giffc's comments

Neo is hiring in all of its offices: San Fran, NYC, Singapore, Columbus, Cincinnati, Montevideo, Edinburgh - [email protected]

We are always on the lookout for great software developers, designers and product managers.

Neo is a new kind of consultancy – one that blends the best of Lean and Agile Development practices. We work in small, cross-functional teams. We not only help clients build software the right way, we help make sure they’re building the right thing in the first place. At Neo, you’ll know that you’re helping to build things that really matter – tools and products that have been exposed to market validation at every stage.

We believe in constant learning and pushing the boundaries of our craft. We work reasonable, flexible hours. We use the best tools available, work in an open environment, send our people to conferences, and have a lot of fun.

In terms of technology, we work on a wide variety of languages and frameworks including Ruby on Rails, Objective C, Python, Node.js, Java, Angular, Ember and Backbone.

http://www.neo.com

agreed. It is pretty silly. When one has no experience, one should be willing to do a little more research first and talk to a few more experienced folks. There are many sales & marketing driven software companies. Sometimes it works, sometimes it is a disaster. Personally, I think that the trick is usually about finding the right balance between business, design and engineering, not putting one on a pedestal above the rest.

Agreed that copycatting and lame ideas are to be discouraged, but the author makes one fatal error in my mind: consumers and venture capitalists have the benefit of "portfolio" thinking. Entrepreneurs have all their eggs in one basket, and a finite amount of time to make things happen. So while being totally zany might indeed be good for the whole, I can pretty much guarantee that it will be terrible for 99% of the entrepreneurs.

I admit to finding the name a bit off-putting. There is an amazing low-fidelity, highly iterative, and agile-friendly sketching tool and it is called a real pencil. On gasp paper.

Not that I don't use digital tools too, but I am often surprised how rarely people go analog when it can be invaluable.

I think it is a silly article with a link bait headline. The author has taken his very narrow use cases and extrapolated it to all users. If he can replace dropbox with evernote then he is using dropbox in a very different way from me, not to mention that his implicit message seems to be that all operating systems are going to become Apple-owned, which is silly. Yes, icloud might hurt dropbox but that's a far cry from a death knell.

It depends on stage and context of product. In the earliest days, I think whoever owns "customer development" should also own the UX. It doesn't need to be beautiful, just good enough (that's where context of product comes in -- it defines "good enough" -- a product for engineers will have different requirements than one for grandparents).

The trouble with using free time from a friend is 1. by being free, it is harder to give blunt feedback; 2. by being a favor, you are beholden to their schedule, and can they really keep up with your pace of iteration and learning based on customer development? It can put strain on friendships.

So in the earliest days I say try to DIY unless you really don't have a design bone in your body. Use paper and Balsamiq to sketch, and examine what you like and dislike of comparable products.

You can always hire a professional designer later to come in and help once you feel confident that you are close to the right product for the right customer.

If you want to incorporate, I would get a startup-savvy lawyer in your area and just use their boilerplate restricted stock and IP agreements for you and your co-founders.

If you aren't ready to incorporate, then just write the terms everyone has agreed to in plain, unambiguous English, and have everyone sign it and give everyone a copy. Note the equity splits, the agreed-upon vesting schedule (standard seems to be 4 year vesting, first 25% after 1 year, then monthly after that, with double-trigger acceleration upon acquisition), what everyone is agreeing to for the IP, and any other rules you might be coming up with for the business.

This just keeps everyone on the same page right from the get-go, and prevents revisionist history later. However, once you get serious, I would go ahead and incorporate.

To break fre, the way i would recommend is to save up enough money that you have a reasonable runway to pick one startup idea and pursue/iterate it intensely. Set a goal for how much money that is and save as rigorously as you can. During this time of earning money, you can at least do some customer development around your ideas. And my advice is that unless your consulting and your product are really tightly tied together, you are better off keeping them entirely separate from a legal perspective. If one or both start growing, keeping them together can get really messy. Obviously there are are exceptions to that.

