Things I Learned From Founding Technology Companies

http://betashop.com/post/32913573235/90-things-ive-learned-from-founding-4-technology

by kbouw • 14 years ago

420 44 14 years ago

lutusp2• 14 years ago

> 90 Things I Learned ...

Clearly, appealing to a popular audience wasn't on the list. Rescue your article by changing its title and make a few editorial changes:

Title: "My Ten Principles for Startup Success"

Edit the article to highlight the ten most important principles from your long list -- write this section carefully, knowing that most people aren't going to read any further. Then append a list of 80 corollaries for those few souls willing to read a longer article.

true_religion• 14 years ago

Counterpoint.

I read it, and I'm glad to occasionally read articles for a niche that I truly care about no matter how long they are.

betashop7• 14 years ago

Thanks!

flyinglizard• 14 years ago

Running a company would be 100x easier if the principals could be made across in 10 points. I think you're doing his list an injustice. It's just a brain dump of the collection of intricate lessons you learn as an entrepreneur, with some personal stuff thrown in.

I actually liked it and I think the "10 most important"-anythings really fail at conveying what a delicate, complicated and demanding thing running a company is.

betashop7• 14 years ago

Agree. 90 times over.

kbouw3• 14 years ago

Just wanted to clear up that this isn't my list, I ran across this article and thought it was a good read and wanted to share it with the community.

Like previously stated, it's hard to put into perspective running a company with just 10 points. Besides, everyone and their grandmother always publishes a "top 10" list. It was refreshing that someone put in the time to lay out such a vast article of all the lessons they've learned. And with 90 lessons, I can be rest assured that this is truly their own experience and not something pulled from other articles to make for good content.

It's a good article to read through and catch yourself nodding at the points that resonate and pick up a few key points of reference for your own startup.

betashop7• 14 years ago

Hi. I'm the author. I like it as it is. 10 is a list. 90 is a compilation of lessons. Thanks for your input though! Don't stop learning.

gav• 14 years ago

One thing that made me chuckle is "Ship it fast and ship it often", which is both good advice for building software and for order fulfilment.

I like Fab.com and I'm a repeat customer, but the terrible shipment times are something I use as an example in my work. I'd buy a lot more if I knew I'd get things delivered faster than the usual 3-4 weeks.

rexreed• 14 years ago

Good job! I've been codifying lessons learned as I learn them and show them to be repeatable. The problem is that you don't know if it's a lesson vs. luck vs. something that happened once and won't happen again in that way in the future to draw a lesson from.

One lesson I have learned, however, is that largely hiring PR firms are a waste of money. Not sure that fits anywhere, but there you go.

puranjay2• 14 years ago

I'm amazed at your ability to tolerate BS, unreason and good ol trolling, both here and on your blog.

Shouldn't this be one of the lessons on the list?

lutusp2• 14 years ago

> I like it as it is.

Yes, and if you were the only person ever to read it, that would be a reasonable criterion.

It's generally accepted that people can be persuaded to read a long article, but only if the article is written in a way to get people started. Ninety points up front doesn't really entice those who don't read many books (the majority at present).

Just a suggestion for attracting readers.

eranation• 14 years ago

I'm very glad, I don't think any of the 90 was redundant...

crazygringo• 14 years ago

This is an incredible article, and I would upvote it 100 times if I could.

I really wish I had something more insightful to say about it... but it's just absolute gold, and better than 99% of the "founder advice" posts I've ever seen on HN.

Seriously, this deserves to be a book with 90 3-page chapters.

sneak2• 14 years ago

> Seriously, this deserves to be a book with 90 3-page chapters.

I see what you did there. (PS: I love that book as well.)

samstave• 14 years ago

I don't see what he did there... enlighten me? (is he alluding to the PG essays?)

CReber• 14 years ago

I love the article, and I do agree focus & clarity is more than important for a young business. But when a team/company is successful, you need to be able to spread your focus on more than one thing.

True success it is (I think) if you can enter any market, build the best product, and dominate it.

Thanks Jason!

jonbischke• 14 years ago

Please edit this link to the following:

http://betashop.com/post/32913573235/90-things-ive-learned-f...

As soon as Betashop posts again to their blog it will start to get confusing.

kbouw3• 14 years ago

Will do! I only linked to the site because I kept getting an error message from tumblr. Thanks for the link

betashop7• 14 years ago

Btw. Making it to #1 on HN is huge! So humbled. Not worthy! Thanks for reading. I truly hope my mistakes and lessons leaned help other entrepreneurs get a leg up.

Smile, you're designed to.

Jason

rhizome• 14 years ago

There isn't a printable version of the article?

kbouw3• 14 years ago

Thank you for this, seriously. It made my day (and i already have copies printed out and plastered).

Big +1

rblion• 14 years ago

Thanks Jason.

I've been through a lot of high's and low's in the last year. This list helped me realize that a lot of my hunches were correct and some of my assumptions need to be dumped. Very helpful.

jwr• 14 years ago

This advice is spectacularly good. As someone with a bit of experience I found myself either nodding along or shouting "yes!" while reading some of the points. And some were new to me — I intend to spend time to understand them and think about how to use your advice.

