Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=184088

by edw519 • 18 years ago

40 95 18 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

After reading a recent post here with "best advice" from 13 prominent business people, I was underwhelmed. Now I know why. I'd rather hear from you guys than from them.

edw5193• 18 years ago

Always do the right thing.

mixmax• 18 years ago

The best advice I ever got was from a board member of a startup I was involved in some years ago. He was a member of the European parlaiment, had started two multi million dollar companies, and generally a guy that you would want to listen to. His advice came at a very early stage of our startup and was very simple: Make a prototype that looks great, nobody will care how the hell it works but it has to look good.

Alex39172• 18 years ago

The most important thing I learned in my business classes sophomore year of college was to make the investor visualize your product no matter what you're pitching. So if you want 100k to buy a kiosk in your local mall, make a 3D rendering of what the kiosk is going to look like. And if you are pitching a new kind of bacon to a group of VCs, make damn sure your cofounder is cooking it in the back of the room and everyone there can smell it. Getting a picture into the other person's head is 90% of getting the money at the seed stage.

greendestiny• 18 years ago

Beautiful design is inspiring to developers as well. I've worked on stuff on my own, but working with an artist makes me work many times harder.

melvinram4• 18 years ago

Solid advice!

My first business mentor said it a little differently:

"Perception is everything until they buy!"

DaniFong2• 18 years ago

Choose your battles.

ciscoriordan• 18 years ago

Don't put metal in a microwave.

aneesh• 18 years ago

You have as much credibility as you give yourself.

bcater• 18 years ago

"Find what race you belong in, drive yourself ruthlessly to win that race. If you win, great. If you lose, go read some comics and do some beers as there's no use winning if you can't smile all the way to the finish line."

It's from a coach from long ago, but it has served me well many times outside of running.

staunch• 18 years ago

Trust yourself and your intuition.

melvinram4• 18 years ago

"After you go to the bathroom, you don't just stand there and look at what you just dropped in there for all night long. At some point you gotta flush it, man." ~ Kobe Bryant

"Whether you believe you can or you believe you can't, you're right." ~ Ron Sutton

My other favorite quotes are at: http://melvinram.tadalist.com/lists/906581/public

melvinram4• 18 years ago

QUOTES THAT HAVE INFLUENCED ME GREATLY:

* You can tell how badly you want [something] by observing your actions each day. Are they consistent with [attaining your goal]? ~ Brian Tracy

* Character is destiny. ~ Sigmund Freud

* Heaven and hell are a state of mind. ~ The Four Agreements

* We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do. ~ Mother Teresa

* There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it's going to be a butterfly. ~ Richard Buckminster Fuller

* After you go to the bathroom, you don't just stand there and look at what you just dropped in there for all night long. At some point you gotta flush it, man. ~ Kobe Bryant

* Whether you believe you can, or you believe you can't... either way you're right. ~ Ron Sutton at The SBRC

* There are some things you can do something about and some things you can't do anything about... don't worry bout stuff you can't do anything about. ~ Dunno

* Work Harder. Play Hardest. ~ Me

* Attraction is not a choice. ~ David DeAngelo

* Intelligence is defined by prediction. ~ Jeff Hawkins

* "Every beginning requires an ending, another revolution around the wheel of life. Death is not sad; the sad thing is that most people dont really live at all." ~ Dan Millman

* Magnify what's best. Focus on what's next. ~ Change How You See Everything book

* Focus attention on opportunities not problems, strengths not weaknesses and what can be done instead of what cant. ~ Change How You See Everything book

* A diamond is just a hunk of coal made good under pressure. ~ Rod Weckworth

* There are three classes of people: those who see, those who see when they are shown, those who do not see. ~ Leonardo da Vinci

subwindow• 18 years ago

Always smell the milk before you drink it.

huhtenberg• 18 years ago

I got the best one word advice from a guy from BVP (Bessemer) -

  Focus

meaning "focus on doing just one thing and do it really well". That was in the context of me pitching him a business plan that included offering the service, licensing the technology and selling hardware appliances. So he said - focus and develop exactly one of these things, which is what I eventually did. In a retrospective that was the best advice between all I received.

