[HN Gopher] About that time I had an outburst during the YCombin...
___________________________________________________________________
About that time I had an outburst during the YCombinator Interview
Author : curiousowl
Score : 433 points
Date : 2021-10-20 12:03 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (owlpal.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (owlpal.substack.com)
| vhiremath4 wrote:
| I love this. The more raw and honest we are with our narratives.
| The less polished we try to be. The more intimately
| understandable things are on a primal level. The much higher our
| likelihood of connecting a real life opportunity to economic
| outcome.
|
| I've been a part of so many investor pitches and presentations
| (both receiving and pitching), and one major trend I constantly
| see is entrepreneurs who have the right itch or instinct into a
| problem space but they haven't fully thought through why people
| should care. When they give reasons for why people should care,
| it's often removed from reality and overly idealistic. A lot of
| people get bitter for getting turned down on this "last mile" of
| reasoning that investors demand, but _everything_ is in this last
| mile. This is how you orient your team to think about problems.
| This is how you become customer obsessed. This is how you market
| why you exist.
| L_226 wrote:
| OT but I made an a webapp for myself to do exactly this -
| Mirrorspace [0] shows me nearby interesting things that are
| usually not searchable on google maps or similar.
|
| You can even place media posts at your current location that
| others can see on the map, but the content is only visible when
| you are within 50m.
|
| I use it when I travel (more frequently these days!), but I have
| not updated it in a looong time. Might open source it one day
|
| [0] - https://app.mirrorspace.net
| saeranv wrote:
| Whats your strategy for finding interesting things not on
| google maps?
| L_226 wrote:
| currently it is basically a UI map wrapper for
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Nearby, with the
| additional functionality for users to post text and images to
| their specific location. I was going to monetise it by
| allowing people to pay to increase the viewable radius of a
| post, and/or having people pay a small amount to the uploader
| to view a post from outside the default radius.
| blueyes wrote:
| "Michael Seibel is a professional hater. I've never been denied
| so consistently by such a charming, kind, and basically snuggly
| person."
|
| Investors are both skeptics and speculators. And they can't be a
| good speculator without being deeply skeptical.
|
| That's very different from hating and haters, though.
|
| Haters hate irrationally, often driven by malicious envy.
|
| Skeptics rightly ask people to give evidence for their claims,
| especially if those people are asking for funding. Why should
| they believe you?
|
| Don Valentine, the founder of Sequoia, was famous for asking:
| "Why the f*ck should I give you my money?"
|
| He was right to ask that, and that was a tone that worked at the
| time, when capital was scarcer.
|
| For the record, Michael Seibel is not a hater. He is a skeptic
| when he has to be. And he is right to be skeptical. The burden of
| proof, when you have neither product nor traction, must be on the
| founder to prove to an investor that they should give them money.
| elicash wrote:
| The term is entertainingly used here to contrast it with the
| positive traits listed immediately after it. The sentence loses
| most of its humor if you change "hater" to "skeptic."
|
| Everybody understands what the author is saying and that it
| isn't an insult.
| blueyes wrote:
| I don't believe every one understands that, and while I
| recognize the attempt at humor, it was not effective for me.
| It would have been better if the author had chosen the mot
| juste.
| Marlondu28100 wrote:
| Tg
| dumbfoundded wrote:
| I got interviewed by Michael Seibel and didn't get into YC. The
| difference is my startup was doing 6-figures a month & growing
| 20% monthly but Michael just hated the idea. It was in cannabis
| and YC publicly stated they were interested in cannabis
| companies but apparently not cool with the whole smoking weed
| part.
|
| It honestly felt like a big waste of time. The critiques
| weren't helpful, mostly just along the lines of "Why should I
| like your idea?". I thought we did well in the interview and
| kept our cool the whole time. We weren't in it for the money as
| we were profitable and wanted to expand our professional
| network and talent pool. It felt like we were just there to
| teach them about the cannabis market. We were acquired a couple
| years later with a nice outcome and I hold nothing against
| Seibel but I wish it hadn't felt like he was so antagonistic
| from the start.
| killion wrote:
| I liken Michael in question-mode to being on train tracks with
| an engine bearing down on you. He will follow a line of
| reasoning with deep questions rapid fire. This puts you off
| guard and makes you lower your defenses - that way he gets to
| the shared understanding faster.
|
| The important thing for the entrepreneur to do afterwards is to
| remember your responses and try to understand what he was
| driving at. There is a lot of emotion in the moment, but when
| you look back you find the wisdom.