Thanks!

bjansn2• 14 years ago

'Don't do side projects'? I'm not sure I fully agree with this. Side projects have a very big internal value for companies and people. It shapes the skills of the team and can be fun (and sometimes happen to become a business!). Side projects shouldn't take over the company schedule.

*edit: I love the list, it's awesome :)

puranjay2• 14 years ago

Side projects have directly helped me to run my main business. If it weren't for side freelancing gigs, my company wouldn't even be here right now.

Every person's situation is different. I remember reading an excellent post from Parse.ly's founder who talked about how his side project helped him put food on the table while they were building Parse.ly

Not every startup wants to give away equity and control for funding. Side projects are essential for bootstrapped startups.

bjansn2• 14 years ago

You just described how we are building our company. Keep it up! :)

edw519• 14 years ago

There's a fine line between advice from someone who's been there and suffered in the trenches and a poser who's respouting the wisdom du jour he heard from another poser at a conference. It's often hard to tell the difference.

I waded carefully though this, expecting the usual noise, but surprisingly found lots of signal. This is excellent and already downloaded, printed twice, on my bulletin board, and in my binder. I need to go through it a few more times and make notes with a red marker as it applies to myself. What a handy barometer.

As a programmer, I love to hear unconventional technical wisdom that I know in my gut is true (3,38,47,53). The business advice was a little more conventional, but coming from OP, was heard in a new voice (too many to mention). Some of the "self-help" advice was fresh and interesting (9,18,29,36,72) while some was the same old stuff (41,77). Oh well, you can't have everything.

Thank you, OP! What a nice way to pay it forward. I know this will make a difference in my life, and probably for others too.

betashop7• 14 years ago

Maybe I'm ignorant but who is OP?

chris11• 14 years ago

OP stands for original poster.

gfodor• 14 years ago

It's articles like these that cause me to still load HN every day and trawl through the garbage looking for gems. Well done.

justjimmy• 14 years ago

Great read. Makes me wish there was something like this for the non-CEO's and non-founders. I'm sure not everyone wants to be a chieftain (or not ready, interested, etc), but still wants to be part of a startup where no one knows anything, don't know what tomorrow will bring, the scrambling, the responsibilities, discovering customers/product value, etc.

ie: Learning to say 'no' and don't be afraid to voice your opinions to CEO/Founders. You know, some bullet points like the OP but more to the audience of those not in founder positions.

Feel free to share articles/links if you have any too!

USNetizen• 14 years ago

I've read a lot of these, and this one is by far the best. It makes sense and is drawn from actual experience. Its concise and practical, yet covers so many topics. Highly recommended. It should be a book!

akurilin• 14 years ago

Each one of those points could lead to at least a couple of pages of in-depth analysis and recount of personal experiences. You could turn all the 90 points into a book (or into a blog, if so inclined) if you were to expand on each. Thanks for sharing!

hnriot• 14 years ago

I just see all the usual stuff that's get put on motivational posters, "insist on perfection" - seriously? I'm sure there's some good stuff for people but buried under all the usual platitudes.

"Don't outsource" may have been right for fab.com but its not always good advice. Simple websites that are just retail stores care about brand, real technology companies that actually do something that hasn't been done before often outsource with good success. Like Apple for example, that outsource quite a lot of their product and yet seem to be doing ok. (Maps aside)

Most of this reads like a 60's flower child that went to Harvard and got an MBA.

I'd like to see some of this craving for perfection and every pixel needs my approval put into practice and not see fab.com paint itself smaller than the viewport on the iPad and then onReady() redraw itself to fit the screen. Or menus that don't need to be double clicked.

dizzystar• 14 years ago

This is an excellent article. I disagree with the naysayers that say it's too long. The short articles I see are usually half-inspired and incomplete. This is bookmark material. I hope that I follow even half of this advice effectively one year from now.

Thank you!

tisme• 14 years ago

Thank you Jason, what a super list. And as a side effect, what a super compliment to those that work with you.

rdudekul• 14 years ago

Fantastic advice! This will be a classic for long time to come. In the age where attention span is short and every one is looking for simple formulas or hacks for success, @betashop poured his heart out to create this list of 90 golden nuggets for entrepreneurs building next generation companies. I will read this multiple times.

pinchyfingers• 14 years ago

Points 1 and 2 don't make sense to me. How often is the one thing you are most passionate about also going to be a huge market opportunity?

B. Wayne Hughes founded Public Storage and is now a billionaire. Was self-service storage units his driving passion in life? Or did he recognize a unfulfilled market demand.

Does DHH love project management and CRM apps more than he loves racing Porsches?

ideamonk• 14 years ago

I just printed a super-mini version of 'one thing' for my home office - http://i.imgur.com/3oa6a.jpg (single founder edition) . Grab original here - http://heldfree.com/one-thing.png

The text shape can also easily be wrapped over a tall whiskey bottle :)

Things I Learned From Founding Technology Companies

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