[HN Gopher] Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps ...
___________________________________________________________________
Thanks HN: You helped save a company that now helps thousands make
a living
Dear HN, I'm feeling a deep sense of gratitude this morning, and
wanted to share it with you all. On this day in 2013, the Webflow
co-founders were huddled around our usual desk that we claimed
every early morning at the Hacker Dojo (a co-working space) in
Mountain View, working like hell into the evenings to get something
off the ground. We had quit our jobs about 6 months prior, and
totally underestimated how long it would take to build even a beta.
I had personally convinced my wife that we'd only have to be
income-less for 3 months - the amount of savings we had in the bank
- but that time had now doubled, and those savings were long gone.
The Kickstarter campaign we had poured all of our savings into
producing had fallen through, never even making it live because we
hadn't read the Terms of Service to learn that they didn't allow
SaaS subscriptions to be funded. We had high hopes about getting
into YC for the winter batch, but were rejected since we only had a
non-functional demo of a product and zero traction. On top of all
that, my oldest daughter (3yo then) was diagnosed with a life-
threatening condition, requiring expensive surgery that didn't get
much help from our cheap "catastrophic" health insurance plan with
an ultra-high deductible. Credit card cash advances became the way
we were paying for rent and food. So with all this, we started
contingency planning to try to get our old jobs back. As a last
ditch effort, we sold two of our cars and pulled out what equity we
had in them to buy a little more runway. Then we had to come to
terms that we couldn't actually build a full product in the time we
had left, and decided that the best we could do was to create a
demo or playground that could hint at what the future product could
be - and hope for the best. In March of 2013, we finally finished
that demo and put it up live. It's still there:
http://playground.webflow.com/ Now came the time to get users. We
were targeting mostly designers and non-technical folks - so we
posted it on Digg (heh, remember those days?), Reddit, and several
designer-centric forums. But none of those posts got any meaningful
traction. We were at a loss. Then, with tempered expectations
about how a visual development tool for designers would be received
in the hacker community, we posted here to HN. The title was "Show
HN: Webflow - design responsive websites visually" [1] and we
crossed our fingers really hard at this last-ditch effort. What
happened next was nothing short of life-changing. The post took off
like wildfire, staying at #1 for the entire day. Incredible words
of encouragement were all over the comments. Over 25,000 people
signed up for our beta list. VentureBeat wrote a story about us
that same day. Tons of people started talking about Webflow on
Twitter, Reddit, etc as a result. This led to a ton of word of
mouth and even more signups. This amazing traction helped us get
into YC several months later, gave us momentum to raise some
funding from some angel investors, and most importantly gave us the
confidence that we were truly on to something that can be really
valuable for the world. Since then, Webflow has grown to millions
of users, over a hundred thousand customers, and over 200 team
members. I still have to pinch myself when I see that Webflow has
somehow become one of the top YC companies of all time. Out of our
customers, tens of thousands use Webflow exclusively to make a
living - to run an agency, build websites and light applications,
create websites for clients, or for their own startups. Tons of YC
startups (e.g. lattice.com, hellosign.com, many many more) now use
Webflow to run their marketing. I'm 1000% convinced that if that
HN post did not take off, we would have gone back to our jobs and
that early Webflow demo would have been a mere mention on our
resumes somewhere. Thousands of people wouldn't be empowered to
build for the web the way they can now. I can't imagine what that
alternate future would be like, and it hinged seemingly on just one
submission to this community. So this is a very belated, but very
huge THANK YOU to HN for being kind to a trio of co-founders who
wanted to make something valuable for the world, and were at the
end of their rope in many ways. You gave us confidence, hope,
encouragement, and a lifeline that got us through the lows of
building a startup. Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! [1]
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499
Author : callmevlad
Score : 1270 points
Date : 2021-01-15 16:36 UTC (1 days ago)
| amelius wrote:
| Do you support collaborative editing?
| egorfine wrote:
| Absolutely thank you for sharing this. It is very encouraging!
|
| > helped us get into YC several months later
|
| what happened with your life and finances between posting to HN
| and getting the angel funding? How did you bridge the gap?
| brryant wrote:
| Thank you HN.
| shafyy wrote:
| Thanks for making Webflow and pulling through. Even though I'm
| software engineer and could have built a ecommerce store myself,
| we decided to use Webflow and it's just been a delight.
| darepublic wrote:
| On an ironic note, your company is part of a trend that threatens
| the livelihood of devs everywhere
| callmevlad wrote:
| I absolutely don't think this is the case, and paradoxically
| something like Webflow actually creates more demand for coders
| and software engineers. Today, only 0.25% of the world knows
| how to write code, meaning the amount of software being created
| is limited to that subset of the population. No-code tools
| potentially will raise that percentage to 25% or even higher,
| meaning 2 orders of magnitude more people are potentially
| starting new software projects - however small initially.
|
| Inevitably, those projects will need more functionality than
| visual or declarative abstractions currently allow, which
| raises demand for code-based developers. Code will _always_
| outpace higher-order tools in flexibility and power, and coders
| will always be in demand.
|
| Think of it like what happened with spreadsheets... initially
| there was a lot of fear that moving e.g. financial modeling
| workflows from e.g. Pascal, etc to visual spreadsheets might
| make developers less relevant. But that's the opposite of what
| happened.
|
| Sure, there might be some developers who _only_ do very basic
| tasks like converting a PSD file to HTML /CSS, but that started
| fading out as a highly sought out skill even before Webflow was
| prevalent. But there will always be a need for devs, and
| there's a massive shortage of them in the world still, so I'm
| honestly a lot less worried about this.
| jsherwani wrote:
| Additionally, I think that tools like Webflow empower devs as
| well. Why spend hours writing a custom piece of code when it
| can be done in Webflow in a fraction of the time, and
| potentially even handed off to a non-dev to manage/maintain.
| exolymph wrote:
| This is like thinking that WordPress is bad for developers. No,
| it just helps people get to the point where they need + can
| afford a developer.
| pembrook wrote:
| Fighting to keep the world complicated and inefficient, so that
| you can keep the same job forever and never have to learn
| anything new, is not looked upon favorably by history:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
|
| When we automate the boring stuff, we are free to work on
| harder and more important problems. This is the arc of
| progress, and it's in the interest of the greater good.
| darepublic wrote:
| Well, I didn't say to keep the world complicated and
| inefficient, I just thought it was funny to write a thank you
| to devs for saving their company when by some considerations
| their company could potentially hurt the employability of
| certain devs. But yeah, I am not trying to be a luddite, (not
| that I care about how history would judge me)
| SyzygistSix wrote:
| That wasn't the case with Luddites. They were fighting
| against the transition to unskilled labor but even more so
| against worse working conditions and pay. When technological
| progress makes it more efficient to exploit people, there is
| a problem, and more efficient production does not make that
| go away or balance it out.
| tornato7 wrote:
| To me it's ironic to say that greater automation is threatening
| the livelihood of devs. That's what good devs should do,
| automate themselves out of their job and move up one tier of
| abstraction. Maybe those devs who feel threatened should start
| writing webflow extensions
| composer wrote:
| ReRe's Law of _Re_ petition and _Re_ dundancy [3] agrees with
| you: A programmer can accurately estimate the
| schedule for only the repeated and the redundant. Yet,
| A programmer's job is to automate the repeated and the
| redundant. Thus, A programmer delivering to an
| estimated or predictable schedule is... Not doing their
| job (or is redundant).