Well I disagree that it is harder than finding a soul-mate, but I do agree it is tricky, and I do agree that you shouldn't partner up with someone you are not feeling great about. I actually wrote that you shouldn't wait to start your business, so we're in agreement fmora, but there are good reasons why you should continue to seek a complementary partner and not be overly stingy in order to bring them on board. Obviously have vesting schedules and protect yourself in case it doesn't work out.

Your critique is totally fair. I agree that every situation is unique -- tried to say that in conclusion -- but I did want to take a strong stand especially for newer entrepreneurs trying to figure out their path. I've seen these pieces saying you don't need a co-founder, and haven't seen much recently saying, "wait a minute, hold up there."

I also tried to clarify twice that I'm talking about companies with a strong software component, where team is so essential. At the end of the day, everyone has to carve their own path, no arguments, but there are general points that can increase the odds in your favor and that's merely the warning I tried to give.

The best way to learn is to do. Start by getting them out of the building, and help them understand that entrepreneurship means getting outside of your comfort zone and focusing on things people actually want.

The lean startup machine weekend just held in NYC was like a 2.5 day customer development bootcamp and it was amazing. People pitched ideas, teams formed around the best ideas, and they had to get out and learn as much as possible. The creativity behind all the different ways to test and disprove ideas, and then evolve and improve those ideas, was quite something. Reach out to Trevor Owens who organized it, because he might inspire some great ideas for you.

I meant to actually put exactly that in my note - there is no reason why if one of you is particularly interested in and seems adept at the business side of things that you cannot cover it yourself. Just think through how it will change your dev velocity, and make sure the person enjoys the role, because you always do a better job when you are having fun :)

The money side depends on how much equity you want to share. I think it is worth bringing someone on board very early. You don't want to go from a cold, standing start at PM fit. You don't want a big company, big budget marketer but what Sean Ellis calls a "growth hacker" who can get creative, and experiment with many different user acquisition approaches. Ideally this is someone who can wear a lot of hats, is very product oriented and can help with customer development, and contribute a lot to the venture pre-PM fit, whether it be UX, working on bizdev relationships (these take time), a blog/PR strategy, and other avenues of attack. The more they can do with the least amount of money, the better. Someone who cares a lot about analytics and finds startup metrics for pirates the coolest thing ever. Someone who obsesses about messaging. Someone who has been at the super early stage before. Good luck!

They don't call it the ivory tower for nothing.

To academics, ideas are everything. For a startup, an idea is merely a jumping off point.

This is why you so often see breakdowns in attempts to spin something out of a university. A professor thinks they deserve a huge chunk of equity for contributing to ideas, but has no time to truly contribute to execution. The entrepreneur team and savvy investors know otherwise. Enter huge hissy fit cap-table fight, stage right.

this attitude doesn't prevent successes, but it does lead to unnecessarily high failure rates

I believe that Eric's heart is in the right place and he truly wants to help more entrepreneurs. I don't disagree that born-again evangelism and "scammy consultants" is an unfortunate side effect of what is going on.

While people will like or dislike my op-ed as they will, I'd just like to say that in writing the blog post, I had no such motives (consulting, that is) -- I'm just another startup guy trying to build a company.

I do agree with the other commenter that there is a new set of "buzzwords" floating around, like MVP, product-market fit, pivot, etc. These phrases emerge as shorthand.

But still I do believe that these authors are more rigorous, more into measurement and results, and more down-to-earth practical than the kinds of biz-consulting blowhard that turned everyone off business speak in the first place.

+1 for making me crack up japherwocky

I can only go on personal and anecdotal experience, but having known a lot of investment bankers, I cannot agree with this at all. After a few years, the folks who truly love it are a definite minority. But many get snared by money/lifestyle. I see the same in management consulting where I get told over and over "I'm just here until I figure out what I really want to do"