bluethunder

Related reddit discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/LocalLLaMA/comments/1shezi8/i_no_lo...

This is as long as Yahoo CEO's last. If this is all what she has to show for it, I'm guessing the search for the next has already begun.

Riding the Google roller coaster can alter the hard realities for anyone. The heat is only felt where the rubber hits the road though.

Numerous forms of violence against women in India are not as 'rampant' as you think they are. There is little causal relationship between sexual assault in India and the integrated family system. The US on the contrary has the one of the highest rate of sexual assault on women in the developed world - obviously feminism doesnt help as much you think it does.

The integrated family system is one of the best things about India and its culture and is amazingly effective in improving life satisfaction levels across demographics.

For a more objective comparison of the benefits of Indian culture, which discounts the skew resulting from living in a developed economy, you probably need to compare life satisfaction levels of Indian Americans with the rest of America.

http://phrase.it/show/gYTbo

I have been in a similar situation and also read a bit of psychology and the inescapable conclusion that I have come to is that this is exactly why you need a cofounder.

Humans crave regular 'peer' level feedback and gratification - this is an evolutionary trait and is extremely critical for your happiness which is in turn critical for optimal work performance. Almost anyone who feels otherwise is wrong.

The key point is that even if your startup is doing well and making tons of money you will still not be happy because of the lack of 'peer' level feedback. So in that sense getting a co-founder is a bigger objective than making your startup profitable.

The only other two options are:

1. Your company grows real fast and you are able to hire a couple of CXO's. This might take a long time and its not really in your control.

2. Raise funds and hire a couple of peer level CXO's - this is easier said than done as premature scaling is the number one cause of startup mortality even assuming that you can raise funding in the first place.

The good part is that if you understand this simple fact, you can start figuring out a solution which I guess you have already begin.

You are right. Bad example. I was just trying to do something with pipes to illustrate the point.

I think this might be more useful the other way around.

Put ddg inside a linux shell and let me interoperate with linux commands.

eg. ddg reviews samsung note | grep "note 2"

1. If we are talking about really big companies there are a handful of examples anyhow. I am not sure if an empirical comparison is even possible.

2. I think there is a survivor bias here. Most of the biggest companies reach scale very quickly. The scale creates an incentive for the other co-founder to stick on. There is some anecdotal evidence to believe that if scale does not come early on - most likely there won't be a 'really big' company. If the co-founder quits and the founder soldiers on - it just adds another data point to pg's co-founder theory.

nifty and useful

1. Believe that you DON'T need the funding to build a big business. The belief will help you ACT like you don't.

2. The wrong way to look at these meetings is as an opportunity for you to pitch for money to a VC.

3. The right way to look at these meetings is as an opportunity for a VC to pitch for a startup which will make him lots of money (see Rule no.1)

4. Almost all funding decisions will get made within the first 15 minutes of your meeting - this will be apparent in hindsight but you will get better at this over time. The trick is to say 'Next' when they so 'No' without wasting too much time.

5. For the best results establish your credentials before meeting the VC - probably by having a strong reference vouch for you/your work before the meeting. (Note: Not all 'contacts' are 'references' and you will need to discriminate to make this work)

Just had my very own aha! moment while searching for my name with DDG. Excellent investment.

Extremely impressive stuff.

Just yesterday I have been thinking of how federation and mobile will be the cornerstones for the next leap in search and doat.com nails both perfectly.

Has my vote for the google-killer-of-the-year.

Firstly understand that the most precious thing that you are losing here is time - or rather time not spent on building a break-out business. Every day that you spent on the dead end business is time not spent on building a break-out business.

This is what I would suggest:

1. Try selling your startup. Put a time frame on it - say 2 months at the max. Research and Pitch potential buyers. Don't be too rigid on the price. Again, you need to sell so that the business (and its employees) can stretch for as much as possible, and you need to sell to save your time.

2. If the sale doesnt happen in two months, disassociate from the business. For all practical purposes assume that the business is dead. Detach and Break Free. Do not let the dead-end business take your mindspace. Plan the business contingency - you might let your employees keep running the business so that it helps pay their salaries - or you might make it clear to your employees that the business is dead end and they should jump ship. Offer them salaries till the business pays the bills and help them in whatever way they want. Whatever you do, do not engage in the business.

3. Use the now free mind space to figure out the next break out business. Do not try to adapt your existing business. Do not try to 'do something' with your business competencies. Do not 'pivot' your existing business/employees/software.

There is really no way to know. Your product might be just one iteration away from making it big. There are products which take time to hit the up-curve on the hockey stick - case in point gmail.

This is the hardest part about entrepreneurship and as Ben Horowitz puts it in one of his posts - no amount of pattern matching can help. These decisions can only be made from the gut - and basically need to align the entrepreneurs longer term motivations with 'his' understanding of the individual merits of the business.

Debian ?

