If you understand the games it's about. I have no idea what the rules of baseball are, how you win, how you lose, etc. (I'm French) and found the whole baseball paragraph hard to understand.
In the end it seems to mean that you can lose trying, or lose not even trying -- but if one's not trying why are they even in the field?
IMHO such posts should be more informative: what was the original plan to make money, what was tried, what failed and why; who were supposed to be the paying customers: users, carriers, phone makers, app developers or...?
And what were the operating costs? Wouldn't it have been possible to keep it running "on the side"?
As such it's a sad story that makes us sad; but we'd like to learn more.
Same here - I like both actually. If you foul out in basketball it indicates that you were playing a hard, scrappy game, so again, not too far from the world of startups. The baseball interpretation has the added implication that instead of "hitting a home run" or even a "single" or a "double", you got things off the ground but didn't get past that.
Kudos for having the gumption to write this all down. Best of luck at Twilio. They're lucky to have landed you.
The baseball metaphor actually struck me as a little odd, why a foul out not a fly out?
And, given you haven't had a recorded out but instead just failed to find the success needed to get on base, perhaps you just kept fouling the ball off until you got tired and decided to retire :)
bambax|14 years ago
If you understand the games it's about. I have no idea what the rules of baseball are, how you win, how you lose, etc. (I'm French) and found the whole baseball paragraph hard to understand.
In the end it seems to mean that you can lose trying, or lose not even trying -- but if one's not trying why are they even in the field?
IMHO such posts should be more informative: what was the original plan to make money, what was tried, what failed and why; who were supposed to be the paying customers: users, carriers, phone makers, app developers or...?
And what were the operating costs? Wouldn't it have been possible to keep it running "on the side"?
As such it's a sad story that makes us sad; but we'd like to learn more.
andrewpbrett|14 years ago
Kudos for having the gumption to write this all down. Best of luck at Twilio. They're lucky to have landed you.
jazzychad|14 years ago
corin_|14 years ago
And, given you haven't had a recorded out but instead just failed to find the success needed to get on base, perhaps you just kept fouling the ball off until you got tired and decided to retire :)