The voices that interrupt the stillness are the ones
that are the daemons.
Redefine success as "learning something interesting".
External success is a mistake.
- Paul Buchheit
His goal for Gmail was to get to 100 happy users. "What would it take for your to be a happy user."
Yeah, that part of Paul's talk was amazing. He said most people thought Gmail was a mistake, so he explicitly set a goal to make 100 users really happy, and just went round asking them "What exactly can I make this product do to make you happy?" Then he'd just pick things off the list and do them.
Expanding on the idea of 'redefining success', I love how he explained that if the answer to the "What can I do to make you happy?" question was too complex to implement, he'd just keep asking different people until he found problems that were relatively easy to solve.
Thanks nqureshi for making these notes. Unfortunately, I couldn't travel to this Startup School and am really missing it (missed live stream, too, because I'm with my kids). I'm most curious to know if attendees enjoyed the talks and the overall event. I'd like to start looking forward to the 2015 version if there should be one :)
It was absolutely wonderful for me, but mostly for meeting all these wonderful people. I came to London early and got together with some other attendees the day before.
I can't say it was productive, but atleast we got to simulate a Silicon Valley -type of social environment for a day.
Thanks for the notes! I couldn't open the live stream.
About the notes, some of the advice feels great. But i just can't relate to it. I mean: Stripe - they weren't getting a lot traction, then Peter Thiel funded them. Homejoy - they were about to close, then Paul Graham gave them some money.
Then everything else sounds like "good advice if you can get a meeting with some of SV legends". Specially the Homejoy one sounds to want make you feel guilty if you quit. Well, if I am that close to running out of cash to pay my bills and in the edge of quiting, guess what, I can't get a meeting with a legendary VC to get his money and endorsement. I will just quit.
Your point is a good one, but, in the case of Adora, you may be missing some of the facts. She was an accomplished programmer and had worked for Max Levchin at Slide, where he was so impressed with her that he agreed to be one of her first investors later on. (I don't believe she had any particular connections that got her the job at Slide.) She applied to YC (2x in fact) and we had never met her before. I remember being extremely impressed with her and Aaron during the interview and the idea seemed quite plausible at the time (even though it later failed). I also remember personally being really excited about the sister/brother team.
During the time Adora was at YC, we got to know her well and were even more impressed, which is why Paul invested personally when she said she had no money left.
Startups are hard. Most people quit and that's nothing to feel guilty about, of course. I guess I'd just hate for Adora's talent, effectiveness and level of determination to be misinterpreted as merely having connections.
I'm not saying all this to disagree with you, but to encourage you. Getting a job at a company at Slide or getting into YC are hard, but not impossible.
Thanks, i understand all of it. And it is a fact (for me), that it is easier to be lucky if you are on SV. But my point is that it just sounded as bad advice from her. If all it take is hard work and luck is not a factor, why a lot of startups from her same batch will fail? They should just as smart, hard working and well connected as her.
Anyway, my point actually was more in the line of the comment above (mhale ). Sometimes it is good to quit. Even if you want to get a job for now and lager come back to start up something new again. It is hard to know when, impossible i would say. But the advice never quit seems wrong to me. Speciallly qhen applied to a specific startup.
I guess it comes down to how far you're willing to push. If you do move to the Valley (as YC partners frequently advise you to), then you probably could get a meeting with Peter Thiel if you really tried. I mean if someone figuratively held a gun to your head and told you to, you probably could.
I agree with the general point, though - you need a certain amount of baseline opportunity to be able to do this stuff. That is a problem that needs fixing.
No, i couldn't. Not until I had dozens and dozens of meetings with other entrepreneurs, then other infestors, create relationships, trust. I would need to spend all my current cash just to pay my expenses on the valley for the time to pull that out. And not working nearly enough to justify it.
I mean, these asvice "work really hard" sounds like bs to me. As a lot of people who fails don't work hard. As luck isn't necessary and people who work hard enough inevitably get lucky.
