>I’ve always struggled with confidence issues. As a way of compensating for this, I leaned on my programming licks; here was at least one thing that I was awesome at.
>When I got into the startup world, something shocking happened. I started to meet people who were my equals, or even worse, better than me! This caused an existential crisis.
Spot on. It's not just you, buddy.
Edit: Contrary to popular naysaying, there are some of us who do like reading about others' trials and errors. I also loved the article on rock climbing. Keep it up!
When you say that "Bootstrapping a startup is stressful", are you only referring to the time before you raised the $2.5 million? How long was that?
EDIT: According to CrunchBase you raised $500K two months after your company was founded, and another $2 million 13 months later. I'm sure you just used the word without thinking much about it, but technically you bootstrapped for all of 8 weeks. :)
I hope there is more to this.8 weeks is like an extended holiday.
I've been bootstraping for a year now and yes it is difficult but not that difficult.
There is nothing wrong with taking outside funding, but then you don't get to call it bootstrapping any more (as per the widely-accepted definition above of what the term means).
I should have clarified that I was trying to ask a more general question as to why bootstrapping is seen as a superior way of starting a company as opposed to taking on funding.
Ahh, I remember when I was 20 & how nice to think what you have to say is important. I've personally found that people want to read about functionality. They might want to read about your personal stress after you've become successful but chances they're more interested in reading about a new integration or how to look at something different.
The "MIT syndrome" thing is crucial. I think the most important trait in a startup leader is humility. To build a kick-ass sustainable company, you absolutely, positively must be comfortable working with people who are (in some or most respects) smarter than you.
Also, I find it very interesting that the "high" of this roller coaster is the funding.
I never understand why funding seems to be the end goal either. To me, apart perhaps from some vindication of your idea, the happiness people experience when funded almost shows a lack of vision.
For people with financial burdens, venture capital can be the difference between being able to pursue your startup dreams, or letting them die on the vine.
There are definite downsides to raising money, and I totally understand the stigma the HN community tends to attach to it.
Having said that, a 500k seed investment let Jesse and I put down everything, and put 100% of our efforts towards Attachments.me. I have no regrets about this.
I'm not debating the merits of raising cash. Most companies and businesses have to do it when starting out. The part that I (and I'm assuming the OP) find puzzling is the part about "climbing to the top of the hill overlooking the city and realizing all our childhood dreams had come true" after having raised a round of investment. This seems to me to be saying "we got a million+ investment and we won!" I think for most that's not really the point of starting a business.
I'm trying very hard to avoid the "success if getting investment" path because I think it's an anti-pattern, which in turn leads to other anti-patterns. It's much much better to get funded initially out of your own pocket, and then next out of customer's pockets. The earlier you get a real customer who pays you for what you give them, the earlier you validate your business/product, and you indeed have a real business, with effectively an infinite runway.
Thanks for writing this. As a 20-something startup CEO, I frequently want to write about something mundane (or not) but often choose not to for reasons of confidentiality or that I worry some things will cause problems for me later. I don't think I'm a startup god, or an expert at all. Sometimes it would just help to vent or have a discussion about something with strangers who are in similar positions as me.
Unlike some of the other commenters here, your post didn't strike me as self-important. Just looked like you felt like sharing and wanted to have a dialog.
Students entering MIT are the ones acing every class, being constantly praised by teachers/parents and feeling better than everyone else in high school.
Then they enter MIT, where they find themselves with hundreds of fellow students just like them.
For a lot of personalities, this leads to depression and even in some instances suicide.
That doesn't make sense. People emotionally calibrate themselves against the visible skills of the people in their peer group, not a global distribution of IQ.
Yeah, I know they do that, but it doesn't make sense to me why they do that. If everyone expects to be #1 in the world, everyone but one person is going to be disappointed.
It's not a rational thing, but more instinctive. Your immediate surroundings influence you in all sorts of unconscious ways, but all the people in that global distribution are pretty abstract. You can quote statistics all you like, it's difficult for them to change how you "feel" about yourself.
I think he's talking about the easy-to catch idea-disease that since he went to MIT he should be better off than the average person. This might be true in some scenarios, but not in the startup world where as he mentions he "started to meet people who were [his] equals". Personally I'm surprised he didn't already experience this when he got to MIT, like GuiA mentions.
Thanks for the post; running a company is not only about making the right decisions, it is also about living with the bad ones. I think this blog post is a good testimony that helps with that.
Our main products are a Chrome Extension, and an iPhone application. The website itself gets a, granted small, but growing amount of traffic -- but it's mainly just there to direct people towards the clients.