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=192
| grecy wrote:
| > _my oldest daughter (3yo then) was diagnosed with a life-
| threatening condition, requiring expensive surgery that didn't
| get much help from our cheap "catastrophic" health insurance plan
| with an ultra-high deductible_
|
| How can this kind of thing be day-to-day for people in the
| richest country that has ever existed?
|
| What a nightmare.
| jldugger wrote:
| Because we _let_ people choose cheap plans, and don't use
| federal taxation to shift the costs to the wealthy. And we tie
| health insurance to employment, so all those fringe benefits
| you were unaware of suddenly cost real money when you start
| your own biz.
|
| If OP had been required to carry a stronger insurance policy,
| their runway would have been even shorter. And if the tax
| regime gifted Americans universal health care, it would likely
| mean OP would have a smaller savings, if any at all.
|
| Perhaps it's a testament to how healthy the jobs market is in
| SV that 'I'll just get a job' as a fall back plan if you run
| out of cash is plausible.
| grecy wrote:
| Your mental gymnastics are impressive, if not a little scary.
|
| Having lived decades in both Canada and Australia, I can tell
| you there is a _much_ better way, that works extremely well.
| Imagine nobody ever worrying about medical bills, ever again.
|
| It's like the future.
| jldugger wrote:
| Though If I'm reading this right the minimum tax rate for
| citizens of Quebec is 30 percent:
| https://www.canada.ca/en/financial-consumer-
| agency/services/...
|
| You will not have to worry about medical bills, no. But it
| will be harder to build the nest egg you'd need to
| bootstrap a company, since the tax brackets only go up from
| there. Wealth formation might explain why Canada has fewer
| tech startups and entrepreneurs than California, despite
| the decreased insurance risks associated with national
| health care.
| dang wrote:
| " _Eschew flamebait. Don 't introduce flamewar topics unless
| you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated
| controversies and generic tangents._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| We've had to warn you about this kind of thing before,
| especially the nationalistic aspect. Please don't post
| flamebait and especially please don't take HN threads into
| entirely off-topic, entirely generic classic flamewar topics.
| That path leads to the hell we're trying to avoid here.
| Akcium wrote:
| This is indeed incredible.
|
| When I read such posts I have so many different feelings mixed
| up.
|
| 1. I'm envious, I won't hide this :)
|
| 2. I think that I shouldn't give up with my own product
|
| 3. I think that I don't work hard enough
|
| 4. I feel pleasure, I'm glad that it was success for you. Yep, I
| don't only envy but also can be happy for someone
|
| 5. Your name is Vlad, are you by the way from Russia? If so,
| Pozdravliaiu ot vsei dushi! =)
|
| These posts should be in golden collection.
|
| Especially if someone says: "Hey, who needs another tool like
| this?" and you show him posts from dropbox, webflow and others
| BossingAround wrote:
| > I think that I shouldn't give up with my own product
|
| I would certainly not want to discourage anyone from building
| their own product. That said, for me personally, knowing when
| to quit/admit a mistake and pivot is a sign of maturity.
| tarask wrote:
| This is exactly what I thought, especially 2 & 3. his LinkedIn
| does mention that he speaks Russian, so you're guess is correct
| :)
| ATS22 wrote:
| this story is a happy end one and it makes you feel that you can
| also succeed in your dreams. bravo for your perseverance and for
| not quitting at the first obstacle.
| WheelsAtLarge wrote:
| HN is a community of people that want to do what you did, develop
| an idea to a successful business. One thing that differentiates
| this community over others is that many here are willing to learn
| and do the work.
|
| I ask that you put together a video, document, book that gives a
| general idea on how you did it and what it takes to continue to
| have a successful business. Everyone will thank you and it will
| makes this community that has helped to get you off the ground
| become better.
| artur_makly wrote:
| Any other startup founders here who were on the brink of death
| and then got their asses saved by HN? Would love to hear your
| story too.
|
| @Vlad & Bro..keep up the great work man. You are a light to all
| hard-working immigrant founders and who remind us all that
| American dream still exists! Nasdrovia Tavarish!
| gabereiser wrote:
| _wipes tear_... I love these stories. Kudos to you all for
| sticking with it and thanks for sharing the troubles you went
| through to get your first user base, a critical first step.
| dumbfounder wrote:
| I have mixed feelings about this story. I applaud your resolve,
| and you have certainly had a tremendous amount of success that
| should be celebrated!
|
| But I can't help but think about the 9 founders of other
| companies that had the same resolve in the same situation, but
| things did not work out so well.
|
| All you other people thinking about going for broke need to be
| ready to hit bottom and build yourself back up afterwards,
| because 9 times out of 10 that's what will happen. Or, even
| better, first put yourself into a situation where you don't need
| to go for broke to give yourself an excellent chance at success.
|
| I think this is why a lot of crazy big startups come from younger
| people, they can afford to go for broke before they have a family
| and other obligations, because the worst that can happen is they
| are left with nothing, then they settle for a high-paying job at
| a big tech company and 2 months later they can afford a new car.
| PopeDotNinja wrote:
| Not only did I run out of money, I ended up homeless!
|
| TL;DR -- don't run out of money.
| baby wrote:
| There's actually no "going back up" or digging yourself of your
| own grave once you hit a large medical expense. Lots of people
| become homeless and bankrupt for life due to these issues.
|
| Personally, my plan is to go back to Europe if I want to launch
| an American startup because there is no way I would do this
| without a good health insurance and good social safety nets.
|
| Interestingly, we see much more startups in the US even though
| the downsides of creating your startup in the US are insane. I
| guess we are really optimistic individuals (or start up
| founders tend to be crazy individuals).
| cfontes wrote:
| try funding a startup in europe and you will understand why.
| dumbfounder wrote:
| I hear about a lot of startups moving to Canada, the best
| of both worlds?
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| *younger people with family wealth. Some of my friends were
| unable to take risks because they needed to support their
| parents as well, and that puts a huge pressure to go with the
| safe money
| Techonomicon wrote:
| I love this comment. I don't think this notion gets
| highlighted enough.
|
| This is definitively anecdotal, though I've been at / through
| approximately 5 startups across 12 years, and looking back, I
| believe each end everyone one (except for one) was definitely
| helped / started by a founder or set of founders who didn't
| have to worry about whether they went belly up or not due to
| family wealth. Hell, I still know some that I've consulted
| for that have lived in the bay area for the past 8 years
| without a product that makes any money, no vc funding, and
| were just out of their masters 8 years ago.
|
| Clearly looking back, nearly every founder I've worked for
| came from a family with $$$. Even currently, at least one of
| my co-ceos just up and left their 2 million dollar menlo park
| house and went to live in their parents vacation home in
| monterey right when covid began.
|
| Taking risks becomes extremely easy when you have a large
| family wealth backed safety net propping you up along the
| way. This happens way more often than people realize, and
| often the founder(s) will definitely not talk about this at
| all / downplay it if it is brought up.
|
| The privilege is real.
| WD-42 wrote:
| It's no surprise that the largest predictor of wealth is...
| wealth. Lots of founders might not be directly funded by
| family wealth, but the various safety nets and conveniences
| (even op said they sold 2 of their cars) are a major
| factor, if not the largest factor, of success.
|
| It's an ugly truth of life that I've come to accept: the
| rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.
| notatrumper wrote:
| Unless they bought Bitcoin for 1$ in 2009.
|
| Another tried and proven way is to marry somebody who is
| rich. Mostly just an option for women, though.
| deedub wrote:
| You have repeatedly brought up marrying someone rich in
| this thread saying it is "mostly an option for women".
| So, are you some how saying rich women only marry rich
| men, but rich men will consider poor women? So much so
| it's actually a thing? Sources, please? It sounds
| extremely out dated and kind of gross...especially
| because you keep saying it like it is some valid thing.
| notatrumper wrote:
| It's a well known data point. In general, women don't
| like to marry down, and men have less of an issue
| marrying down. Think of the classic "doctor marries
| nurse".
|
| If you Google, you should find a lot of articles about
| it, as it is an important sociological issue. Now that
| more women are having a career, in fact, more women than
| men are having an academic career, it is becoming
| difficult for women to find adequate men.
|
| Also women marrying up was historically the MOST
| important mechanism of social mobility (people moving up
| in status/wealth). Too bad that feminism does not allow
| it anymore, as any man who marries a less wealthy women
| is considered to be "abusing his power".
|
| The other claim, women being attracted to men with more
| money, I am less sure about. I am sure you can find
| studies analyzing data from dating platforms yielding
| that result, but I don't know how well they generalize to
| dating in general.
|
| Edit: perhaps a starting point, but in general, Google
| should be able to help
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypergamy
| baby wrote:
| It's definitely a thing in places like China where you
| have a much larger population of men, and it is harder
| and harder to find a woman (so much that some people buy
| their wives online from other poorer countries).
