say otherwise.
sah2ed|7 years ago
The Google Doc has all editing disabled at the moment, but does anyone know if the author would welcome improvements to the text?
asafira|7 years ago
j45|7 years ago
msaharia|7 years ago
Draiken|7 years ago
Am I the only one that immediately thought about employees as the Clueless on the Gervais Principle[1]?
It looks to me like they need to sell this dream of exiting big for people to sacrifice everything for the company. However everyone forgets how absurdly low the chances of winning the lottery is.
It's essentially the carrot on the stick.
Maybe I'm wrong and it's easy to win on this "game"? I'd love to see some data on how many actually become millionaires after killing themselves on the startup grinder.
[1]: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/
sus_007|7 years ago
I'd love to know some of your's book suggestions for aspiring Tech Founder-CEO.
FeynmanThomas|7 years ago
maximp|7 years ago
Someday/Maybe
Schedule a guitar lesson
Order the book Getting Things Done by David Allen
---
Man, this guy really gets me.
tgb29|7 years ago
aytekin|7 years ago
wiennat|7 years ago
fefb|7 years ago
shock|7 years ago
I was under the impression that the accepted gender-neutral pronoun to use in this case would be "they". Any idea why "she"/"her" is used? Is this a new phenomenon?
Dowwie|7 years ago
slap_shot|7 years ago
> Who am I? Why am I writing this book?
I coach tech startup CEOs (and tech investors) in Silicon Valley, most of whom are young technical founders. They include the CEOs of Coinbase, AngelList, CoinList, TrustToken, Bolt, Shogun, Speechify, etc.
maximp|7 years ago
philippz|7 years ago
golemiprague|7 years ago
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extralego|7 years ago
basejumping|7 years ago