Alex39172• 18 years ago

Even the most beautiful paintings, the best novels, and the greatest scientific discoveries were 95% drudgery to create. The reason most people never paint beautiful paintings and write world-changing novels isn't because they aren't smart enough, but because they don't find it fun.

xlnt11• 18 years ago

right. they prefer pokemon or football or something that doesn't require much thought or learning. since they are smart enough to do better, they are guilty of having immoral values. they ought to find better things fun, but instead are wasting their lives.

edit: looks like 8 people so far noticed that they are guilty and don't intend to change anything.

gruseom• 18 years ago

they are guilty ... they ought to find better things fun

I'm pretty sure what the downmodders are reacting against is the absoluteness of your moralism. Personally, I'm not offended by it. I'm flabbergasted by it.

Edit: this just reminded me of one of the best pieces of advice I ever received: Judge not, lest ye be judged. How's that for swinging back on topic?

rms2• 18 years ago

I believe that human beings have a fundamental right to waste their lives on completely meaningless pursuits. It's what separates us from the animals.

Your post made a very aggressive move by defining "contributes little back to humanity" as immoral. It's not a bad definition, but it's very different from the common definition.

izak304• 18 years ago

'are smart enough to do better' puts subjective definitions on both 'smart' and 'better'. It's also to say that your definition of better is right.

I'm certainly not one that prefering football or even pokemon is any kind of a poor choice. I happen to prefer programing. I prefer to stretch my mind instead of my physical or social limits. That is not to say that preferring to know what it takes to be a good corner back, and executing on that is immoral.

andreyf2• 18 years ago

Hm, because they don't find it fun... interesting way of putting it.

volida• 18 years ago

in a world that most people strive for more important stuff like their health and some food I wouldn't say fun is the reason they don't engage into creating something novel, although some go broke just for pursuing their passions.

jaydub• 18 years ago

"Invest" in people

menloparkbum2• 18 years ago

I didn't follow the advice, but the best advice I received was "Don't move to Boston."

ardit33• 18 years ago

ha... I actually am visiting Boston right now, and lived here for about three years before moving to SF. Boston/Cambridge area is great if you are going to school, as they are tons of students around, but after school is done, it becomes boring really fast, and winters are miserable.

There are lots of smart people around in here, but you are more likeley to meet the guy with the businness idea that just needs a developer, or the guy that worked for years, and has enough capital and connections to hire a bunch of code monkeys to implement stuff, than smart hackers getting together to do something. A lot of tech jobs around here are boring, (financial companies, enterprise stuff), and if you are young, it will be a great handicap on how VCs will treat you.

Boston is just too conservative to be fun.

noodle• 18 years ago

keep yourself physically as well as mentally active, as mental ability (as well as other things) are directly affected if you let yourself go physically.

dcurtis2• 18 years ago

Three.

The first is from a YC founder. I don't remember who, but he said "Always say yes." I tried that out for a while, and it has worked pretty well. A lot of where I am in my life is because I just said yes when I normally would have shrugged it off.

The second is from an essay by paul graham. "When given two choices, always choose the harder one." This one has become a mantra I say over and over again to myself. It hasn't failed me yet.

And finally, from Steve Jobs: "Listen to your intuition. It tends to know where you're going better than you do."

I think if I mix those three pieces of advice, I'll have a pretty respectable life.

mechanical_fish• 18 years ago

Always say yes.

Ironically, another useful rule is "say no more often". It can help protect your sanity and your focus.

There are times when it's hard to know which of these excellent rules to apply. Perhaps the secret is to listen to your intuition. :)

xirium• 18 years ago

From the newspaper London Lite on Tue 6 May 2008: "All you have to do is say yes or no to things. It's easy." -- Singer, Joss Stone, 21, has a simple trick when it comes to managing her own career.

melvinram4• 18 years ago

"When given two choices, always choose the harder one."

Whenever I have been brave enough to go this route, I have been rewarded... either with an awesome prize or wisdom.