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| People who bought Bitcoin for $1 in 2009 won the lottery.
| There was no rational basis for expecting any significant
| payout from that.
|
| Marrying into money is an option for some, but you have
| to make a big emotional sacrifice (at least in Western
| culture) if you opt for going by wallet instead of going
| by heart. It's doable, but GP's point here is that a rich
| person _doesn 't have to make that choice_.
| notatrumper wrote:
| Why would it be a big emotional sacrifice to marry into
| money? Especially if (as some studies suggest) money is a
| big part of what makes men attractive, odds should be
| high for actual love being involved in the decision.
| artur_makly wrote:
| in sports at least the old saying was:
|
| "A ball player's got to be kept hungry to become a big
| leaguer. That's why no boy from a rich family ever made the
| big leagues.
|
| - Joe Dimaggio
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I'm seeing quite a lot of athletes whose parents were
| athletes, or had the means to pay for elite training.
|
| I don't expect the hungriest kids to have any chance in
| most pro sports unless they're above average, at least in
| size for the major US sports.
| hewrin10 wrote:
| Agreed, pro sports is more genetics than anything, you
| can train till you bleed for years, but if you aren't at
| least 6 feet plus, no way are you gonna reach the NBA.
| aerosmile wrote:
| If you don't come from wealth, please don't be deterred by
| this and similar narratives. The OP is not referring to any
| facts or data, just a personal experience, aka n=1. If
| you're looking for a more reliable guidance in life, look
| at YC which is n~3,000. If there's anyone who knows where
| to look for startup success, it's YC - and their search has
| increasingly shifted towards India, Nigeria and similar
| countries [1].
|
| [1] YC publishes stats on each class, but here's an
| umbrella stat that should cheer us all up: in the last 5
| years alone, around 1,000 YC founders were female, Black or
| Latinx (https://www.reuters.com/article/venture-capital-y-
| combinator...)
| Techonomicon wrote:
| Definitely not meant as a deterrent for anyone. Just
| stating information I've viewed. That's all.
|
| If anything those coming from backgrounds I didn't list
| should try to be as involved as possible with startups.
| Thanks for the alternative take, but nothing stated was
| meant to deter as much as inform.
|
| We also shouldn't erase potential truths for lack of
| crowdsourced data. We as a tech community have a large
| desire to ask for the source, which is great, but double
| edged.
|
| Relaying information of this sort that I and others
| brought up is important on the basis of more eyes on the
| potential problem and looking into the data than not.
| [deleted]
| TAForObvReasons wrote:
| To an extent it doesn't get highlighted enough because the
| community buries these comments. The comment you are
| replying to is sitting at -3 karma at the moment, and I
| wouldn't be surprised if similar comments were flagged and
| downvoted.
| notatrumper wrote:
| Yes, having money is good. That's why many people strive to
| have money.
|
| I personally also don't think it is unfair if kids of rich
| parents inherit their money (or their support). After all,
| being able to take care of one's children is a major
| motivation of many people for trying to make money.
|
| It's also well known that money is an important factor in
| mate choice for women.
|
| Even without money, biology would be at work and people
| would be striving to find attractive mates to conceive
| "fit" children.
|
| You could then also say those "fit" children are
| "privileged" compared to "less fit" children.
|
| --
|
| Anyway, as your own anecdotes highlight, if you are not
| rich, find another way, for example a rich person who gives
| you money.
| Techonomicon wrote:
| Don't think there was any weighing in on fairness going
| on as much as it not being acknowledged enough.
|
| I believe, from experience seeing it, many founders who
| succeed will quote literally everything but their
| background, upbringing, and privilege as a factor, even
| though the fact that they had little to worry about while
| building their empire with respect to you know, the
| things everyone else has to care about on a daily basis
| (bills, debt, what happens if I fail) is an extremely
| large factor.
|
| The barrier to entry of them taking a risk is so much
| lower that it is (in my opinion) directly correlated to
| their success at the end of the day.
|
| Anyway, that's all. Less about fairness, and more about
| wish this was really highlighted more.
| notatrumper wrote:
| My impression is that "privilege" has by now taken on
| that meaning of "unfairness". It seems to be the most
| common modern use ("check your privilege" and so on). It
| sounds as if those people don't deserve it.
|
| It's a shame, because I think it used to mean exactly the
| opposite, having a privilege was an honor. Is the phrase
| "it was a privilege to have known you" still being used?
| Techonomicon wrote:
| You should recognize your privilege along with your
| strengths, and not overtly hide your privilege to appear
| on equal footing.
|
| I have intimate knowledge with writers, specifically
| offspring of well known writers who do their best to hide
| this fact, yet will still use their parents agent. And
| yes, it is unfair for them to believe they are on equal
| footing with any other writer.
|
| That doesn't mean they don't try hard, but they do have
| benefits built into their life that others don't.
|
| If you want to trailblaze without being perceived as
| someone of privilege getting there then you should take
| paths that align with that, and not ones that don't.
| [deleted]
| warent wrote:
| I think a large portion of entrepreneurs and founders don't do
| it because it's a get-rich-quick scheme or a normal path to
| retirement. It's because it's in their (our?) nature.
|
| My stakes are much, much smaller, so maybe this experience is
| very particular to me, but I'm fortunate to have bootstrapped a
| growing SaaS business that is now closing in on USD$2000 MRR.
| Before this, I have a trail of hair-brained failures.
|
| The sense of accomplishment hasn't changed with the (modest)
| business success. I've felt accomplished the first day I
| started trying and failing. This is just our nature. Seeing
| material success from it only icing on the cake.
| dvt wrote:
| > But I can't help but think about the 9 founders of other
| companies that had the same resolve in the same situation, but
| things did not work out so well.
|
| Everyone on HN knows that the startup life is, in many ways, a
| lottery. But that doesn't mean it's not _still_ one of the most
| reliable ways of exercising self-determination, working on
| something you 're truly passionate about, taking full
| responsibility for your fate, and becoming financially
| independent (if not outright wealthy). Which is why most of us
| do it.
|
| And, yeah, failing sucks, but saying "don't forget you'll most
| likely fail!" is just not particularly insightful in this kind
| of context. We already know that.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| we've been at this for two+ years and making a ton of
| progress but it's been a continuous, unfunded slog, and we
| continuously think "maybe it's better to just shut things
| down and join an already funded startup?"
|
| but then the people work with us tell us how important our
| work is to them / the community and it encourages us to push
| through... it's kind of bittersweet
| baby wrote:
| Point of GP is that failing while hitting unexpected medical
| issues in the US will destroy your life with high
| probability. There is no prize for those who lost, just a
| feel-good stories for those like OP who "survived".
| dvt wrote:
| This kind of mentality reminds me of solipsism. It's just
| not interesting to talk about, insightful, or productive,
| outside of being a contrarian edge-case you could write a
| paper about.
|
| Cool, you're a cynic. Yes, as we all know, most startups
| fail and the US healthcare system sucks. Anything else to
| add?
| vmception wrote:
| I find it very productive to talk about. I'm glad it was
| the first comment for me.
|
| 2013: Their reddit, digg, forum posts went nowhere, their
| hackernews post hit
|
| 2021: Their reddit, twitter, forum posts went nowhere,
| and neither did their hackernews
| baby wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're having such a virulent reaction
| to my comment? That's probably the most important point
| about this whole thread, at least this is what I got from
| the post. If you want to feel good and feel empowered to
| build your own start up from OP's post, then I don't know
| what to think of your risk appetite.
| dvt wrote:
| > If you want to feel good and feel empowered to build
| your own start up from OP's post, then I don't know what
| to think of your risk appetite.
|
| You're attacking a strawman here. My point was merely
| that cynicism (which your post conveyed in spades), much
| like solipsism, is an unproductive dead-end. Feel free to
| make your case, but I'm fairly confident I'm correct.
| baby wrote:
| Not sure how you can describe my post as cynic[^1] to be
| honest. I think it's the reverse: people who find joy and
| feel butterfly in their stomach when 1 guy survive but
| the 9 others die on the streets are nothing but blind.
|
| [^1]: "an inclination to believe that people are
| motivated purely by self-interest; skepticism."
| gfxgirl wrote:
| Would be nice if there was a book/site that listed the 100k
| failures and their personal stories to the 1k success
| stories.
| dvt wrote:
| There are hundreds of post-mortems online, and they're
| often shared and upvoted here on HN. The idea that this
| community only celebrates unicorns and success stories is
| pretty unfounded.
