It's one thing to talk about empathy and another to actually have it or feel it. I am sure >80-90% people on HN don't have it only to a certain degree but they think the exact opposite of this.Also you have to take into consideration your character, where, when and how you were raised etc. Empathy is broken in many pieces. Even if you think you have it, sometimes you don't. Others are just gifted with a deeper empathy and so on. If you think I'm wrong or need additional explanation, I will be happy to talk about it.
@TheBiv You just proved you do not understand empathy at all.
I agree. The reason people think ideas are "a dime a dozen" is because everyone overrates their ideas and you can't really measure the value of an idea unless it's executed. However, I must admit that after years of experience I must say the statement is not really true. 80% of the ideas suck. Plain and simple.
It doesn't matter if you are in the Valley or if you are super smart, some people are not made to create/innovate, only execute based on someone's idea. But those people who are able to create are an exception.
Have you ever met someone without a degree or any experience, looking at your product and telling you 100 ways to improve it?I met a guy/wonderkid or whatever that was able to do just that, and he is working for a hedge fund now as far as I know. It took him 20 min to give us an entire improvement plan on how to increase revenue without any papers or anything prepared.We had even backup plans and future competitor moves. He basically humiliated my A+ employee stars who were struggling for months.I was shocked.
> you can't really measure the value of an idea unless it's executed
Well, thankfully for US national security,
the US DoD has been doing just this with
batting average much higher than for VCs
for 70+ years. Examples include the
proximity fuse, sonar, radar, the atomic
bomb, the U-2, the SR-71, GPS, and more --
all of these were funded just from proposals
just on paper, without any 'execution',
and came out fine.
For projects by entrepreneurs, my guess
to do something similar is (1) pick a
big problem, one where clearly a new and
good or much better solution will be
warmly embraced by the market, (2) do
some research, original, powerful,
valuable, to get the desired solution
and a high barrier to entry. (3)
Do (1) and (2) so that the solution
can be delivered by software in a Web
server costing $2000-. Then go live,
get the revenue, grow the server
capacity, etc. It's what I'm trying
to do. Current obstacle: Windows
and trying to use XCACLS and CACLS to
delete a file system directory that
doesn't want to be deleted. Previous
obstacle: Poor Microsoft documentation
for the differences between GUIDs and
SqlGuids and how to convert between
them. Previous obstacle: A virus
from the security problems with Flash
and the fact that Windows doesn't
know how to run malware safely.
Previous obstacle: The fact that
Microsoft's ASP.NET is much easier
to work with when inserting Namespaces,
DLLs, and source code than Visual Basic
.NET. Previous obstacles: A long list
more from Microsoft. The work uniquely
mine has all been fast, fun, easy, without
delays. But I'm getting past the Microsoft
nonsense.
Problem sponsors at DoD, DARPA, and NSF
are used to being able to evaluate projects
just on paper with high batting average.
Apparently VCs don't want to do any such
things.
> 80%
All the percentages on what arrives in
a VC's in-box don't mean much because
what a VC has to find are exceptional
projects; that is, what the average
project is, or what most of the
projects are, is not very relevant --
again because what's required are
exceptional projects. How exceptional?
There has been a claim by
A16H that there are only about 15
projects a year worth a Series A.
If VCs would learn to read as well
as, say, NSF problem sponsors, then there might be a few
more, not a lot yet, but a few.
A problem of information technology
entrepreneur project 'ideas' is that
they are usually just a short description
of what the product/service does,
a description like might be given to
a prospective customer/user. So, with
such an 'idea' and description, usually
there is no good way to evaluate it.
E.g., how the heck, early on, to evaluate
Twitter? Twitter fails my (1) about
solving a big problem. Since it was
not clear that Twitter would solve
a big problem, it was difficult to
evaluate.
What is wanted for (1), for
an extreme example,
is, say, a safe, effective, cheap
one pill cure for any cancer -- there
we don't have to wait for 'traction'.
As in my (1), a 'good' information
technology project should have
significant value as easy to
see. And as for such a pill, want
to stand on some research for
an especially powerful, valuable
solution with barrier to entry.
The VCs just are not thinking this
way.
It is quite possible for a person
to be bright without education.
If the field they are working in,
e.g., computing, doesn't really
require a lot of formal education,
then a person can be bright and
good in that field without formal
education. But, doing really well
in a Ph.D. program in a top research
university tends to confirm
that someone is 'bright'!
A nuclear war would end us all. There are no winners in this scenario. If you think a country would stand a chance, you clearly do not know the nuclear capabilities of today. One thing I hate though is the "we are invincible, nr.1 etc" attitude of some americans on vice.com. I don't understand why they keep going with that mentality. It's ridiculous...
No, a nuclear war would only eliminate the world's major cities, and make a big dent in technological civilization. But the impact on various regions would depend on how much they are dependent on technological civilization. In the USA one could easily imagine that food production would stop without gasoline/diesel and electricity. Agriculture is too mechanized and there are no longer very many family farmers and precious few peasants.
But in Russia, things are different. Hundreds of thousands of people still live a subsistence lifestyle with minimal access to technology. There are many people who have gone off into the woods somewhere actively escaping civilization, and most of these people are still peasants, in other words they still have the skills and capabilities to survive on their own even in the harsh climate of Russia.
China is too dependent on large river valleys where the big cities are located, but at least some of the agricultural land is far enough away from cities that people would survive, and they too are close to peasant levels of subsistence lifestyle.