|
| For reference we were lucky enough to get him and Dalton as our
| YC advisors.
| mwseibel wrote:
| I learned this technique from one of the best YC interviewers
| of all time - Paul Buchheit.
| v1l wrote:
| What if it's a problem where you feel the pain so acutely that
| you want to rip your hair out but then you observe others and
| they seem to make peace with the pain of the problem? Case in
| point: dev project management tools (jira, monday, asana..).
| Nobody complains but it's like a nagging pain that pokes at you
| all day long (and I suspect affects your true productivity, at
| least mine).
| rexreed wrote:
| I find it really curious that all these stories about "how I
| screwed up" are all of a sudden popping up all over the place. Is
| there some sort of meme or zeitgeist going around where it's now
| in vogue to post about how you messed up some big deal or lost
| some big thing?
| vnchr wrote:
| Opposite of survivor bias? There are going to be many more
| stories of missteps, and the misstep stories most worth telling
| are those where someone learned a valuable lesson.
| rexreed wrote:
| But I'm finding these stories to instead show how naive,
| childish, or outlandish the founder is. These stories might
| have lessons learned for others, but it sure doesn't paint
| the founder in a good light. Are we in anti-truth world now
| where talking about how bad you are / were is a good thing?
| cam0 wrote:
| Listening to privileged successful and wealthy people has
| gotten boring. Everyone feels like they're a "creator"
| these days, and there are far more non-sophisticated and
| average people out there than the typical successful
| Silicon Valley characters.
| rexreed wrote:
| You're definitely right in that the universe of
| unsuccessful people far outnumbers those who are
| successful. I guess we'll be seeing a stream about lost
| opportunities and lost deals for some time. It's like
| those Country music ballads where the singer loses it
| all, but they still have their faith. Sing on.
| collegeburner wrote:
| Lmao no there arent. There are going to be many more missteps
| made but its much easier to publish a success than a failure.
| thanhhaimai wrote:
| I think it could be just Frequency Illusion for your case. I
| think stories about "how I screwed up" has been always popular
| on the internet.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Is there a website that shows only technical or scientific
| content from HN? Seems weird how often HN likes to promote its
| own content. I couldn't imagine the BBC having several articles a
| week on itself.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| I can't name one, but if you find it, please let me know!
| madars wrote:
| A HN-like site you might like is https://lobste.rs/ . It only
| has technical content.
| registeredcorn wrote:
| Thanks! :)
| vmception wrote:
| The incentive to stand out in a VC meeting is too high.
| [deleted]
| pmarreck wrote:
| I liked his outburst. I subscribed to Giya. Let's see what they
| got.
| cyberlurker wrote:
| Michael Seibel is a better person than me. I wouldn't have
| handled it that gracefully.
| cryptica wrote:
| Yeah of course, these people treat you better after you snap.
| Investors don't respect nice people. You need to create fear. As
| my friend once told me, "you need to be a killer."
|
| They can't have killers on the loose hating their guts, they need
| to bribe them into compliance. That's what funding is really
| about. Unfortunately, it's a bad idea because it puts killers
| into positions of authority. Maybe that's why society is so
| messed up now.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Does VC (read: capitalism in general) encourage sociopathy?
| Yes. But what you wrote reads a little
| intentional/conspiratorial. It's not a case of "VCs want to
| control the monsters", it's "if the cold rational decision is
| to fire 10 people who won't be able to afford rent, you'll be
| more successful as a businessperson if you do that rather than
| being an empathic human being and refusing to fire them".
| mwseibel wrote:
| I didn't perceive this as him snapping or being impolite or
| being a "killer". He was just being real with us.
| hikerclimber1 wrote:
| Everything is subjective. Especially laws.
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| Is there a website that shows only technical or scientific
| content from HN? Seems weird how often HN likes to promote itself
| and go on about funding. I couldn't imagine the BBC having
| several articles a week on itself.
| hans1729 wrote:
| Given that HN is a forum and not a news publisher, I find this
| comparison lacking at best
| lloydatkinson wrote:
| OK then
| Arubis wrote:
| HN is pretty explicitly business/startup-friendly, and has been
| since its inception. "Just the tech from HN" maps pretty
| closely to https://lobste.rs/.
| [deleted]
| PaybackTony wrote:
| Perhaps buried in these comments is this but after reading a lot
| of the "takeaways" many people had from this I have to say the
| reality is much simpler.
|
| People (Customers, VCs, Entrepreneurs) can empathize or
| sympathize with stories. They can't with ideas. It's really that
| simple. It wasn't the outburst or the emotion. It's the story.