| DavidPeiffer wrote:
| I'm picturing your idea like StumbleUpon, but with
| 1/1,000 of telling a success story. Don't Stumble too
| fast or you'll miss the success among all the failures!
|
| It's sort of like a failure resume, which is certainly an
| interesting exercise.
|
| https://www.uni-
| goettingen.de/de/document/download/bed2706fd...
| solidasparagus wrote:
| > still one of the most reliable ways of [...] becoming
| financially independent (if not outright wealthy)
|
| There's just no way this is true. For people with the skills
| needed by SV startups, working at one of the startups is
| almost certainly financially worse than using those skills at
| a large company.
| dvt wrote:
| I was specifically talking about _founders_ (but even early
| stage engineers can do extremely well if the startup takes
| off). The upside is _much_ higher doing your own thing
| rather than working at BigCorp (the two aren 't even
| remotely comparable, but neither is the risk). Not to
| mention the end goals/QOL of working on what you want,
| commanding your own ship, being financially independent,
| etc.
|
| Virtually all self-made millionaires+ started companies[1].
| There's really no other way to get there.
|
| [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/giacomotognini/2019/10/02/
| self-...
| scrozier wrote:
| You're making a giant logic error. It may well be true
| that most self-made millionaires started a company. It is
| certainly _not_ true that most people who start companies
| become self-made millionaires, which was the premise of
| your original post.
| dvt wrote:
| > ...most people who start companies become self-made
| millionaires, which was the premise of your original
| post.
|
| This is a complete fabrication. I never said that,
| directly or indirectly. In fact, I've said multiple times
| in this thread that 9/10 startups fail and that startup
| life is a "lottery" but people still choose to do it for
| reasons X, Y, or Z.
| hansvm wrote:
| I think the more salient question is whether starting a
| company is the most reliable way to become a self-made
| millionaire (one of the things they're actually
| claiming), which could be true even if the chances were
| low. The parent comment's error (or perhaps an
| intentional omission if for example they thought it to be
| self-evident) is in not taking into account the volume of
| people starting companies vs the volume of people doing
| other things which could turn them into millionaires.
|
| On that note, I do think there's a flaw in the logic or
| premises (or unstated assumptions -- maybe "millionaire"
| is code for some larger quantity of wealth) somewhere. A
| decade in FAANG with conservative spending habits will
| easily create a millionaire with a near 100% success
| rate, and it would be surprising if starting a company
| would have better odds than that.
| [deleted]
| KerryJones wrote:
| Sam Altman has argued against this in a number of places,
| here's the first one I found:
| https://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec01/
|
| Looking at the potential upside is disastrous without
| looking at the downside. That's what the '00 tech bubble
| was -- we're prone to HUGE biases and it is important to
| have constant reminders to bring us back to reality.
|
| The founders who have succeeded are known to be
| _irrationally_ optimistic, literally irrational. This
| means, statistically, it's a poor choice to do what they
| did. It means, in some sense of the word, they got lucky.
| Many founders publicly acknowledge this -- luck was a
| huge factor.
|
| If you want money, being a founder _might_ get you there,
| but odds are, it won't.
|
| Being a founder makes the most sense when you're obsessed
| with solving a problem and the money is a perk, not a
| motivator.
|
| Transparency: ex-founder of Series B company
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| > Virtually all self-made millionaires+ started
| companies[1]
|
| The article you linked makes no sense related to your
| claim. Unless you're saying that millionaires+ (whatever
| the + means) don't exist outside of Forbes.
|
| > There's really no other way to get there
|
| Joining a startup as an early member? Working in finance
| or computer science or medicine with ridiculous salaries?
|
| Here's a link[1] with thousands of jobs with an average
| income higher than $100k. If you have that kind of
| income, you can become a millionaire.
|
| > QOL of working on what you want, commanding your own
| ship, being financially independent, etc.
|
| How about the QOL of not knowing for a long time whether
| you'll succeed or fail? Or having to deal with investors,
| marketing, managing people, aka everything that you
| probably _don 't_ want to be working with? Not commanding
| your own ship because most of it is built with other
| people's money?
|
| If you're talking QOL, I don't see how playing the
| lottery with your future (in your own words) is better
| than having a high-income job, then FIRE in your 30ies.
|
| [1] https://www1.salary.com/Six-Figure-Income-
| Salaries.html?page...
| dvt wrote:
| > How about the QOL of not knowing for a long time
| whether you'll succeed or fail? Or having to deal with
| investors, marketing, managing people, aka everything
| that you probably don't want to be working with?
|
| This is kind of silly to bring up. Obviously people
| starting a company are okay with managing people and
| dealing with investors (or if not, being bootstrapped).
| You're saying "being an elite athlete sucks because you
| have to deal with working out and eating healthy" like..
| yeah, you kind of signed up for that. You can't be an NFL
| player and eat donuts all day.
|
| > FIRE in your 30ies.
|
| This is ironically very similar to doing a startup (but
| with less risk, and a lower upside). Are you forgetting
| that investing didn't go so well for people in 2008? I
| actually like the FIRE movement.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| > Obviously people starting a company are okay with
| managing people and dealing with investors
|
| I must have dreamed all the posts and comments about
| people learning that they were actually not made for
| being a founder, that marketing is more important than
| what they like doing (programming), and that the stress
| of creating a company is higher than they thought.
|
| It's nice that you found your path in life, and I have
| nothing against that path being creating a company. I
| just don't see what's your goal by repeating that
| everyone who doesn't agree with you is a "survivorship
| bias naysayer". Self-reassurance you made the right
| choice?
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| You can also get to millions by investing while working a
| regular job
| dvt wrote:
| Again, the upside is significantly higher if you start a
| company (financial independence is just _one_ piece). It
| can be risky (see OP), but it 's pretty rational to be a
| founder, especially if you can weather the adversity. I'm
| not even sure how my claims are controversial (especially
| here on HN, of all places).
| Retric wrote:
| Looking at upsides on their own is meaningless. The mega
| millions jackpot is currently at $550 Million dollars in
| cash. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to spend 2$ on a
| ticket.
|
| So sure, it's possible to become a billionaire by writing
| books just look at J.K. Rawling. Hell someone got 10,000
| bitcoins for the price of 2 pizza, which in theory are
| worth 366,790,000$ today. In the end the upside of being
| the founder isn't worth much on day one. It might be
| worth something down the line, but it's critical to have
| a fallback option.
| dvt wrote:
| > Looking at upsides on their own is meaningless.
|
| Which is why I've been mentioning "risks" in just about
| every post I've made. Which is why a big part of OP is
| how taxing and difficult it's been. Why is why we keep
| talking about how 9/10 businesses fail. There's no free
| lunch.
|
| But my original point was that _we already know this_. So
| it 's not particularly insightful to point it out on a
| forum almost exclusively dedicated to people working on
| startups.
| Retric wrote:
| "can be risky (see OP)" is vastly downplaying 1 in 10
| odds of nominal success. Simply not failing doesn't mean
| the bet paid off.
| dvt wrote:
| > "can be risky (see OP)" is vastly downplaying 1 in 10
| odds of nominal success. Simply not failing doesn't mean
| the bet paid off.
|
| We know this, yadda yadda "survivorship bias." It's just
| boring to have the same people making the same points
| about every startup that made it. It's like the old
| "correlation does not equal causation" trope you see
| repeated over and over again when someone links any
| dataset. We get it.
|
| Again, my point is that this is not _insightful_ -- and
| you 've yet to demonstrate otherwise.
| Retric wrote:
| I am not suggesting it's insightful, just the counter
| argument you're posts are largely ignoring. If your
| looking for everyone that made more than 10+ million in
| the last 40 being a founder isn't a great route. Even if
| your benchmark is 100 million it's not good overall odds.
|
| It's only when your benchmark is becoming a billionaire
| that it starts to look like the best option.
| dminor wrote:
| I think the problem is you called it a "reliable" route
| to financial independence, when the variance is actually
| pretty high. Anyone who can get a job at a large tech
| company in SF/Seattle/NY has a much more reliable route
| to financial independence.
| dvt wrote:
| > I think the problem is you called it a "reliable" route
| to financial independence, when the variance is actually
| pretty high. Anyone who can get a job at a large tech
| company in SF/Seattle/NY has a much more reliable route
| to financial independence.