Now days I usually look for the harder option. It doesn't make sense all the time since you might just waste a lot of time but it makes a lot of sense if it will cause you to grow.

Good tip!

spacecow• 18 years ago

"When given two choices, always choose the harder one."

Stated slightly more poetically by Robert Frost:

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference."

bridgetroll• 18 years ago

When I was a wee lad, my grandmother said "Learn something new every day."

JesseAldridge• 18 years ago

"Look, if you don't wanna do school... just get really good at something. If you're better than anybody else at something you will always be in demand."

- Dad

prakash• 18 years ago

That I need to suffer stupid people elegantly and silently, instead of going "That's the dumbest thing I have heard"

ljlolel• 18 years ago

Limited life experiences + Over-generalization = Advice

-Paul Buchheit

lisa_williams• 18 years ago

I have a vivid memory of being six years old and seeing my dad come in the door of the apartment we lived in at the time.

My father came from a working class family. On that day, he had already been going to night school for three years, and would continue for another four years before getting a degree in computer science (this was before the days of easy, short degree programs for adults with jobs). He wore a shirt and tie every day to his job but still looked like the kind of guy who wore coveralls to work.

He slumped. His hair, thick glasses, and briefcase were dotted with rain. He closed the apartment door, looked at me, and said, "Never become an expert in something you don't like -- because then people will want you to do it ALL THE TIME."

He was a lot happier after he got his degree, in part because I think there were more and better choices of things to become good at. (The money was better, too).

DaniFong2• 18 years ago

Thank you for the story. I really enjoyed it. Welcome to YC. :-)

edw5193• 18 years ago

Welcome, Lisa. You helped me realize what I overlooked.

I automatically thought of a mentor for best advice when the real answer was many years before.

I too have many fond memories of waiting for my father to come home. His best advice was never said explicitly, but implied every single day of my childhood, "You can do anything you want, if you apply yourself and work hard enough." I still lean on that advice every day.

Thanks for reminding me that Mark Twain was right:

"When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years."

huherto• 18 years ago

When I was hesitant about starting a business: "The world belongs to God, but he allows the brave to borrow it"

a-priori• 18 years ago

I've also heard a similar saying, without a religious basis: "Fortune favours the bold"

watmough• 18 years ago

Write about what you know.

andreyf2• 18 years ago

  Don't pick at it.

and

  Never trust a naked bus driver.

Make of them what you will :)

tom• 18 years ago

I got two gems from my Grandfather. I think of both nearly every day. 1. It's a poor workman who blames his tools. 2. Hard work is never easy.

signa11• 18 years ago

this above all: to thine own self be true...

                                 - polonius, hamlet

edit: maybe this is what underlies the xobni phenomenon that we are watching unfold ?

simianstyle• 18 years ago

always tell the truth

mace• 18 years ago

Steve Jobs gave a great commencement speech at Stanford a few years ago. The best bits were:

"Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it."

neodude• 18 years ago

The best bit of that speech was the business of looking in the mirror every morning and asking if you want to do what you're going to do that day.

The trouble is, I'm going to college, I am saying "no" an awful lot of the time, but I'm not brave enough to quit.

dcurtis2• 18 years ago

I was in the same position.

And eventually, partially because of the mirror-every-morning trick he talked about, I did quit.

billroberts• 18 years ago

I second the Steve Jobs Stanford speech.

And good advice from my wife: "get outside more and do some exercise". So time to switch off HN and go for a bike ride!

Arubis• 18 years ago

I've got three:

Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em, then tell 'em, then tell 'em what you told 'em.

When you create, stick to three C's: Clear, Concise, and Complete.

Just Start.

adammichaelc2• 18 years ago

"Don't work for money. Then you'll just get rich. And it's harder for a rich man to go to heaven than a camel to go through the eye of a needle. Why would you want to get rich if after you die you can't enjoy the next life?

"Just find what your passionate about and do that. Then you'll love life, you'll be in a great mood for your wife and kids. And you'll make plenty of money to get by."

