Good umpire: I call 'em as I see 'em.
Better umpire: I call 'em as they are.
Best umpire: They aren't anything until I call 'em.
Similarly:
Good founder: I think it was a bad idea.
Better founder: I know it was a bad idea.
Best founder: It doesn't become a bad idea until I stop working on it.
He lists 3 startup successes: Instagram, Flickr, and Groupon. He talks about their famous pivots. Problem is, these companies pivoted into the kinds of companies that we don't need. Groupon's business model has been debated ad infinitum, and they're trading at 1/5 of their IPO. Instagram and Flickr: free services that could likely never charge, acquired by big services for the eyeballs. As long as acquisition is considered the exit, you're doomed. Yes, there are winners, but that's just a race to the bottom. If your business can't succeed without VC and without eventual acquisition, you don't have a business, you have a gamble. Neat programming != a business, but charging for solving a real need does.
Dunno about the others, but Flikr has a paid "Pro" option which seems both really well done (not overpriced, gives very real benefits without undermining the free option, "safe" [doesn't delete all your data] if you can't pay for a while) and very popular. The free service is great, but there's real incentive to pay, and a huge percentage of the Flikr accounts I see are paid.
One of the major models of the current boom is the marketplace model (Airbnb, Etsy, Kickstarter) and without external financing it's very hard to build the critical mass that will allow a marketplace to be successfully self-sustaining.
"If your business can't succeed without VC and without eventual acquisition, you don't have a business, you have a gamble."
Yes but a gamble with benefits. Specifically if you play your cards right and get involved with the right group of people, you get your "ticket punched" which can and does lead to other future opportunities. As much as I would like to side with your belief (and myself use "gamble" many times to describe what people are doing) for a young person who can afford to take a chance (or an older person who doesn't have financial or family concerns) it might be a gamble worth taking.
Think of it as a person who marries a celebrity fully knowing that the relationship might not work out. They get to attend parties, they meet "important" people, they move in the right circles they get their picture in the press. The relationship breaks up. Are they better off than the same person who is living in the middle of nowhere and has the same experience? I'd say they are exposed to things that give them much more opportunity to land on their feet.
Or as another example someone who pursues a dream to win a gold medal at the Olympics and doesn't even get a bronze. I'd say it's an experience worth doing, in general of course.
I think you're overstating the importance of investors. With the exception of a few firms (Sequoia, Accel, Union Square and maybe 10 others) whose mere name probably brings you some advantage, most VCs are not all that special (look at the returns data for proof).
If you're partnered with a middle-of-the-road VC, the reality is that not all their children (portfolio companies) are equal in their own eyes. Investors are generally aiming for "return the fund exits" and of their own admission, of 10 investments, it might be 1 company that does this.
Given they are in it for a financial return and they have limited time to allocate to companies, they will as self-interest dictates spend more time with the winners in their portfolio vs. duds.
Your celebrity analogy is a good one except it breaks down because investors have to be promiscuous. You are not the only special snowflake in their world that they'll take to parties and if anything, they're going to want to show up at the party with their "trophy portfolio company" -- not some broken or even doing ok company.
There is immense survivorship bias in the ecosystem. Those doing well get even more attention while the others shrivel up and go away. The thing is those companies that die get little attention as founders and investors generally don't want to advertise failures.
By "right group of people" I'm referring to the people you work with, the parties you attend, and the people you meet - of which the investors are only one part.
People namedrop in this industry similar to what they do in the entertainment industry. Not everyone is clued in as far as how unimportant or ubiquitous that namedropping is. There is a halo that is created. And guess what if you get funded even by a firm that people in the know think is "b" list, local investors in your city or even non-clued in potential employees will still think it's a big deal. Many people are impressed when someone is a Physician. They don't always think between the degrees of impressiveness the "MD" degree gives you a certain cache.
This strikes me as a strategy to build an impressive sounding company vs. actually building an impressive company.
Namedropping, attending parties, hiring non-clued employees, etc all seem like very non-core activities that people trying to build real businesses would not engage in a whole lot (if at all). Those sound like activities that the increasing class of "wantrapreneurial" folks engage in.
If by namedropping you mean talking about actual customers you have then I definitely agree.
"Namedropping, attending parties, hiring non-clued employees, etc all seem like very non-core activities that people trying to build real businesses would not engage in a whole lot (if at all). "
Disagree. Who you know is important. It's not all about building a better mousetrap and having the world come to your door. Business is done many ways. People choose different ways to get to the same place.
Also, specifically regarding this: "hiring non-clued employees". There are many capable people out there who don't necessarily know the "lay of the land" but are quite capable. The fact that someone is impressed with something that they shouldn't be impressed with is no reflection on their value in an area of their expertise which you might hire them for.
Exactly. The product doesn't matter, the users are resources to advance the founder's personal fortunes. It IS all about the gamble. How is making hundreds of millions of dollars a failure? It's about you.
The title says to "continue working on your bad idea" but the article is really about pivoting. Pivoting is not the same as continuing to work on your bad idea. Pivoting is about YOU continuing to work, and leaving the bad parts of your bad idea by the side of the road and moving forward.
But if you can take some good parts of your bad idea and move forward, that is smart. And that's not news; that's a concept from lean startup, and Eric Ries didn't invent it. It goes back to the Romans.
IMHO, the title is misleading and the article is trite.
His reasons don't necessarily result in a pivot. He says "you want to have something you're doing", so if your alternative is to do nothing, then keep doing what you're doing even if it's a bad idea. Whether you later pivot, change to a whole different idea or get a job, isn't the point. In the absence of a better idea, keep going, because doing something is almost always better than not.