I don't think that Alexa or Compete do a perfect job of reflecting our usage numbers, since the website itself is not the main way people interact with us.
I won't give you all of our numbers, but If you look at our Chrome Extension page, you can see that we have 35,000 active installations. Much of this growth has happened over the past six months.
These numbers simply aren't well reflected in the Compete score.
My coworkers and I work hard, and believe in what we're doing. Rome wasn't built in a day, let's hold of on the talent acquisition talk ;)
"I began getting depressed about the lack of a life I had outside of work. I’d bring this bad mood to work with me, in turn making it a worse place to be.
I’ve since made an asserted effort to dedicate time to my social life: going on trips with friends; going on dates; and, most importantly, getting work completely off my mind occasionally."
Serious question (and my thoughts) here I'm not trying to be cute. Regarding your "social life".
Do you think you will grow out of this? Because what do you think is going to happen if/when you are married and have children and aren't living in SF or some exciting place and have much on your plate?
The best way to insure that you can live the life you want and have some fun is to put all the effort in that you can now and try to put off having fun until a bit later on. Now is when you have energy and should be able to work non-stop with very little else. (I didn't surface for air for 7 years working 6 to 7 days a week ..)
I point this out also because the world is littered with people who didn't get into a good school because they spent a bit to much time worrying about missing something or having fun and are paying for that later. I'm sure you've met people like this in your high school.
It's a little unclear how long you worked before you realized what you wrote. It was certainly less than two years since you wrote this: "I’ve grown a lot as a person in the past two years." That's not a long time to be denied the pleasures of other people and fun (look at people on tours of duty in the war or speaking of my own experience).
The fact that you never had a problem until later means you really haven't dealt with the situation you are in now in the past which I think is what you are saying. Things were easy for you until you got around a group of people who were also good. I know first hand about the MIT syndrome since I saw others that suffered from it at the school that I went to which was quite good.
I didn't suffer from that for one simple reason.
Things were never easy for me it always took hard work and it also took plenty of effort for me to get into the school I went to. So when I got there I didn't fall apart if I got a "B+". I just kept chugging away while the ones who were "so much smarter" who got in with their top grades and SAT's wilted under the pressure of having to do so much work. This was a long time ago compared to when you are in school. So to answer your question, no, things haven't changed that much.
You've got plenty of time to have fun. Now is the time to work as hard as you possibly can with minimal breaks in order to achieve your goals. You might not surface for air for a few years but it will probably be well worth it.
One last thing. There will be times in life when you might have some crisis either in personal life or business that will require you to work all the time. I had a case where several of my top people left, I was in the middle of a legal case, and a breakup, and I still had to show up to work doing the job of three people and deal with personal issues and family fights. Having to go through that and knowing I could (similar I'm sure to having climbed a certain mountain like you are doing) was a great experience that made me realize that I didn't have to be scared of the unknown and that I could handle it.
> The best way to insure that you can live the life you want and have some fun is to put all the effort in that you can now and try to put off having fun until a bit later on. Now is when you have energy and should be able to work non-stop with very little else. (I didn't surface for air for 7 years working 6 to 7 days a week ..)
There's a flip side to the coin, though: your opportunities for 'having fun' are very different as a twenty-something living in a big city than as someone who's married with children in a less exciting locale. Many older people successfully start companies; far fewer stay out partying with their friends until 4am or go backpacking across Europe.
I'd argue you can find a balance. You shouldn't piss away your youth and your potential, no, but life's too short to spend it perpetually saying "I'll have fun later" because one day there won't be a later. Especially since working insane hours is usually a game of diminishing returns: while you might have been able to spend 7 years working your ass off 7 days a week, most normal people burn out, even the most driven and brightest of 20-somethings.
"most normal people burn out, even the most driven and brightest of 20-somethings."
What's really important is making sure you are getting enough sleep and exercise as well as eating correctly (although that's more of a long term thing). Those are the few things to me that take priority over working. Because without that (sleep and exercise) the working hours are much less productive. And without your health you have nothing.
I would add that you gain perspective later in life from the experiences of your youth. Someone who both worked and played will be more rounded than someone who only did one or the other.
"The best way to insure that you can live the life you want and have some fun is to put all the effort in that you can now and try to put off having fun until a bit later on."
This is insane. While you need to meet your responsibilities and commitments, once you've done that, live the life you want, and live it right now.
That might involve work non-stop and very little else, if that's what you really want - but if you don't want to work non-stop, that's perfectly fine, and don't let anyone tell you any different.
"This is insane. While you need to meet your responsibilities and commitments, once you've done that, live the life you want, and live it right now."