|
| I feel like I argue this ad nauseum here on HN. No, being
| engineer #3489 won't ever make you financially
| "independent" (and by that, I mean having FU money).
| Financial _comfort_ is something else entirely. Making
| 100-200k (even including stock bonuses) somewhere like SF
| /NY where _rent_ for a 1 bed 1 bath is like 3k (and
| houses /condos _start_ at $1 million) will never have the
| same upside as starting your own company. Let 's ignore
| for now the very real chance of getting laid off, or
| otherwise fired in favor of a younger engineer that gets
| paid less than you do (when you hit your 40s).
|
| But again, financial independence is just _one aspect_ of
| "winning" at a startup. Everyone conveniently ignores
| doing your own thing, freedom, self-reliance, self-
| determination, etc. -- these are _non-existent_ at
| BigCorp (where you 're treated, at best, like a cog). I
| personally value freedom much more than I do money --
| which is why I accept the risks of every few years
| throwing my hat in the ring and seeing what comes of idea
| X or Y.
| pedrosorio wrote:
| Have you ever heard of the FIRE movement?
|
| Plenty of engineers working at FAANG and investing in
| index funds have enough money to retire comfortably in
| their 30s. That's what the GP means by financial
| independence, I believe.
|
| Also "senior" engineers (>5 years of experience) at these
| companies make a lot more than 200k a year.
| dvt wrote:
| > Also "senior" engineers (>5 years of experience) at
| these companies make a lot more than 200k a year.
|
| No they don't, look up the numbers. Average salary on
| most websites is around 180k. Principal engineers start
| making north of 300k (at FAANG, which is already a subset
| of a subset) but it's very difficult to snag one of
| those.
|
| I like the FIRE movement, but ironically, I think it's
| pretty analogous to doing your own startup. Obviously,
| it's less risk (but also less upside).
| comp_throw7 wrote:
| This entire thread seems a bit silly.
|
| 1) Average comp for a senior (not principal) engineer at
| FAANG is 350-400k, not 200k.
|
| 2) It's much easier to get a job at FAANG and get
| promoted to senior (or get a job elsewhere and hop to
| FAANG later) than it is to start a comparably successful
| startup. Google alone employs 30k+ engineers, most of
| them in the US, which means they employee ~1% of the
| software engineers in the country. It wouldn't be
| unreasonable to say that 8-10% of all SWEs in the US work
| for a company where standard career progression will get
| them to that level of comp in 10 years or less.
|
| 3) Starting and growing a startup to the point where it
| can provide an exit event that translates to financial
| independence (in a comparable time frame) is much harder
| than getting a job at one of those tech companies, and
| much less likely to succeed.
|
| 4) You don't need to earn 350k/yr to become financially
| independent much earlier than the typical retirement age,
| even if you live in the Bay and suffer with the rent. You
| need to save 25x your future annual outlay. This is
| trivially achievable by age 50 with most work/life/family
| configurations that include at least one software
| engineer (single earners, 2-income couples, 1-income
| couples w/1-stay-at-home, etc) earning half that (i.e.
| your 180k), if you don't insist on retiring as a property
| owner in the single most expensive city in the US. If you
| are in FAANG/comparable, getting there by 40 is a no-
| brainer if you aren't really awful at managing your
| money. A couple working at FAANG can easily manage by 35.
| This isn't "eat rice and beans, then retire in a tiny
| shack in the middle of nowhere" independence, either,
| this is "hit 5m+ net worth". 5m is "fuck you" money by
| any reasonable metric.
| bradlys wrote:
| > No they don't, look up the numbers. Average salary on
| most websites is around 180k. Principal engineers start
| making north of 300k (at FAANG, which is already a subset
| of a subset) but it's very difficult to snag one of
| those.
|
| I think you're out of touch with modern TC. There are
| _many_ engineers at FAANG pulling past 300k /yr - many
| going past 400k/yr. One management track + one senior
| engineer can clear $1mil/yr. I know plenty of people in
| the valley who do this reliably...
| https://www.levels.fyi/2020/ - just check out what a
| senior engineer can make...
| lozaning wrote:
| If you live in a state where you can play jackpot only,
| which is 2 picks for $3 and no eligibility for partial
| matches, there's a positive EV anytime the cash payout is
| more than $453,863,025.00
|
| Accounting for taxes ruins it a bit, but once the jackpot
| gets high enough it's dumb not to buy a ticket.
| Retric wrote:
| That also assumes single winners, more interestingly it
| ignores the diminishing marginal utility of money.
|
| Consider your personal utility function, at 70 what odds
| would you need to play double or nothing with your entire
| life's savings. If it takes more than 50.1:49.9 odds then
| you like most people don't have a linear view of money.
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| The only problem with that is that I think a lot of
| people are okay with any really good upside above XXX
| dollars (i.e. comfortable financial independence). Given
| this, even though the potential dollar amount of the
| upside is much larger, the odds of an "acceptable" upside
| are significantly lower, and as a result it is a bad
| choice for people who aren't extremely ambitious.
| quickthrower2 wrote:
| Oh sure the upside is higher because you might start the
| next Uber or Facebook or Dropbox. However the utility of
| money diminishes IMO for most people past the point you
| no longer need to work. It depends on what you goals are
| and the probability distribution you are after. Also many
| founders end up burned and in poor physical health so
| there is that risk too.
| Drdrdrq wrote:
| If only Mark Zuckerberg knew this back then... /s
| Kranar wrote:
| The comment said "one of the most reliable ways", not the
| only reliable way. Furthermore the two are not mutually
| exclusive. I worked at Microsoft and Google before starting
| my own company, mostly as a way to pay off student debt. A
| few of my co-workers at Google also left to start their own
| companies as well. There's no reason why you can't put in a
| couple of years at a large company to make some early cash,
| then leave to start your own company.
|
| If it fails you can almost certainly go back to working at
| a big company and heck even try again later on in life.
| munificent wrote:
| I agree with your point that we shouldn't idolize people who
| make very risky personal sacrifices without framing it in the
| truth that most who do fail.
|
| At the same time, I read this particular post as much less
| about "look how hard I hustled and because of that I'm a
| winner" and much more about gratitude towards the HN community
| and the appreciating the luck that enabled them to be one of
| the rare winners. It's more "even though we hustled we were
| still on track to lose until we got lucky and supported from
| others." I think that's an excellent sentiment to share.
| hn_grenade wrote:
| Come on, sheep, don't idolize them at all, just go back to
| being cautious and in place, it's what you were born to do.
|
| Tell yourself that it was because they were given such and
| such a "privilege", or had such and such an easier thing, and
| you had a hard thing, and therefore it never could have ever
| been you, and therefore feel better at your own failed
| dreams. Or tell yourself that you are smart, and they are
| dumb and simply lucky, because most fail. Either way, find a
| way to spin it so you are right and they wrong, and
| definitely don't actually reflect on how you could get some
| of what they have, nor improve yourself in any way. Remind
| yourself instead why their success is not actually so good,
| or so special, and especially remember to tell yourself that
| it's not and it's never your fault if you don't succeed.
| Align with your true nature and surrender to the
| inevitability of your powerlessness. This is right, for you,
| oh sheep. This is your good path. Don't fall into the trap of
| hoping, or idolizing, or being inspired. Never dream.
| Remember to always be critical and find fault with another's
| success, in order to protect yourself. This is your way. Go
| forth and just be.
| blizkreeg wrote:
| What is it with every post on HN having an almost 50/50 split
| along the cynical line.
|
| Of course 9/10 founders are going to fail, some people have
| more privilege to take risks, and people with families have to
| take measured risks.
|
| What's the point? Should people not try, keep crying about it,
| keep complaining that it's easy to say this when you have
| privilege, keep looking at the negative side? We all recognize
| life's a lottery and the odds are stacked in favor of some and
| not others. So?
| wussboy wrote:
| Research shows that people view negative evaluations as being
| more intelligent. It's extraordinarily difficult to be
| intelligently positive, and very easy to seem intelligently
| negative.
| baby wrote:
| The point is that people should avoid that path until
| universal healthcare is a thing, and we need to showcase more
| stories of life destroyed not feel-good stories that give you
| hope that the system is "fine".
| blizkreeg wrote:
| So I suppose most people should not start a company for the
| next 50 years?