|
| If your idea doesn't have a genuine story, it's not likely to end
| up a genuine business.
| [deleted]
| drclau wrote:
| I find it odd how much people tend to move the responsibility
| for obtaining funding on the founders. No doubt the quality
| (for lack of a better word) of the founders is important. But
| what about VCs that are actually capable of seeing beyond a
| mere elevator pitch? Are there such VCs anymore? Or did it all
| end up as a game of selling your project/product/idea to some
| clueless person or fund that has the money?
| xyzelement wrote:
| >> But what about VCs that are actually capable of seeing
| beyond a mere elevator pitch?
|
| I think in any communication, the "burden" of clarity is on
| the person with more information.
|
| _You_ think you see a real problem. _You_ think you have an
| idea for how to solve it. _You_ think you are the right
| person to execute on it. All of that _state_ exists in your
| mind as a founder, and it 's the reason you're standing
| before the VC.
|
| The VC is experienced in getting these answers out of people
| because that's what they do all day. As a founder, on the
| "best" case scenario, you make it easy for the VC to see it.
| At worst case, you make it so hard that they can't "pull" it
| out of you despite their best effort.
|
| If they can't get this answer out of you, why would they
| invest? Why would they think you "have it" when you are not
| showing it?
| drclau wrote:
| I don't disagree on the importance of communication.
|
| But I have to say, your message seems quite biased towards
| the VC. Surely not all VCs are created equal. Just as not
| all founders are equally capable in communicating ideas,
| I'm sure not all VCs are equally capable in understanding
| ideas.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Sure, VCs should look for good ideas that are poorly
| communicated. But it's no surprise that VCs would prioritize
| funding a good idea that is well-communicated. A founder
| needs to be able to communicate the value prop to other
| funders, customers, journalists, awards committees, etc.
| Being able to communicate via an elevator pitch or
| conversation is critically important to the success of a
| startup.
| tyre wrote:
| There absolutely are good VCs. It's probably about a bell
| curve, like anything else.
|
| Most VCs you'll meet are nice people and mediocre at what
| they do. They have money, which for many startups is enough
| of a reason to work with them.
|
| There is a remarkable difference between partners at Sequoia,
| Greylock, Benchmark vs. a random fund.
| garrickvanburen wrote:
| I'll add, a genuine story that the Founder is apart of.
| irateswami wrote:
| Is this linkedin? Agree?
| [deleted]
| fijiaarone wrote:
| You could go back to customer development and figure out a way to
| connect with your niece.
|
| And then try to scale it. And then try to monetize it. That
| sounds even harder getting the VC pump and dump lottery ticket,
| though.
|
| But I think step 1 is doable.
| bcopa wrote:
| "...Michael Seibel is a professional hater. I've never been
| denied so consistently by such a charming, kind, and basically
| snuggly person."
|
| Haha, chuckled at this. YC was perhaps the only interview in
| which my co-founder and I felt like the interviewers were
| incredible kind - but also some of the most challenging ones. We
| loved it!
| m_ke wrote:
| We had two rounds of interviews and I'm pretty confident that
| Michael was the reason why we ended up getting rejected but
| I'll always love him for how blunt he was with us about not
| launching sooner (it's a mobile app that uses computer vision,
| he claimed we should have launched before the ML models were
| ready and was completely right)
|
| Our interview was on election day in 2016, they called us in
| for a second interview, we then went out for drinks with a
| bunch of other founders and watched all of them get email
| responses that day. We didn't hear back all day and stayed up
| all night watching the election results come in, then woke up,
| drove to the airport, took the plane back to NYC and finally
| got the rejection when we landed.
| no_butterscotch wrote:
| > but I'll always love him for how blunt he was with us about
| not launching sooner (it's a mobile app that uses computer
| vision, he claimed we should have launched before the ML
| models were ready and was completely right)
|
| Is this advice to always launch sooner still applicable?
|
| I've heard it regurgitated a few times over the past decade
| or so, especially here and from the YC/VC crowd, and I feel
| like it made sense at some point.
|
| But nowadays do people not expect a little bit more? The
| field is more crowded and the bar to entry is much lower for
| competitors/cloners/etc and your first impression can only be
| made once.
| personjerry wrote:
| > The next time you've got a big pain, joy, laugh try following
| your emotional feet and sharing it before it makes sense. You may
| surprise yourself.
|
| Or you might deceive yourself in a really insidious way.
|
| Talk to customers.