Similarly, gaining experience with a bad idea is more likely to help you compared to doing nothing. That's not covered by a pivot. It may or may not aid you in pivoting, but it's almost definitely not going to hurt. Sitting doing nothing is just a waste, though.
He talks about serendipity. That'll often be amplified by working on something, rather than doing nothing and thinking about doing something. You'll be meeting people, creating stuff someone might find a use for, maybe writing code you could use in a different project. All of that could open up a new avenue that sitting around won't.
In addition, let me add a point. Practice being a finisher. You might not feel like the idea is fantastic but even if it's rubbish, moving the needle on it is good practice. Good for your mental strength, good to know "I'm a finisher", because many people haven't learned that (yet).
Obviously the caveat is if you have a better use of your time, do that. Could be making money to increase your runway, could be a better idea, whatever. But if your only alternative is to stop and read HN, it could well be worth continuing with your bad idea.
If you can just avoid dying, you get rich. That sounds like a joke, but it's actually a pretty good description of what happens in a typical startup. It certainly describes what happened in Viaweb. We avoided dying till we got rich.
As someone currently wading through the valley of death (not a software startup)...
Currently "ramen profitable", the "breakthrough might occur in two months...etc, etc
It's difficult... but this blog post doesn't help except say "carry on".
Perhaps I am just an optimist, but wouldn't it be a good time to evaluate everything happening with your business, look for opportunities to succeed, and give 'em a try?
I mean the worst that can happen is it doesn't work.
This was just what I needed and one more reason I love Joel's posts. Over the summer I stopped working on an idea that would've been pretty cool and is much better than the one I'm forcing myself to continue with. It's funny because I've got one of those ideas that I don't think is bad but there only moments when I think it's bad (https://writeapp.me if you're curious).
It's tough to continue sometimes when you want the rewards now and all you see are high bounce rates and a handful of signups that come in short bursts. It's motivating when you get those bursts but when they're few and far between on an unfinished project it's hard to keep going. I've found that working on something that meets your own needs is one way to avoid the problem of not finishing. In my mind, even if the world hates what I've created, at least I have a new tool that I've always wanted to use. So instead of creating a win-lose situation where you only win if people like and use your product you have a win-win where you win if no one likes it because you use it yourself and you win if it takes off for obvious reasons. But even so, even with a project like that, there are times when you feel like giving up. Its the not the definitive cure but building something you want that others may too is definitely one way to lessen the chances of giving in to the temptation to give up.
This was a good blog post. I started wikiaudio believing the hype around "do something" and make a business out of it later. This assumption has turned out to be a complete crock of shit in my case. If you want to build a business online I would suggest you do your best to make sure "business" is integral to it's dna before you get started, and try and validate as ruthlessly as possible. I still enjoy the site and feel a sense of accomplishment, but I have no desire to continue writing hundreds of tutorials (and spend literally hundreds if not thousands of hours in development), just to have it all fall on def ears with no income from any of it. From a "founder" of a failed online project I really enjoyed your blog post. I do think after a certain point is reached you have to accept defeat and look at the project as
a means to another end (personal education, portfolio piece , etc)
In general I agree with the argument to continue to work on "an idea" (as opposed to a "bad idea") because specifically it keeps you in the game, active, meeting people, thinking, learning and practicing and targeted. [1]
The only issue I have is the thought of working on a "bad" idea (if that can even be defined) since time is a precious commodity. The time you spend occupied with your bad idea is time preventing you from doing the same with possibly a greater chance of succeeding with a better idea.
Let's take as an example of this thinking, dating.
I've always said that it's much better to go out of your home on a Saturday night, even alone, even to an unlikely place, because you have a greater chance of meeting someone than if you are sitting in your house. A potential date is not going to knock on your door or fall through the roof.
But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't try to maximize where you are to meet someone. A Barnes and Noble might be better for some people than a bar or vice versa depending on the person.
So at a certain point you need to make a decision as far as how you are spending your time to give you the best chance of gaining from the experience of the experience.
[1] Focus also gives you fun and enjoyment which puts you in a better state of mind to have success. Although I don't do it anymore I used to love to spend hours at the B&N looking for the perfect programming book to help with a particular thing that I wanted to learn. I really liked and looked forward to doing that and it had all sorts of positive effects prior to, before, and after the actual browsing.
Even though it may not amount to anything, working on a bad idea can still be useful. You might learn a new programming language or API. You might face some technical challenges which you face again on a future 'good idea' and can work through more quickly the second time. If you realize your idea is bad and you have a better one waiting, move to the better one. But if you know it's a bad idea and don't have anything to move on to there may be advantages to continuing.
More or less part of the point I was making. However using once again the example of a relationship, the equivalent would be staying in a relationship that is going nowhere (which doesn't even mean it's "bad" just that you know it won't end up where you want it to be for some reason..). As a result you are "tied up" and less able to iterate and take chances with meeting someone who might be the right person. In other words you have to be free and available in order to explore dating a new person and I simply feel that while there is a point to staying on your "bad" idea in order to learn and apply the knowledge elsewhere, time is not unlimited and being able to work on even finding or testing a potential new idea is priceless.
When the internet came along I was involved in a manufacturing startup which I put about a year worth of time and energy into (buying equipment, travel to shows etc.) After the operation was all setup I got the idea to put in a T-1 line and try the new "internet" thing. In a short time (a few months) it became apparent that the new idea was much better than the old idea which would have taken much much more time. I sold off everything and focused solely on the new idea rather than split my time between two ideas. (And back in early 1996 btw it wasn't crystal clear that the internet was going to be what it is today so it was taking somewhat of a gamble since the other idea was proven and the market was mature..)