| baby wrote:
| Either move to a country with universal healthcare or
| spend the money for a good private healthcare. Don't half
| ass that, you'll end up homeless for life otherwise.
| dumbfounder wrote:
| I am not cynical, I am a 3 time founder and looking to start
| another company. I am the opposite of cynical. It is simply
| cautionary advice. I think we have a tendency to glorify
| startup life and I think people should be grounded in reality
| when making massive decisions like this.
| blizkreeg wrote:
| There is also something called dealing with the
| consequences. People figure it out. It's not a joy ride,
| but it's not the end of the world.
|
| At least most people in tech have the skills to fall back
| on a career if their company fails. Needless caution advice
| coated in a cynical tone just creates negativity around the
| whole topic.
|
| Can't we just celebrate that the founder of Webflow managed
| to rescue his company from the brink of fail (even if it
| was dumb luck - it wasn't) and has built a life for
| himself? This is the stuff that inspires human beings and
| makes everyone feel like they could do it too. Clouding it
| in _oh but what if you're in the other 9 out of 10 camp_ is
| just you know .. pointless.
|
| It's fine to say, hey make yourself comfortable first, play
| small bets and free yourself from complete ruin before you
| go bet the farm, but, yolo so you do you. But no need to
| rain on the parade of the person who has crossed over to
| the other side.
| rizpanjwani wrote:
| so basically you're saying it's ok to create positivity
| around a topic on a regular basis, but not negativity,
| even though the negative consequences happen more often
| than not?
| [deleted]
| blizkreeg wrote:
| And what do you aim to accomplish with that negativity?
| We all know the risks in everything.
|
| By educating me about the risk, you haven't accomplished
| anything. If you have ideas for how I can play the odds
| better and improve my success rate, I'm all ears. It's
| better to say look to each side of the road when you
| cross vs you're gonna die if you're not careful.
| cunac wrote:
| better analogy would be that in this case you are unaware
| that crossing a road is dangerous and you are most likely
| to die. 90% chance.
| [deleted]
| austinl wrote:
| I agree in the sense that the HN community cannot save a bad
| product. And sometimes it wouldn't even save a good product.
|
| But I think the thanks here is for the community that was
| willing to give a new product a try, provide feedback, and help
| the founders build momentum towards what it ultimately became
| -- especially when it was clear there was no traction on other
| sites. I think that's something to be thankful for, and shows
| that HN can be different from other communities in meaningful
| ways.
| ATS22 wrote:
| totally agree with you. young people don't have to worry about
| stuff like managing their money because they are backed up.
| it's a shame grown ups with families can't find this backup in
| the community. once more capitalism shows it's ugly side.
| jdminhbg wrote:
| > it's a shame grown ups with families can't find this backup
| in the community. once more capitalism shows it's ugly side.
|
| OP had a three year old daughter with a life-threatening
| medical condition, so I'm not sure what exactly you're
| talking about.
| nojito wrote:
| >I think this is why a lot of crazy big startups come from
| younger people, they can afford to go for broke before they
| have a family and other obligations, because the worst that can
| happen is they are left with nothing, then they settle for a
| high-paying job at a big tech company and 2 months later they
| can afford a new car.
|
| This really isn't true. The average age of a successful
| entrepreneur is 45.
| capiki wrote:
| That's a *successful* entrepreneur. OP was talking about any
| entrepreneur.
| nojito wrote:
| No...
|
| >I think this is why a lot of crazy big startups come from
| younger people,
|
| "crazy big startups"
| czbond wrote:
| OP Wow - nicely done. Amazing persistence that needs to be shared
| more.
|
| The founder's story is not uncommon of most actual successful
| startups I personally have observed.
|
| To those who have cush jobs, dream of startups - this is the real
| world life. In startups, it is not all funding and glory moments;
| it is your world imploding on you in numerous directions, and you
| have to pull yourself through sheer will; or fail.
| steve76 wrote:
| If there was an easier way to make a webpage, wouldn't the people
| in charge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript use that?
|
| Anyways, inspiring to see your success. It's a lot more elegant
| than my plans, which are to launch on here with the headline
| along the lines of "College Students: Earn $20"
| 29athrowaway wrote:
| I have seen Webflow ads...
|
| - One ad features a developer saying "no", repeateadly.
|
| - Another ad features a developer talking in an absurdly
| complicated manner.
|
| Now you come to this forum, mostly used by developers to say
| "thank you"?
|
| Wow, I mean, after being insulted by your ads in a daily basis
| now you suddenly feel gratitude?
|
| There are many ways to sell your product that do not involve
| insulting developers.
|
| Stop your anti-developer behavior, then come here with your
| kumbaya crap.
| tima101 wrote:
| Sincere congrats!
|
| I hope, though, people learn that your experience is one of many
| ways. And "zero to one" and "all or nothing" are not the only
| ways.
| xwdv wrote:
| While I will say congratulations, I hope you also appreciate how
| lucky you are. I cringe at some of the decisions that were made
| and how close you may have came to absolute ruin not just for
| yourself but your family as well. I hope the lesson people take
| from this isn't "Never give up" but rather that startups are
| harder than you think and posting on forums is more of a crap
| shoot than a guarantee of any useful traction. Calculate that
| risk carefully to yourself and dependents and see if it's
| _really_ worth it.
|
| Imagine if you were trying to launch right around the beginning
| of 2020. The HN of the 2020s is becoming a much less forgiving
| crowd than that of 2013.
| kitcar wrote:
| Congrats!
|
| Just a heads up, as a semi-happy webflow customer: your customer
| service chat bot / the way you hide methods to contact customer
| service is very frustrating. The first time I ran into a
| technical issue I almost considered just cancelling my account
| and moving elsewhere because I couldn't figure out how to
| speak/chat with a human. There are many services I spend less
| money on monthly that have infinitely better customer service.
| Ultimately a friend provided me with your support email and I got
| a response there, but was shocked that wasn't listed anywhere on
| your website that I could easily find..
| gigatexal wrote:
| surprised nobody from webflow has commented on this yet
| jrm415 wrote:
| Product idea: chatbot plugin that automatically replies to HN
| comments about your service.
| ddri wrote:
| A gentle reminder for anyone reading that
| "support@[company_name].com" is a pretty safe bet for anyone
| frustrated with the pattern of using bots or self-service
| funnels. If you're not sure if that's a valid address, a
| websearch will help confirmed that. Doing this for webflow
| results in the first result being:
|
| "We provide email support Monday through Friday. ... We also
| might need the read-only link to your project and the email
| associated with your account. To contact our team, please reach
| out to us directly at support@webflow.com."
|
| I've hit up Webflow support a few times this way (as a SaaS
| founder I actively avoid chatbots or delayed service funnels)
| and have found them to be amazingly fast and super detailed in
| their replies. It's partly what tipped me over to be a
| customer. In any case, I hope you get a quick reply to your
| query. And it did make me smile in a "very Hackernews" way that
| the first reply I saw to this wonderful post was a complaint :P
| azifali wrote:
| Vlad - Congratulations. I used to see you and Sergie at
| Hackerdojo in 2012-13 when it was very early days of Webflow. It
| is great to see what what you've accomplished despite the
| challenging circumstances.
| iso1631 wrote:
| > my oldest daughter (3yo then) was diagnosed with a life-
| threatening condition, requiring expensive surgery
|
| That sounds awful. Is she OK now?
| callmevlad wrote:
| Yes, she is now, thank you for asking!
| mooreds wrote:
| How fun is this!
|
| It's nice to have a reminder and to realize the impact that
| comments, sharing and encouragement can have in the greater
| world.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| This very inspiring, great job! This place has that effect. One
| of my open source projects got a lot of popularity just because I
| posted it here on HN and people found it useful (or at least the
| tech keywords were baity enough).
| johnghanks wrote:
| this is an ad
| Reedx wrote:
| Congrats, and thanks for sharing!
| staunch wrote:
| Congrats on the startup success and (more importantly) I hope
| your daughter is well.
|
| There's a really valuable lesson here for would-be YC founders:
|
| > _We had high hopes about getting into YC for the winter batch,
| but were rejected since we only had a non-functional demo of a
| product and zero traction._
|
| ...