If I understand what you are saying you are telling people to simply meet your current living obligations and worry about the future in the future.
Good luck with that.
Take a look around at all the people without a pot to piss in that have no savings or can only survive because they have maybe 6 mos. living expenses stashed away. Fine strategy if everything works out. History has shown though for the majority of people (people in corporate jobs that were well paid that lived "hand to mouth" and are now crying the blues) that followed this strategy have no paddle now.
By the way, and importantly, if you think "what I am doing is hot and I will always be able to find a job" let me point something out. Over time there are always "hot" professions where people think they are invincible. The "hotness" attracts more people to the profession and that of course assumes that the profession or what you are good at is in demand X years down the road.
Think programming skills will always be in demand? Maybe and maybe you will always be cutting edge. But you could also end up being a) an out of work lawyer (that was hot at one point it was unthinkable to go to law school and not do well when I was growing up) or b) ask some old timers who knew cobol how much they were in demand (other than y2k a fluke of course!)
You only get one youth. Goals are fine, but it's easy to fall into the trap of "once I do X, then I'll be happy." Better IME to spend at least a few hours per week discovering and doing things that make you happy now. That doesn't mean partying, just cultivating interests, practices and (most important) relationships that make you a well-rounded, emotionally healthy person.
"That doesn't mean partying, just cultivating interests, practices and (most important) relationships that make you a well-rounded, emotionally healthy person."
Agree. One of the problems with partying and socializing is that it's addicting in a way and takes your eye off the ball.
You can have fun of course but for some reason social things tend to draw you in and prevent you from focusing on what's important in growing a business at least in my experience and observation. You might like skiing and bicycling and other hobbies but they aren't so emotionally addicting that they will prevent you from achieving your goals (and in fact they are good for your health if done in moderation).
> You can have fun of course but for some reason social things tend to draw you in and prevent you from focusing on what's important in growing a business
Your premise seems to be that The Purpose Of Life is to have a successful business. If you actually believe this, then of course you won't understand why other people, most people, choose to do social things. That doesn't mean they're wrong, it just means that you don't understand it.
I would also be surprised if in 20 years you look back and think selling a few domain names was worth missing out on everything or will give you stories for the grand kids. Perspectives are not time-invariant, something many people come to realise with regret.
I think the point is that if you do have a business or starting one, then don't take your eye off of that because you're feeling like you're not social enough or that you're missing out on things.
You can only do one thing at one time, right? So if starting/running a business is really truly important to you, then run that buisness. It doesn't make sense to start a business, raise money, hire others if what you really want to do is go to a club and hang out 'till 3 in the morning. It does have to be one or the other, or that business will fail.
Now, I'm not saying not to do the social stuff. Friends and relationships are very important. What I believe Larry is saying is to not take your eyes off the prize. You've started the business for a reason. You need to be focused on it and nurture it until it succeeds. If you really don't want to put in the time for that, there are other alternative like getting a regular job. Then you can work 8 hours a day, have friends, and party. That's fine.
To be successful as an entrepreneur, you've got to dig down deep and take care of your product. Its a lot of work. A ton of work. If it wasn't, everyone would be doing it. Instead, we have a few people trying to start/run businesses. And it can be Hell. But, if you don't want to deal with that extreme focus, that's fine too.
Think of the movie Cool Runnings. While the other Jamaicans were at the Ho Down Bar, Derice was sitting in the tub going over turns. Its that type of focus that will help in succeeding at business.
It is possible to have a social and work life balance. As an entrepreneur it will always weigh towards work but doing 6-7 days (80 hours) a week for years shows either that you enjoy it or there is a problem in product or delegation abilities.
I think there is something to be said for taking advantage of your youth and energy for something other than work.
"either that you enjoy it or there is a problem in product or delegation abilities."
I agree that some people have a problem "in product or delegation abilities".
Unfortunately business is about risk and constant change. If you don't have enough squirreled away when the rainy day comes you will be dead in the water. The world is littered with business people who didn't think things in their business would ever change. Maybe you own a restaurant and a competitor opens up down the street? Maybe you work in video post production, with network clients, but then their business drops so your business goes out the window. Are you prepared for that (Andy Grove of course said "only the paranoid survive". And that is true from my many years.)
Related, have you ever heard of someone winning a medal or being atop in sports or entertainment and at least in the early years not working 24x7 to achieve their dream?
"shows either that you enjoy it "
It is well know that in order to succeed at something you have to enjoy it to the point of wanting to do it all the time and being a work workaholic. You will always be able to find cases where there are exceptions of course but point is whether you want to be at the top or merely make sure you aren't one day in a van down by the river you better be working pretty hard.