I work hard and smart as I can. But I still know the odds are against me. Stories about how all my toughest troubles were solved by a legendary VC trusting me isn't much you can learn from.
I decided 7 years ago, despite not knowing anyone in Silicon Valley, to just quit school and move there. Got the first startup job that I could, which happened to be at Slide (founded by Max). I hate networking and generally avoid the whole social tech scene -- so I just worked hard, delivered results and got attention that way. My point is, by working hard AND smart, you can create your own opportunities, e.g. having access to investors when you really need them, etc. It takes time and commitment but it's certainly possible.
Read up on the concept of a "luck surface area". You can start building it now no matter where you are.
If you're the type of person who say, "I will just quit" you might not be the type of person that a VC wants to fund.
I've heard it said (might have been from a Stanford ETL talk) that you should do a startup because when you wake up in the morning you absolutely can't do anything else. If I was a VC I would want to fund people with that level passion.
Access to capital or a VC is just a roadblock. Detour around it or take another road.
Well, i don't believe in "types of people". The Homejoy founder said she would have to quit if didnt get the money at that time. She would be of a different type then?
In my opinion, the hardest question really is when should you throw in the towel?
There certainly are a lot of zombie companies out there with founders toiling away on "bad" ideas with seemingly no hope of success, burning precious opportunity cost with each passing week, month and year.
At the same time, one hears again and again that the successful founders are the ones who don't give up. That success comes from facing down those doubts, shaking the despair and finding a way to keep going even when it feels everyone around you thinks you are going to fail.
I don't have an answer other than to say that for anyone it is a very personal, gut-wrenching decision. If it is no longer worth it to you, then that is your call and I don't think anyone else -- especially someone who hasn't entered the same arena -- should think any less of you for it. Most startups fail after all.
And, I think that is likely close to the answer to the question. The right time to quit is when you no longer believe in the idea, or in your ability it make it succeed, or even that the idea is superior to other opportunities which might be available to you.
I'm not speaking as someone who has had huge success, but as someone who has faced setbacks and doubts, has come close to running out of money multiple times, but has somehow managed to get past those challenges and has become a bit more comfortable riding this crazy roller coaster.
What I've found is that the drive to "find a way", that survival instinct to keep going because you believe at your core in what you are doing -- that triggers creative thinking. And when you open your eyes and look around you see there are resources and people willing to help you that you didn't see before. You see new paths that were not visible before. At least that's been the case every time in my experience. Once you get past the doubt and are determined to find a way, then you find it. I suppose, until the last time, when you don't...
Ben Horowitz described it as "focusing on the road, not on the wall"[1] and that rings very true to me. You can only see the opportunities around you when are able to stop focusing on the wall (impending doom).
I don't believe founders should be guilted into chasing ideas they no longer themselves believe in. There are certainly cases where quitting is going to be the right call.
But human psychology is such that you will want to "flee the danger" and you will see certain doom when there may very well be a way out.
My two cents (if it is worth even that) is to never decide to quit out of fear.
Don't quit because you doubt your chances.
The time to quit is when you no longer believe that what you are working on is what you really should be working on.
I think the dilemma you face when your startup doesn't get anough traction or money is: do I spend more time with my current idea or pivot? You can feel that pivoting is not fighting enough so you try harder and harder with a startup that doesn't work.
At the end you are dealing with uncertainties, and trial and error is your basic tool.
A complementary action that I use in my company is having enough cash to play with new ideas until we found the right one. Probably a straigthforward cash cow is not a product but a consulting or development service.
Great comment. Maybe I rushed into a superficial critique of the advice, but you wrote very well what My really doubt is. And gave me good new insignts also... Thanks
Haha I laughed when I read "move to Buenos Aires". I am currently here with my startup. If someone wants to grab a coffee and share ideas, you should tweet me! Twitter: @jonvillage