|
| > _This amazing traction helped us get into YC several months
| later..._
|
| Same founders - traction = YC rejected
|
| Same founders + traction = YC accepted
|
| The same thing happened with Dropbox. So don't trust what YC says
| about how they evaluate founders themselves, trust what they
| actually do. Which is evaluating startup quality largely based on
| traction, just like every other investor does.
| dvt wrote:
| > So don't trust what YC says...
|
| I'm pretty sure they've said multiple times that traction is
| the best indicator of future success. Very rarely do they fund
| startups without traction (if they do, it's usually someone
| from within their network).
| staunch wrote:
| https://www.ycombinator.com/howtoapply/
|
| They don't say that and that doc doesn't even mention
| traction. And, amusingly, it points to Dropbox's application
| as example of how to apply. When in reality it was due to
| traction on HN that Dropbox got into YC, Drew Houston was a
| solo founder so likely would've been rejected again on the
| basis of being a non-great founder since he hadn't even
| convinced anyone to join him.
|
| Of course, one can always claim that "great founders have
| traction" but that's an obvious cop out.
|
| This isn't malicious or bad. It's just an example of the
| common problem where people's view of themselves is different
| from their actual behavior. Something all founders should
| learn. It applies to users just as much as investors.
| dvt wrote:
| > This isn't malicious or bad. It's just an example of the
| common problem where people's view of themselves is
| different from their actual behavior. Something all
| founders should learn. It applies to users just as much as
| investors.
|
| I did a bit of research and you're right; they clearly say
| in multiple places (including here on HN) that they fund
| non-traction companies often. I'd agree that this is
| stretching the truth and it's probably orders of magnitude
| more difficult to get into YC with no traction.
| dang wrote:
| Plenty of YC startups have been funded without traction.
| Thousands, surely. Many haven't even launched yet.
|
| I don't know what the difference was in this particular case,
| but you're overgeneralizing from it, and underestimating how
| much emphasis YC places on founders (a lot).
|
| YC funded Dropbox before it launched, because they believed in
| Drew--so that's a counterexample, no?
| hn_grenade wrote:
| I concur doctor dang. And well i blew that in my first YC
| application. Told how i got 50-100k euro seed, but didn't
| achieve anything after 1 year, and the review crew has seen
| me as one of those who just wants money but won't do anything
| to be worth it ever since, so hasn't considered my 11
| applications since then. Heavy sigh
| zenbryo wrote:
| Great to hear about your success story! However the number one
| ingredient must have been a good idea to start with. I hope to
| get the same viral success sometime for one of my projects, but
| its near impossible to foresee. Just work hard, keep afloat and
| hope for the best.
| berkes wrote:
| The usual warning against 'good idea' as most important
| ingredient, is apt here.
|
| In fact, I read the story as a shout out to perseverence. More
| than 'an idea'. (Belief in) A good idea can help you persevere,
| sure. But execution is king. And for that, you need hard work,
| ability to push through, and perseverance.
| HeWhoLurksLate wrote:
| Could you then say to succeed you need a good idea and a good
| implementation of it, along with perserverance &c?
| erulabs wrote:
| Awesome! Thank you for this post - as someone currently in the
| "convincing my wife it wont be much longer now" phase, this is
| nice to read :)
| nomadtwin wrote:
| Been using Webflow for years almost daily. Still a big fan but
| seeing round after round of VC money and little improvement on
| the actual tool (Webflow Designer) something feels off...
| sub7 wrote:
| You can't see the admin dashboards or the cac/ltv numbers,
| round after round doesn't show up unless there's real growth
| happening.
| Scramblejams wrote:
| Amazing story, glad you made it.
|
| Potential customer here, and I have a question. I'm a programmer,
| very happy making backends, setting up the infra, maintaining it,
| and so on. I often want to make web pages, but I just hate
| dealing the web front-end stack.
|
| Is this product a good fit for me? I could visually design the
| website, avoid getting my hands dirty with HTML/CSS/JS, then have
| an easy way to connect it with a backend I'd make?
|
| If this isn't a good fit, any suggestions?
| ativzzz wrote:
| From my experience with a different but similar tool, it
| follows the pareto principle. It will do 80% of the work very
| effectively, but as your business grows and you need more niche
| functionality, you will need a developer to figure out a way to
| make the platform behave in a way which it doesn't expect,
| which can be time consuming.
|
| So great for MVPs or getting a business bootstrapped quickly
| and cheaply, but once you have enough money to afford
| developers without breaking the bank, your money may be better
| spent elsewhere.
| spockz wrote:
| I often wonder how much of that 20% of functionality is
| really needed. What if we as society spend the 80% effort
| that goes into customising things into building more that
| uses the readily available features? This is not an argument
| of quantity over quality. It's just that I've seen so much
| effort going into doing the last 20% with so little outcome
| that it has me made skeptical.
|
| Of course, for products deeper in the stack we should strive
| to implement that last 20% because the quality of the stack
| depends on it. I just don't think it's worth it for leaf/end-
| user projects.
| ativzzz wrote:
| I hear what you're saying, but for successful businesses in
| competitive spaces, those last 5% or even 1% are the sauce
| that sets your business apart from your competitors. Of
| course you won't know it is until you build it, but that's
| what quick mvp cycles and "lean startup" methodology is all
| about.
| spockz wrote:
| Exactly. So such a company should focus their effort on
| discovering that 1-5% edge and not waste effort going
| beyond 80% on things like hr/tooling/billing/etc that are
| irrelevant to (finding?) their value proposition.
| Scramblejams wrote:
| For a business, I agree. I should have clarified, I'd be
| happy with something that works pretty well at the hobby
| level.
| ativzzz wrote:
| Ah, these are more for making standalone simple frontends.
| Think more landing pages with built in email conversions or
| some payment integrations and not front end connections to
| a back end API. I've had to make some backend api
| connections on the different service and it was a PITA.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| (Not OP) I know replying "seconded" is out of line with Hacker
| News guidelines, so I'll add that in addition to the above, I'm
| also curious about whether it can cooperate with any front-end
| frameworks
| JeanSebTr wrote:
| When I worked for Snipcart (HTML/JS shopping cart), many of
| our customers used webflow as their website hosting. Even
| though site builders and developer / third party tools are
| generally not a good match, Webflow seems to be the less
| painful to integrate with other stuff among site builders
| (it's not first hand experience, but still encouraging).
| HomebrewCC wrote:
| Well, thank you! I still remember seeing the Webflow CSS
| Playground for the first time. I am a happy customer ever since.
| It really helped kickstarting my career as a digital strategist.
| ketanmaheshwari wrote:
| Great! Congratulations that all worked out well.
|
| It is an inspiring story but fair warning to others that there is
| a strong survivors' bias here and not all risky ventures work out
| this well.
| abinaya_rl wrote:
| Woah, That's an inspiring story. Congrats on your recent funding
| round!
| steve_taylor wrote:
| Lean startup dogma dictates that if you're not embarrassed by v1,
| you took too long to build it. Had you followed that advice and
| posted it to HN, you'd have been torn to shreds and wouldn't be
| telling this story. Congrats on building a product so good that
| met and exceeded the standards of the HN community and went on to
| be a successful business.
| gadders wrote:
| I love a happy ending. Congratulations! I hope your success long
| continues (and that your daughter is fully recovered).
| LyalinDotCom wrote:
| Really needed a story like this, something positive to end the
| week! thank you for sharing and wishing you all the success in
| the future.
| dvt wrote:
| Congratulations! The Webflow co-founders personify the perfect
| combination of persistence, grit, and a bit of luck. I know nay-
| sayers will start parroting "survivorship bias," but these kinds
| of stories motivate me :)
|
| Cheers, and thanks for the inspiring words!
| vladmk wrote:
| You mean survivorship bias? Interesting to think how many web
| flows does that were so close. The difference was 1 mere hacker
| news post. Crazy to think how big of a factor luck plays
| dvt wrote:
| > You mean survivorship bias
|
| Yep, fixed :)
|
| > Crazy to think how big of a factor luck plays
|
| Indeed! Although I think it's best to focus on the things we
| _can_ affect: persistence, hard work, grit.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Survivorship bias isn't a negative, it's just a fact.
|
| People bringing it up aren't naysayers, they're just being
| realistic.