True growth only lies at the edge of failure

Classic Indian VC Behaviour:

"If you get a call from a VC analyst, saying "we just learned about you through...and think you fit well with our firm...would like to schedule an investor presentation..." This will go nowhere. The analyst is boning up on info, and they will suck your brain dry. They have no intentions of investing."

"best digital camera under 300"

Before: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&...

After: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&safe=off&...

ReviewGist page moves from rank 1 to 5.

ReviewGist listing might not have original content but it is the most relevant and accurate. Every other page lists the best cameras under $300 for the previous years, from 2008 to 2010. Only ReviewGist page has the cameras that you should buy right now for under $300 as we update our lists every week. Ask any shop keeper who knows the latest models and they will agree with ReviewGist recommendations more than any of the sites listed from 1 to 5.

Very cool stuff !

I think something like this, but bigger and wall mountable would be very neat. The obvious use case for startups is to use it as a dashboard with your most important metric for display - for example your google analytics traffic stats.

Never waste time pursuing Indian VC's.

You have your whole life for startups. Indulgence in love is mostly limited to your 20s. I would suggest enjoy the chemistry till it lasts - startups can wait. The chemistry will bring you more happiness then any amount of big company building would.

Destinations are always pointless, its always the journey. Think of this as a detour from your startup life. In the longer run, detours will give you valuable perspective and make your journeys more meaningful.

Amazing writeup. Thanks.

This is a really insightful writeup. Thanks.

I just wanted to mention that a lot of things that you did bad, look so only in hindsight. Not that they are not bad, in the sense that you could have done better, but the very same things that now look bad could be construed to be actually 'good' had your startup gone right. Even the startups which do end up successfull do not become so by doing everything right.

For example:

1. Your co-founder was not committed due to mortgage or family, however he was a great tech guy. And there is a chance that hte startup might have done better, without him spending as much time, in which case you would have duly thanked his technical chops which contributed to startup success.

2. If you would have been stricter with the goals your co-founder might have bailed early. Had the startup done better, being less strict could have been construed as a good management decision which helped accomodate your co-founders competing personal commitments.

3. Similarly for setting a deadline - sometimes things just take longer, and your startup might have turned over a good leaf by just trying hard enough. There is really no easy way to know when you have to stop.

Essentially, the point that I am trying to make is that it is extremely hard to figure out what is the real reason for failure, and most such analysis misses the woods for the trees.

However, being able to distinguish correlation from causation is extremely critical as it is the basis on which startups should pivot (or shut down).

Or maybe not do any of this and just focus on building a high growth business so that one day VC's share notes on how to charm an entrepreneur for taking your money.

Thanks for your kind comments.

Im not sure if I would be able to post about negotiations any time soon. Drop me a line when you enter negotiations and if you want an outside perspective. I will be happy to help. You can reach me through the feedback form of the site in my profile.

Couple of quick points, though this is a very subjective topic so these might or might not apply.

1. Know that 99% of deals fall through. This one will also, except when it won't. More importantly, the deal is only done when the cash hits the bank. Deals are known to fall through even at very late stage. Falling through is the norm, going through is the exception.

2. Be open about numbers, growth etc. Be closed(vague) about strategy, execution plan etc. You need to be open about the numbers to give them confidence. You need to be closed about strategy, execution plan because a huge number of deals fall through because the acquirer decides to build the same stuff inhouse (typically prodded on by internal engineering teams)

3. Build confidence. Talk about how this marriage will be best for both the teams. Reserve the negotiations around cash towards the end of the deal. When you start negotiating about cash, the deal is already done.(Except when it isn't - see point 1). Negotiating the deal is though topic for another post.

4. Decision making in big companies is slow and hard. The decision to acquire your startup will need to be driven by someone internally in that company. Find out who your 'champion' is in that company. Maintain regular contact with him, though dont push him too much. If some time elapses without any communication, ping him and check with him.

5. Most deals that go through will go through quickly. The decision in most of the deals which go through is already made. You just need to nod your way along in such cases. In other cases there will be just one big issue that you need to build confidence upon. If the talks get extended, it is likely that the deal will not go through.

6. The Zen Rule for Deals: Assume that the deal will NOT go through and plan your startup accordingly. The person who is willing to walk away is the stronger person in any deal. Detachment will allow you to negotiate from a position of strength.

This is an amazing post. I cant agree more.

Agree totally. I realized early on that some of us are just born to build. Everything else, including making money is just secondary.

For some of us the biggest part of our happiness is dependent on the meaning that we seek through our work, and more importantly, anything less than building something isnt meaning enough.

Please allow the website owner to rate the review he receives and allow his sites to be reviewed based on the rating of the review that he has given.

So for example: If i rate site A.com and the siteowner of A.com rates my review as 5/5 then my sites should be eligible for 5 reviews. The ratios could be different - essentially reward owners for better reviews.

I see a very clear monetization opportunity here. I pay money and get X number of reviews. I am sure you would have thought about this. Cool stuff.

seconded. Great idea btw.