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langer's comments

langer | 17 years ago | on: Plan B for Fundraising (Guy Kawasaki making sense)

This reminds me of the Greg McAdoo vs David Heinemeier Hansson debate at Startup School. It totally polarises 'the VC approach' and 'bootstrapping' and talks in very general terms.

I don't believe there's a right answer to this. Surely the answer is always "it depends". And what it depends on is the interesting part of this whole debate.

langer | 17 years ago | on: Re-Reading Built to Last

"No charismatic figurehead leader, but leadership that focuses on building the organization instead of investing their time in extensive PR work."

I find it interesting that a company's leadership appears to be valued just like this by people inside the company, but that people outside the company often value it in the opposite way.

langer | 18 years ago | on: Ask PG: The difference between instinct and emotion?

I agree with you on this when thinking about your startup/product as a whole, however this isn't the problem I'm so interested in.

My question is more about how to identify the appropriate drivers for making specific decisions when there are too many unknown variables in play to come up with a conclusion through logical analysis.

langer | 18 years ago | on: Ask PG: The difference between instinct and emotion?

I understand that execution can be an implementation of your instincts, however execution can also involve acting on your emotions.

"something real" could also be "something you don't know and may not exist" so I don't quite see how that answers the question. Could you give an example to articulate what you mean?

langer | 18 years ago | on: The Blood Brain Barrier

This reminds me of the first essay students hand in when they arrive at university. The tutor then proceeds to criticise the hell out of it.

Ironically, this particular post has an onomatopoeic ring to it - the content within the post is about as organised as the content being described.

That said - I'm curious to hear how everyone thinks these Tweet-aggregator startups are going to do. It seems like every other article on my KillerStartups.com RSS feed is in the space.

langer | 18 years ago | on: Ask YC: Is it okay to tell VCs who else you're talking to?

I think it depends on how confident you are that the 'other investors' you mention want to invest.

If they want in, you could be seeding an ego battle which your startup can leverage to get better terms.

If they don't and start dissing your startup then you could be shooting yourself in the foot.

langer | 18 years ago | on: Tell YC: Thanks for Startup School

Great to see such a diverse mix of people - I met fellow Brits, people from across the US and even someone who traveled over from New Zealand.

The line up was top-notch, and between Greg McAdoo's and Sam Altman's fundraising demystification, DHH's evangelism of charging users, PG's preaching about being good, and the opinionated snoring dude with the hat, it was both an inspirational and entertaining day.

langer | 18 years ago | on: The European Startup Ecosystem is Entering Puberty

i agree with your point that it's v. important for the team to have the necessary transferable business skills early on. a group of introvert hackers who lack them could easily fail, even if they've built a relatively good product.

nevertheless, my impression of YC is that even with an 80%+ focus on product, there's still time to pick up some good business knowledge reading blogs and speaking to the YC alumni who most certainly have strong business skills amongst them.

in addition to this, surely the job of the seed investors (which can usually be attracted by a YC company who build a good product) is to give more of a commercial focus, and help the founders hire the right 'biz/marketing guys' later on?

however, my experience of most of the 'hacker' founders on YC is that they've got more business skills than almost all of the young entrepreneurs i know in the UK!

langer | 18 years ago | on: The European Startup Ecosystem is Entering Puberty

@madmotive: I’ve got a lot of respect for the main goal of Seedcamp, namely to inspire the next generation of Europe’s serial entrepreneurs. However, I think apexauk’s points above hit the nail on the head — more focus on openly, iteratively and rapidly building a product than worrying too much about perfecting the business model.

I too hope Seedcamp embraces these principles — and if they do, they’ve got a very good chance of achieving their goal.

langer | 18 years ago | on: Ask YC: are you a UK-based hacker, or working on a startup in the UK?

Hi, dood. We're a small team based in Oxford, UK. Would be cool if you can make it to the event kul mentioned - parts of the event (including drinks with everyone afterwards ;-) ) are open to anyone. E-mail jonathan[dot]black[at]sbs[dot]ox[dot]ac[dot]uk for more info. Otherwise we can meet up in London some time. In fact, are you at Minibar this week?

I recently started blogging about UK start-ups at http://davidlanger.co.uk so am also keen to hear about more hackers, entrepreneurs etc. working on stuff this side of the pond.

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