I don't get why that lifestyle is necessarily required; your comment seems predicated on preparing for getting married with kids in the next three to four years. Even if he did, couldn't he just look for a job with a more established tech company?
"The best way to insure that you can live the life you want and have some fun is to put all the effort in that you can now and try to put off having fun until a bit later on."
How do you reconcile this with most startups failing?
(Let's assume here that people fail for reasons other than just "didn't work hard enough.")
"How do you reconcile this with most startups failing?"
Very simple. Don't choose the type of startup that has a 3 in 10 chance of succeeding on the off chance that you are the lucky one that hit's the lottery. Stop thinking that if you want to be an entrepreneur the only thing you can do is get into YC, Techstars, 500 Startups or have some idea that a VC will invest in.
The other thing you can do is work as hard as I've indicated but put eggs into other baskets. The first business that I did (which I sold after 9 years and did pretty well with) I had spent time learning UNIX while I was running the business in order to manage the business (quite unusual back then but I found it fun and interesting. So it was my fun but the fun had a purpose). With those skills I was able to do something later that also made money. I worked all the time but I dedicated some of my time also to learning new things that could be "the next thing" or a fall back if the first thing failed (it didn't).
The point is, just like in investing you are supposed to diversify you can do that as well with business. Now I didn't diversify my efforts until maybe year 4 (because I started with nothing and had to make up for not having enough capital to do everything that I needed) but once I got to that point I took some time and money and invested even then in the future.
I started my business with maybe $7000 (in today's dollars) that I earned by doing various things in high school and college by working.
Yes, for me it worked out. But my suggestions are also based on many years of observing what others did that didn't work and how much effort they put in.
"Very simple. Don't choose the type of startup that has a 3 in 10 chance of succeeding on the off chance that you are the lucky one that hit's the lottery."
That doesn't sound simple at all. What types of startups have higher success rates than 30%?
There is no reason why business success requires you to exist in a bubble isolated from everything and everyone near and dear to you. It's definitely not something to "grow out of"- we are social animals after all.
The best way to live the life you want is to start living the life you want in the capacity that you can and incrementally move towards where you want to be. It's not like there's some magic switch thrown or goalpost crossed where you can "really" start living.
I once worked for a highly accomplished executive who said that he didn't want to work with people who had nothing of interest outside of work. I think he was onto something.
"The best way to live the life you want is to start living the life you want in the capacity that you can and incrementally move towards where you want to be"
Think of it this way. Do you think the immigrants that came to America in the early part of the century (or even later) were worried about enjoyment or were they working their fingers to the bone in order to make a better life for their family? That's what it's like being an entrepreneur and making something work given the risk and the hurdles one will encounter. I'm not even saying you can't have any enjoyment at all or should work every hour like an immigrant. But as close to it as possible given getting sleep and exercise is an attainable goal in order to make something a success and provide security.
The ability to lead a much more relaxed lifestyle that has people saying I look 12 years younger than people my age for one thing. I still work very hard (because I enjoy what I do) but I set my own hours and can basically do whatever I want to do.
By the way I was in a non-tech grind it out type business. I didn't "hit the lottery". I built a traditional business and sold it. It is still operating today and the person who purchased it has operated it for longer than I did.
Interesting. In Japan, all around me are people who try to burn the wick at both ends hoping for a light at the end of the tunnel.. And they most definitely do not resemble the description you just gave of yourself..
My parents (old timers) are like that. I know exactly what that is and it's not what I'm talking about.
My comments were related to the OP attitude (from memory now) of working hard for what seemed certainly less than 2 years. It takes more than that. I'm not saying "work for 30 years and then come up for air". While I would not put a specific time on it (each situation will vary) it is definitely less than 20 and more than 2! (Of course if things don't work out by 20 years you've got some explaining to do..)
I wrote a rambling reply and decided to cut it down to bullet points:
1. You can have a fulfilling life without a start-up.
2. You can be incredibly successful without a start-up
3. A balanced life is not limiting. The concept that the amount of hours you put in is directly correlated to 'success' seems like a delusion
4. Plenty of people die with retirement accounts untouched, vacation untaken, parnters unmet, friends forgotten all in the pursuit of 'success' just to have society move on and forget them.
But it gets hard when you work your ass off for a few years and your business still doesnt work. Then you probably wont have alot of money and you skipped all the fun for working which in the end might show for nothing much.
Also imagine something bad happens to you and you might regret saying "ill have fun later"..
Nothing wrong with working hard, but try to find a balance! Work hard, play hard!