| richardzhang wrote:
| VCs are still rational beings. They don't fund something just
| because someone is emotionally attached to the idea. If you get a
| huge number of people emotionally attached... then that's a
| different story.
| Imnimo wrote:
| The lesson here is that you should make screaming at the top of
| your lungs about your god damn niece your opening line. Also good
| for an impromptu elevator pitch.
| arduinomancer wrote:
| So the guy wants a better relationship with his niece and he
| thinks it would be better if only he had a glorified TripAdvisor
| clone?
|
| This feels like peak Silicon Valley cluelessness
|
| Thinking every problem has a tech/app solution.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of
| what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| " _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be
| shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3._"
|
| " _Don 't be snarky._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| meesles wrote:
| Nice little article, but more surprising to me was that I worked
| with Jabari at PaperlessPost for a short time! Cool dude :)
| TomSwirly wrote:
| It shows that empty anecdotes and emotionality are much more
| important to entrepreneurs than analysis, facts, logic and
| reasoning.
|
| It reinforces my worst suspicions, to be frank.
| xwdv wrote:
| It will be cringey if many pitches suddenly incorporated some
| kind of emotional outburst to get attention. One investor
| confided to me that watching some of these pitches is like
| "passing a kidney stone".
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| I have to admit that their project does not seem like something
| that can generate much revenue. The website is a SPA just asking
| for an email address. I would like to think the best curation
| comes from the community, and in order to get community
| involvement you'd need a platform that is open and free anyhow,
| like Yelp or Google Reviews.
| toyg wrote:
| I was similarly disappointed, because this is a nice blogspam
| about a solution I might be interested in, but is clearly not
| available yet (and a .US domain makes me think it won't ever be
| available around my neck of the woods anyway).
| sgarman wrote:
| Ah yes, because when facebook, netflix, amazon, google, airbnb
| started we all sat around with our perfect insight and said
| "These will generate a lot of revenue!"
| Loughla wrote:
| Wanna bet there is now a rash of interviewers who have
| 'breakdowns' about a problem in their lives?
| zarmin wrote:
| "My {extended family member} has been {mildly imposing verb}
| for {duration} and {frustrated expression}!"
|
| Sign up now for early access to my Udemy course, _Scream Your
| Way To Funding_
| Loughla wrote:
| Or sign up for mine, _How to appear authentic and sincere in
| your interview._
|
| Because it's easier to learn sincerity and fake it than it is
| to have an idea that you actually believe in and can support.
|
| Does that sound bitter? It's not meant to.
| vmception wrote:
| You can do a lot better with more professional VCs by not
| having ideas you believe in and can just articulate the gap
| in the market and how you'll extract value from it and
| exit. Not gatekeeping VC types here, just saying there are
| some that are swayed by emotional stories and nobody needs
| to be.
|
| The analogy I use is an expedition to the new world. Get
| funding from the Queen, get the ships and crew, sail to the
| new world, get the gold, come back, distribute profits and
| disband.
|
| Really there is no need to pretend to get married, or
| actually get married, to a business line.
|
| I would be immediately suspect of all the founders that
| cannot compartmentalize the idea. Save the "passion" for
| all the employees you need to gaslight into accepting lower
| compensation.
| [deleted]
| vincentmarle wrote:
| Well, it didn't got him funded so not sure what the lesson is
| here.
| prawn wrote:
| And the Giya site is still email-for-launch-notice mode two
| years later. So maybe it wasn't an itch that got scratched.
|
| If the niece was an instigator for the idea, I assumed the
| author would have created the product and tested it with the
| niece? If they've shown no interest and stayed in their room,
| maybe it's not a great idea?
| Loughla wrote:
| The problem with your statement is that it doesn't account
| for magical thinking.
|
| Rational thinking: my pitch wasn't great, but I at least
| connected with the personal problem side of my message. My
| idea needs work, or my use-case needs attention.
|
| Magical thinking: If I had made that outburst early enough to
| change the tone, I could have made a better impact with my
| message. If my pitch starts to go south, just have a
| breakdown to shift the focus from that to my personal story.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I doubt enough people will read this for that to happen.
|
| I think what's important is not the breakdown, but the
| demonstration of pain. You can probably recreate this genuinely
| by focusing on the specific who and what around your customer.
| Who are they (in his case himself/his sister), why are they in
| pain (reconnecting with his sister/her brother), and I guess
| you probably need _a_ way to turn that pain into a gain, but it
| sounds like that last part is something you iterate on, so it
| 's not as big of a deal.