So a nuclear war would destroy the United States, but Russia as a state would be back within one generation. Similarly China would be back. Both of them would be smaller and less powerful measured by today's standards, but they are better positioned to survive a nuclear war than the USA.
The key factor that makes a difference is that the USA has destroyed its indigenous peoples, but in Russia and China, the indigenous peoples are in charge.
Well yes, YC likes the "we met in college" and I see your point but it doesn't mean it's flawless. Stronger relationships? Yes, the only way? No. There is always a risk when it comes to startups. Just accepting that scenario only is stupid and misses a lot of potential out there.
If you believe that only a certain pattern can truly change the world you are mistaken. In fact, that is the crucial mistake every incubator is doing. True innovation almost always comes from unexpected places.
One data point: Mark Zuckerberg did not drop out of Harvard when he left to do Facebook. He took a leave of absence and he did not permanently drop out until November 2005, by which time Facebook was well on its way to success, with a 100MM valuation and a position as the 10th most trafficked website.
So at least for him, he was probably pretty sure of his success (a cushy acquisition as the very least).
Although true that they couldn't have been sure, they were better off than 99% of dropouts. Zuckerberg was just taking a leave of absence and planned on returning. Before entering Harvard, he had already been noted on Slashdot and in PC Magazine. Gates entered with a nearly perfect SAT course and took the legendary Math 55 course. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math_55)
In other words, they were already exceptional before dropping out. That key point gets lost a lot of times. I think the exception is probably Jobs and WoZ.
> Risk is high almost always, with some exceptions.
The exception is taking on high risk with your startup.
I can imagine a pretty low risk scenario where you finish school, and start working in a relevant field programming. As you're making money and learning valuable skills you can spend your free time building your business. Unlimited runway and learning from your day job would increase your probability of being successful massively.
The billionaires and facebooks of the world are bad data points to model your future success by.
Maybe the official world's first drone delivery. We tested this service years ago but unfortunately the FCC regulations stopped us.
So the question "are we innovative enough to follow?" is somehow exaggerated. We could've asked the same question 4-5 years ago. The better question would be "When will the FCC adapt to innovation?"
Well we wanted to build a similar project maybe more complex a few years ago and we tested some standard drones and some custom made ones for it and then we wanted to launch a service like this. We did some research about it and there weren't any regulations for drones so we waited...and we are still waiting...probably 2015 will be the year.
Why are we acting as single founders are single forever?It's like, once you enter YC as a single founder you cannot hire anyone else to aid you in your startup, being forever alone.
We both know quality developers would LOVE working for a YC startup and it should be no problem hiring someone as a co-founder IF you know how to pick. Now, of course, that co-founder was not born in the same hospital as you and you might not have that super SyFy connection as super old time buddies but will that lead to a startup failure?No,I don't think so.
In fact I am willing to bet that even a non-technical single founder (ye, we don't like them) with no experience what-so-ever, can handle YC application process. How? Raw/natural talent, cleverness, cunningness etc. Qualities hard to measure and observe, no doubt, but most valuable. If you can get a founder like that, there should be no problems in the future. Going "by the paper" is not always the best choice.
EDIT: And in all honesty the YC Application form is cleverly made to target a specific group of people, eliminating a huge amount of talent and in some points minimizing innovation.
You can certainly bring on more people, but if you didn't know them before you started the company, your relationship is probably not going to be able to withstand the stresses that a startup will apply to it.
If we had really designed the YC application form to eliminate a huge amount of talent, that wouldn't be clever, would it? We'd lose a proportionately huge amount of money.
I agree with the risk associated with people you barely know but IF you are smart enough you'll pick someone who is less likely to fail in your team.That is of course another very rare set of skills, to know what to pick and how, but we are assuming that the single founder has that ability. Perhaps I am too confident on this one because I almost never fail in hiring (no arrogance intended) but with the homework done and that "thing", the chances are much higher to withstand that kind of pressure.Now that I think about it, it's probably a cultural thing. Your criterias match the US market more which is understandable and indeed those relationships are hard to maintain but "internationally speaking" you can find what you're looking for, easier.
Perhaps my second statement was misunderstood. No way you guys created the YC application form to eliminate talent. That wouldn't make sense. The intentions were positive but formed some kind of barriers for some applicants. It's like going hunting with a good weapon to catch a good prey (and you do catch some)when there are better weapons at your disposable. So I'm not saying YC is not successful because it would be stupid to say it. What I am saying is, you can significantly improve the success/failure ratio by taking into consideration other indicators as well. You are losing money anyway but you don't know it. Who knows what startups you missed/are missing until now that could've brought you more money than those that already did.Why swim in a small pool when you have a bigger one at your disposal. Also the YC app form reflects jury's mind.
What is the percentage of founder breakups these days? We talking 20% - 30%? What's worse... a bad co-founding relationship with moderate traction or a technical solo founder who is about seeing early signs of hockey stick growth?
I would have guessed the exact opposite, that early-stage investors behave like binary classifiers who've been tuned to make a huge tradeoff of lower recall, in exchange for higher precision.
I'm not gonna go on the conspiracy road but the world is functioning on the wrong parameters. Instead of being a united civilization and help each other in order to advance to a higher level, we are fighting each other like lions for supremacy in every domain possible.
Our whole system is based on superficial needs and wants rather than focusing on what we really need as species/civilization.
How can we expect innovation and progress when we can't even cross the damn ocean without selling our souls...we can't even cross our own borders without special rules. Not to mention that racism is high in many countries. We are divided as hell. If an advanced race would watch us right now they would probably laugh hard and leave.
@TheBiv You just proved you do not understand empathy at all.