I was just trying to write an honest reflection on what my experiences have been like, diving head first into the startup world. I'm not trying to position myself as an expert :)
I guess the problem is that we have tons of wantrepreneurs and first-time startup kids posting about their feelings here.
It's a multiple-times-daily thing. Seriously.
What we don't seem to get very much of is more experienced (serial entrepreneurs, experienced programmers, etc.) individuals posting anything with with the same depth in terms of substance or how personal it is.
The degree to which Hacker News has become homogenous in terms of contributed content is disturbing.
Edit: Let me be more specific.
You want to know what content is? patio11. That's value right there. His stuff is gold and could legitimately help you get your product off the ground.
Another example would be Rands in Repose (Lopp). His twitter feed is the most self-indulgent bullshit I've ever seen, but his blog posts can be instructive for how to lead a technical team and work with other people in general.
To put content out into the ether for your own edification is all well and good, but the moment you promote it on a public community like Hacker News, you are making a particular declaration about what sort of value you're purporting to provide.
Value, not personality. Save the personality stuff for people not trying to build stuff.
Also, your tumblr is broken if you google yourself. Might want to fix that.
You seem to have a very strong opinion of what HN should be about, and yet this bubbling animosity for the OP and his content seems very out of place here.
The post's title was completely accurate, to the extent that you've admitted it's not something you want to read. Don't read it then.
The fact it's bubbling up the top posts means others found some merit in it. You want to lecture people against upvoting this content based on your personal reaction and needs, and feel compelled to fling about terms like 'wantrepreneurs', 'kids', 'self-indulgent bullshit'.
I'd prefer not to have to wade through comments full of seething resentment and antagonism, but I'm not going to lecture about it, because most HNers would find it very boring.
I'm a decade ahead and found the post a nice little read - seeing someone realise the importance of striving to find a balance. I like hearing notes from the ground from people at all stages of entrepreneurial activity.
Hacker News is not Hacker News From More Advanced, Insightful, Intelligent People Than Yourself At This Current State. That's a good thing.
See, this type of moronic response (avoid the actual content of a comment, engage in dismissive trolling response) is what is part of the 'decline' of the community you've attempted to flag. Ironic.
Edit: Original context: BenjaminCoe decided to reply to me with the xkcd comic referencing the, "Someone is wrong on the internet" thing. He has since deleted his comment without explanation.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but that's a real dickish thing to say. Imagine saying that to a colleague or someone at a party! "I'm sorry but you are too young to have valuable opinions".
It has nothing to do with age, you've totally misunderstood my point.
My point is that if the post seems pretty thin to somebody from the same cohort, how could it help anybody else?
I'd rather see either
1. More substantive content, less "here are my feelings about being a startup kid"
2. Something from people who've spent more time at this and developed deeper people skills. Could even be somebody the same age, just more experienced.
tl;dr don't call somebody a dick unless you actually understand the point of their comment.
If I misunderstood your point, it is because you did not make it well.
From your comment, all I see is a dismissal of the post because it has nothing to offer you. Your last comment is much more substantive - perhaps you should have said that the first time.
The deeper issue is that I wish I could borrow 20% of HN users for some other environment or somehow combine curation with timely conversation (hard to do).
I think there's also value here watching heretohelp flail about unprofessionally. He may have valid points or not, but the truth is, it doesn't matter, because he's going about his crusade in a way that will turn most people off.
His conduct doesn't cast nutrivise in a great light.
"A lot of times people more experienced are so far detached from what you might be going through."
Some of those people may have gone through the same and can offer their opinions of how it worked out for them.
Have you ever had a medical problem and asked an older person about it? They might tell you "don't worry I had that same pain and it went away, no biggie". Don't assume someone older has no experience or empathy to what someone younger is saying.
Maybe seek to understand the original comment and ask the questions necessary to eliminate the disparity of your perception and the meaning intended to prevent yourself from making a totally pointless comment.
Your response is pointless. Just downvote me next time instead of polluting the thread.
Or be productive and ask me why I said what I said like the others have.
Why should it be the responsibility of the majority to ask for clarification when you come off as an arrogant poster in the first place? If you don't want to be misunderstood, rephrase your wordings.
Now you find yourself having to explain your position instead of getting an intelligent discourse out of the corresponding thread.
I'm not sure I quite follow your logic. I can't figure out if you're asking a rhetorical question (and thus trying to make a point) or you generally are questioning your own self?
If it's the former, I'd suggest you a be slightly more direct about what point you are trying to make. Alternatively simply just upvote or ignore the story all together.
Spot on. It's not just you, buddy.
Edit: Contrary to popular naysaying, there are some of us who do like reading about others' trials and errors. I also loved the article on rock climbing. Keep it up!