|
| You don't have to shout at VCs to be interesting to them, but
| shouting at VCs is a way to show VCs both the who and the what
| of pain, which they find interesting.
| Douger wrote:
| I think what I find amusing is the author essentially outlined an
| argument for Sinek's Start with Why premise.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA
|
| Albeit it sounds like you don't get to shape the questions you're
| asked. But I'm willing to bet you can bend your answers towards
| the specific pain point that prompted them to start this project
| (their niece). Then go on to what you're app does, then the TAM.
|
| And this is coming from someone who isn't a huge fan of Sinek
| either..
|
| *Edit - I'm curious from those who've been through YC if my idea
| about bending your answers actually has any merit in your
| experience?
| nootropicat wrote:
| What I get from this is that the idea was shit and after he
| snapped he was comforted like a baby, which made him feel better
| about being rejected.
| avmich wrote:
| PG is so right. We're drowning in problems; just take something
| around, see how bad it is, and make it better.
|
| Maybe you'll get all the problems those before you had. Maybe.
| But at least the high pain is here, and attempting to deal with
| it will get you started.
| leesec wrote:
| No idea why you would write this up or share it honestly. Call me
| old fashion but I wouldn't want to do business with someone who
| scream irrationally as loud as they can in response to simple
| questions or during business meetings. Especially since the
| outcome didn't lead to anything, just was 'something different'.
| Truly what is the message here?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mwseibel wrote:
| Honestly being in the room I didn't feel screamed at. I felt
| like we finally got to the real reason why he was passionate
| about this problem/company. We just had a wade through all the
| "pitch stuff". I still think he ID'd a huge widespread problem
| that we still need a solution for.
| leesec wrote:
| That's fair, thanks for your clarification then.
| cole-k wrote:
| The message is written at the end of the post:
|
| > The lesson that I walked away with was to listen to that
| pain, no matter how irrational it may seem in the moment...
| I've been learning to listen and to trust my emotions in less
| desperate situations in the years since the YC interview.
|
| I do not think the author is claiming you should shout about
| your niece in a YC interview. They told a pretty interesting
| anecdote and gave the insight they gained from it.
|
| Not to be rude but your comment seems kind of like it should
| just be a downvote (or I suppose a withheld upvote).
| cheschire wrote:
| I tend to find when someone starts a sentence with "not to be
| rude" or "with all due respect" or "I don't disagree", this
| person's subconscious is telling them "hey don't say this
| thing you're about to say because..."
|
| And then the person just tells their subconscious to take a
| back seat and prefaces their statement with a dismissive
| phrase.
| ssivark wrote:
| My takeaway, more than anything else -- as someone who has
| never interacted with Michael Seibel -- is immense
| respect/admiration for how well he handled it -- staying
| focused on the true goal (understanding the pitch) and in the
| process coaxing out something even the entrepreneur couldn't
| easily vocalize, and along the way gracefully de-escalating the
| situation.
|
| There are a lot of ways the situation could have ended up with
| negative value for everyone involved, and it took a bit of
| skillful steering to turn it into something valuable. That
| level of emotional composure seems worth developing.
| exolymph wrote:
| If you don't want to do business with people who are weird and
| erratic, you're probably not going to be great at seed
| investing.
| whiddershins wrote:
| The outburst wasn't the good part.
|
| The clarification of pain point was the good part.
| rdmt wrote:
| Agreed.
|
| Getting the interviewer to be _attentive_ is already a given
| since you've earned the timeslot. Getting them _alarmed_ is
| what happened here. Showcasing a fighting spirit to stir up
| some emotional investment.
|
| Though I doubt airing out even the perfect greivance there
| would've been enough to flip the decision. The growth story
| just doesn't seem to track.
|
| Also helps that the frustration was aimed at a personal matter
| instead of directly at someone in the room.
| tmilard wrote:
| Yeap. Deep burst of personal explanation is rare, and we hide it.
| -How can my untested thought can be better than the leadings
| explanations on the subject?
|
| In our work, when we explains things, even When my brother does
| his YouTube family video... we always follow "today's" way of
| doing things. It does feel ok, but it taste like deja-vue.
|
| I find it so more captivating when suddenly a unik-and-personal
| approach steals the show.
|
| Even if the personal approach can be wrong or ridiculous, it
| feels always very fresh, compare to the me-too explanation.
|
| It's sharp, it's bare bone, it's naked, it's trurth.