Norm Nemrow, My Accounting Professor at BYU (My hero)

Edit: I don't think I wrote this exactly the way he said it -- he took an hour and a half to say what I tried to write here in just a couple paragraphs.

mudge• 18 years ago

"be in a great mood for your wife and kids" That's my favorite part.

adammichaelc2• 18 years ago

"Just find what your passionate about and do that. Then you'll love life, you'll be in a great mood for your wife and kids. And you'll make plenty of money to get by."

Norm Nemrow, My Accounting Professor at BYU (My hero)

Edit: I don't think I wrote this exactly the way he said it -- he took an hour and a half to say what I tried to write here in just a couple paragraphs.

rewind• 18 years ago

Never burn bridges.

astrec• 18 years ago

One company ago I made a mistake: Not a huge mistake, but a mistake that was big enough. Summoned to the CEO's office, I figured I'd soon be stuffing my knickknacks in a box.

Instead he told me the following story about Sam Walton, the founder of a somewhat successful retail venture.

A newly hired executive had made a multi-million dollar mistake and he too was summoned to the corner office. Before Sam could get a word in, the executive said "Save the lecture and just fire me."

Sam studied the young executive for a few moments and replied "Fire you? I just invested millions of dollars in your education - you don't even get to resign".

Like Sam Walton's freshly minted executive, I learned an important lesson that day. Mistakes, even those of the multi-million dollar variety, are inevitable. What is of utmost importance is that we learn the lessons taught.

(Only later did I fully grasp that small mistakes are actually desirable).

mynameishere• 18 years ago

I wonder who originally said that.

http://books.google.com/books?id=9-9D_5wK01QC&pg=PA87...

notdarkyet• 18 years ago

I have never made a comment on HC and I have been the silent observer for quite a while. Whether it will be of quality or not, I feel now is a good time to make the first one. To me, the greatest part of this site is the Ask YC section. Some of the most insightful and helpful advice I have ever read has come from the comments and in most cases, the comments are significantly better than the articles themselves.

The best advice that I ever received was from my father. He is one of the hardest working men I have ever met (construction) and never seems to complain no matter how tough things or life can get. This bit of advice may have been given to him at one point, but not too long ago he said to me, "Don't ever feel like you are missing out on something. There will always be another party".

While this advice is somewhat simplistic on the surface, it really has given me the ability to put life and the choices I make into perspective. It is easy to put your future on the back burner and get caught up in the feeling that it's a necessity to go out all the time (I am in college if that put things into perspective). I am gifted with the uncanny ability to rationalize to myself that the poor decision I am about to make is the somehow the appropriate one at the time(/sarcasm). Opportunities sometimes only come once in a lifetime and how we handle those situations is often the true determinant of our character.

Sometimes it is hard to stay in and direct my time and efforts into my current side project. Hopefully there will be many parties (celebratory I would like to think ;) ) to make up for the time that I am spending to make an impact and reach success outside of the norm. Sometimes I laugh at some of the comments people around me make, believing as though they can spend 6 out of 7 days a week drunk and then magically be granted a seven figure salary as the CEO of some organization right out of college. The other day someone I am unfortunate enough to know said to the people in a class "In ten years, you will all be working for me!". Well, I sure hope that in ten years I am not the katsup man in the McDonald's assembly line.

I am actually excited to submit an Ask YC question of my own in the next day or so because I really feel like I could use some direction on after college decisions. Cheers!

edw5193• 18 years ago

You picked a pretty good post for a first comment. Welcome!

kingnothing• 18 years ago

Just do it.

pierrefar• 18 years ago

Find a job you enjoy doing and you'll never work again.

car• 18 years ago

100% of people who succeeded tried. 100% of people who did not try failed.

abijlani• 18 years ago

This is actually not advice but something I have learned the hard way.

It's not that the situation is bad, it's what you make of it.

iamelgringo• 18 years ago

I was sitting in a coffee shop one day with a friend in Chicago, and a very intoxicated young hispanic man stumbled up to us, put his hands on our table, leaned over and gave me a smell of his breath that I still remember. Then he looked me in the eye, moved his finger within inches of my face and told me this: Never, never, ever date a Cuban woman.