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Just for the record this is the first I'm hearing about it so I
| had nothing to do with this.
|
| Congrats though!
| ilovefood wrote:
| What a wonderful story and I'm very happy for you!
| Congratulations! I am a happy customer and love the product you
| all built and are still improving. Keep it up!! :)
| yayr wrote:
| Great tool. You do have your happy user group now,
| congratulations and cudos for persevering!
|
| For a 202* stack that I would want to use however, I'd like to
| see more flexible integration with other tech stacks. It would be
| THE perfect frontend for e.g. NextJS, if it would support React
| exports and an integration to other state management mechanisms
| like MOBX to drive dynamic sites.
| jacquesm wrote:
| How is your daughter?
| type0 wrote:
| Thank you for the heart wrecking description of hardship in a
| startup life. I actually learned about Webflow in a workplace
| through the word of mouth. I'm probably not your target audience
| but what intrigued me was that I recently learned that it was
| possible to integrate it with Git, what would such a workflow be
| like? Do you plan to implement a visual diffing screenshots or is
| it already present?
| callmevlad wrote:
| (continued from OP)
|
| Now came the time to get users. We were targeting mostly
| designers and non-technical folks - so we posted it on Digg (heh,
| remember those days?), Reddit, and several designer-centric
| forums. But none of those posts got any meaningful traction. We
| were at a loss.
|
| Then, with tempered expectations about how a visual development
| tool for designers would be received in the hacker community, we
| posted here to HN. The title was "Show HN: Webflow - design
| responsive websites visually" [1] and we crossed our fingers
| really hard at this last-ditch effort.
|
| What happened next was nothing short of life-changing. The post
| took off like wildfire, staying at #1 for the entire day.
| Incredible words of encouragement were all over the comments.
| Over 25,000 people signed up for our beta list. VentureBeat wrote
| a story about us that same day. Tons of people started talking
| about Webflow on Twitter, Reddit, etc as a result. This led to a
| ton of word of mouth and even more signups.
|
| This amazing traction helped us get into YC several months later,
| gave us momentum to raise some funding from some angel investors,
| and most importantly gave us the confidence that we were truly on
| to something that can be really valuable for the world.
|
| Since then, Webflow has grown to millions of users, over a
| hundred thousand customers, and over 200 team members. I still
| have to pinch myself when I see that Webflow has somehow become
| one of the top YC companies of all time. Out of our customers,
| tens of thousands use Webflow exclusively to make a living - to
| run an agency, build websites and light applications, create
| websites for clients, or for their own startups. Tons of YC
| startups (e.g. lattice.com, hellosign.com, many many more) now
| use Webflow to run their marketing.
|
| I'm 1000% convinced that if that HN post did not take off, we
| would have gone back to our jobs and that early Webflow demo
| would have been a mere mention on our resumes somewhere.
| Thousands of people wouldn't be empowered to build for the web
| the way they can now. I can't imagine what that alternate future
| would be like, and it hinged seemingly on just one submission to
| this community.
|
| So this is a very belated, but very huge THANK YOU to HN for
| being kind to a trio of co-founders who wanted to make something
| valuable for the world, and were at the end of their rope in many
| ways. You gave us confidence, hope, encouragement, and a lifeline
| that got us through the lows of building a startup.
|
| Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5407499
| dang wrote:
| I've copied this into the post above.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| It's nice to get a little insider scoop on how things happen. If
| you are reading this looking for inspiration, keep in mind that
| no single post contains all the details of several years of
| experience. Several of the points made above in a line or two
| could be expanded into an entire book, like the story behind
| this: _my oldest daughter (3yo then) was diagnosed with a life-
| threatening condition, requiring expensive surgery_.
|
| I'm glad to see the news that this is providing employment
| opportunities for a lot of people. That's very much something we
| need to hear more of in a world that has long harped on how
| automation is taking away jobs and high unemployment is the wave
| of the future.
|
| This was a good read. Thanks for posting it.
| rsp1984 wrote:
| This is so well deserved and I feel sincerely happy for you.
| Webflow is an amazing tool. Keep the good stuff coming!
| lbj wrote:
| Having just killed SabreCMS (something in the same vein as
| Webflow) before reaching the break-through point you guys did I
| can fully understand how it must have felt when you broke the ice
| and saw your baby turn into a success story. Wishing you guys all
| the best and lots of future success!
| breck wrote:
| Aloha Vlad!
|
| Thank you for sharing that story! I think the first word I would
| use to describe, before inspiring, is "terrifying" :), but happy
| to hear it all worked out.
|
| I was a little surprised to read this because I worked in the low
| code Web IDE space in 2013 as well, and don't remember webflow
| back then, but then when I go back through my old emails I see we
| exchanged ideas and motivation! Very cool. So so happy you all
| ended up making this a reality. We ended up taking an early exit,
| which was great too, but I felt guilty we didn't solve the
| problem we set out to solve. Thank you for doing that!
| nathanyz wrote:
| Congrats, this story is a good reminder to founders that it's not
| just having the right idea, and execution. It's about the
| persistence and willpower to get to that right idea & execution.
| akotlar wrote:
| That's amazing, congratulations on all of your success.
| pembrook wrote:
| After spending 7+ years in the static site generator world, I
| recently started using Webflow exclusively for all marketing
| sites and landing pages and have been blown away with how much
| better it is than dealing with the complexities of the Static
| site + Headless CMS ecosystem. It seems you've actually delivered
| on the vision that dreamweaver was originally trying to create
| all those years ago.
|
| I wouldn't be surprised if one day Webflow's market share on the
| Web gets to be Wordpress-sized.
|
| With the recent funding raised, I'd love to hear what your vision
| is for the next 5 years of Webflow as a product?
| ivve wrote:
| Why is webflow better for that use case? Genuinely interested,
| have avoided using it until now.
| pembrook wrote:
| I, like most developers, got swept up in the
| gatsby/Netlify/contentful hype and have been building
| marketing sites that way for a few years now (mostly for Saas
| and startups).
|
| The problems with this approach are many. First, getting set
| up is a giant pain in the ass. And not just the fact that you
| have to code everything from scratch, it's the build process
| headaches, fixing the shitty SEO defaults of the static site
| generator, fighting over whatever hot CSS framework to
| use(its 2021 so tailwind now!!), etc. Then hooking the site
| up to a headless CMS is another big nightmare---and then
| training your team how to use it is another.
|
| And that's just the beginning. Guess what happens when your
| team(or you) wants to update the marketing site (happens all
| the time)? You have to go through the nightmare all over
| again, fix some inevitable build process errors, re-learn how
| everything works, re-hook up contentful to the new content
| models, retrain the team again, etc.
|
| Contrast this to the Webflow approach. I built the entire
| site in a day and haven't had to touch the marketing site
| since. Our designer owns it completely now and has already
| done 2 complete redesigns in the time it would take me to do
| a small update the old way.
|
| Our copywriter logs directly into Webflow when he wants to
| change the copy, the designer builds new landing pages for
| marketing initiatives in a day, and I never get bugged by the
| marketing team to "update this small thing" since they own it
| now.
|
| Honestly, I now think the entire static site ecosystem is
| designed for developers to set up a personal blog using
| whatever front-end framework they think is "cool" at the time
| and never add content to it.
|
| I would guess 98% of gatsby/Hugo/etc sites have less than 10
| posts on them. And of those sites, there's a 78% chance the
| only post is "how I rebuilt this site in Gatsby"
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I'm not in the target market (as I find coding easier than
| learning a new UI) but it's something like this:
|
| - Select a starter template (free or paid)
|
| - Customize text and css, add any elements, the UI is what
| you would expect from Photoshop or Unity
|
| - Add forms / payment forms
|
| - Publish on a xxxx.webflow.com domain or on a custom domain
| (for money) - pay extra if you are using e-commerce features
|
| I guess the goal is to shift the market from developers who
| know how to code to developers who know how to use a UI
| (similar to what Unity did for game developers).
| Papirola wrote:
| sounds similar to Wix
| pembrook wrote:
| I'd put Wix, squarespace, etc. in a different category.
| They are classic sandboxed site builders, you can only do
| as much as they allow you to.
|
| Webflow is like a modern version of Frontpage/Dreamweaver
| that actually spits out modern, semantic HTML and sane
| CSS. You start from scratch and can build anything with
| it. It's actually hard to use if you don't understand how
| HTML/CSS works, because the UI is basically just a faster
| way to do front-end code.
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