To this day I've taken his advice. He seemed like he knew what he was talking about.

danw• 18 years ago

To read the book "How to be a graphic designer wihtout losing your soul", lot's of great advice there, even for non-designers

mojuba• 18 years ago

Never follow self-referencing advices.

neb• 18 years ago

Be excellent to each other

dazzawazza• 18 years ago

station!

delano• 18 years ago

Or as Plato put it, "Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle."

mroman• 18 years ago

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

-Einstein

izak304• 18 years ago

It was striking to me to see how many of those 13 cited a prominent man in their lives, here is mine:

When I was about twelve, I was supposed to plant grass over what used to be our garden one day over summer vacation. My summer breaks were usually sprinkled with chores like this, and taking care of the house and my younger sister. This particular day, I didn't feel like doing any of it, so I hit the dirt with the rake a couple of times tossed the seed around, and went back to whatever it was I was doing.

My dad came home, and when he took a look at the garden he asked if I did it, I said yes, and he was obviously disappointed.

"You can't go through life doing half a job, because you'll just have to do it again"

Then he made me do it again the next day. Certainly the next day was much better (tilled by hand, seeded and covered with straw) but that really stuck with me.

okeumeni• 18 years ago

My Dad always told me: You’re not entitled to anything in this world, always give your best and hope for the best!

drios• 18 years ago

"Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men." Douglas Bader

cmos• 18 years ago

1. Appreciate how lucky you are to be starting something from nothing.

2. The less cash you spend the longer you have to make your dream possible. Spend cash in the right places. Like health insurance.

3. Never interrupt a good salesperson in the middle of their pitch, even if they are saying something incorrect. Tell them afterwards, and if it's important enough they can always call the customer/investor and clear it up.

4. Read contracts. A lot of the time they don't make sense. Sentences go on forever. Don't take that crap. Make a lawyer spell things out and simplify. Make sure you read and understand every detail, particularly investment agreements. These people are not your friends. They are not your parents. They are not looking out for your best interests. Your lawyer isn't either. Lawyers are just making sure you are not going to get sued and such. They are not looking out for your best business interests. Do not think because a lawyer says a contract is 'pretty good' that the lawyer has evaluated the business implications of it.

5. Don't listen to accountants when they say the word 'profit'. It's an illusion. It doesn't necessarily mean you made money. You could in fact have ended the year or month with less cash (and assets) than you had at the beginning, which sound to me like an unprofitable year or month, but they will take numbers from an accrued loss and add them up to make profit. This kind of profit isn't going to help you pay rent or hit payroll. And savy investors can read through it. Cash is all that matters. So when a suit* say 'cash is king', which is often their 'advice', what they really mean is focus on the cash flow, not the balance sheet.

*a 'suit' is someone who has started a few companies and is quite successful, but doesn't remember the early nitty gritty days of suffering and fear, so they like to say things like 'cash is king' to summarize all their mistakes of running out of cash.

6. Figure out how to make and read a cash flow and balance sheet. It's like a doctors chart for a business. If you have no revenue, and you have 'project' revenue in your cash flow chart, make 2 more. One with no projected revenue, and one with 1/3 what you projected. This tells you how long your company will survive in the worst case and most likely case scenario. Chances are your actual revenue will be 1/2 to 1/3 of what you expect it to be (in the beginning, with no history or trends, and a brand new product in a new market) The more prepared you are for this the more likely chance you'll have of surviving.

And, if your 100% right, you have better problems to solve than running out of money. :)

notauser• 18 years ago

I'm not sure it's the best advice but the nugget of useless wisdom I liked most was:

"Never give people advice."

petercooper• 18 years ago

Don't underprice yourself. If half the people you give your prices / figures to don't say "fuck you" then you aren't in the right price bracket.

babul• 18 years ago

"You will lose money chasing girls, but you will never lose girls chasing money"

...from my first employer after he came in to work late once day from what must have been a crazy night out.

Ask YC: What's the best advice you ever got?

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