|
| It's worth
| paxys wrote:
| Nice story, but I think people here have the wrong takeaways from
| it. Having an outburst or sharing personal anecdotes isn't going
| to help you in an investor pitch. Had it happened earlier in
| their YC interview things wouldn't have gone any different, as
| they make it seem. The fundamental questions and doubts would
| have all been the same.
|
| If you don't have solid differentiators, growth charts, revenue
| models a touching story will not help your startup.
| dustingetz wrote:
| au contraire, storytelling (and an easy to understand story) is
| all that matters in 2021 seed climate. "vibe is the new
| diligence"
| tibbar wrote:
| Yes, the author is basically saying that they felt unnoticed
| and were not receiving enough attention from the VC. Becoming
| very emotional did capture their raw attention, but in a way
| that was probably irrelevant to their goals.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| This is a clear misreading of what is written in TFA.
|
| They had lots of attention from the VC, but all the VC did
| was shoot down their idea(s). The emotional outburst changed
| the mood in the room, and they got a different kind of
| response from the VC.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I read it as, at first, they had a mundane take on a
| problem and a mundane solution. Millennials want
| experiences so we can <do whatever>. Then, the outburst
| revealed they actually had a more insightful take on the
| problem, the specific example of difficulty relating to the
| author's niece. However, they still didn't have insight
| into the solution.
|
| My takeaway is something like it's better to drive from the
| clearest articulation of the problem to the solution,
| rather than divert into business-speak and make yourself
| sound cookie cutter. e.g. "I couldn't connect with my
| niece. It was isolating. Many millenials feel isolated this
| way. We solved the problem with my niece by doing X. X can
| scale to other millienials" is a better type of pitch.
| tibbar wrote:
| Hmm, I think the article shows - to say it another way - a
| desire for validation from the VC, to be taken seriously.
| Which is of course a natural thing to want. Instead the VC
| was casually shooting down their idea. So they wanted a
| different kind of attention, and acknowledgement that they
| were different and remarkable (the article is actually
| pretty clear on this point). They wanted to be remembered,
| and, well, perhaps they were.
| mdorazio wrote:
| I don't think yours is a good reading, either. They had
| already gotten all the negative feedback so there wasn't
| much of that left to get. The outburst also didn't change
| the primary outcome (no funding). All it did was open the
| door to a different set of questions and a potential
| advisor (in my opinion not very helpful in this case).
| We're also relying on the OP to tell us the mood was better
| when in fact it could have easily been a pity party to the
| other people there.
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| That's a pretty fair reading. I missed out the "wasn't
| much left to get" part, although mostly because they
| didn't actually get much more even with the outburst.
| indigochill wrote:
| The key point is had the outburst not happened, the
| author would not have received the insight that "the best
| ideas address problems with high pain thresholds."
|
| By revealing his pain, he learned the lesson which has
| apparently since served him well. The rest, including the
| mood, is just background.
|
| In other words, if you're weighing two opportunities, one
| which addresses a minor annoyance or vague concern ("oh
| no, millenials are withdrawn") and another which fills an
| agonizing void ("why can't I connect with my niece?"), go
| with the second one.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Correct. And after getting that attention they didn't get
| funded. Because Michael was likely right and the world
| doesn't need yet another urban exploration app. It seems to
| me that this creates a fun blog post and some long term
| personal growth but shouting about your niece doesn't seem
| like the winning strategy when it comes to VC funding.
| phgn wrote:
| They should have understood their core ambition / pain point
| themselves earlier, and structured the product and strategy
| based on it. If many people clearly have this problem and it
| has not been addressed, that's their differentiator.
|
| Though I'm glad they did finally figure it out, I think the
| lesson is to really reflect on your goals before pitching
| anything.
| 71a54xd wrote:
| I had a previous co-founder have an outburst like this and I
| immediately cut all ties. It was one of the most astonishing
| un-professional things I'd ever experienced. It also hurt
| deeply because I'd largely considered this person to be my
| friend, until they started sending me threatening texts filled
| with vitriolic threats basically that things hadn't worked out.
| I believe mental health problems may have been the root of
| this, but it was a really bizarre experience.
|
| I took a break from doing startup anything for about a year
| after that happened - I still have trust issues as a result of
| this experience. For anyone who thinks "radical honesty" or BS
| like that is effective in life or business, you're just going
| to look like an immature asshole or someone with serious mental
| issues.
| oefrha wrote:
| Yeah, exactly ten years ago I heard a story from the founder of
| an urban exploration startup (yep) that was about a hundred
| times more touching and inspiring than this niece story. It was
| like best story of the year for me. The startup? Failed after
| two years.
| nusaru wrote:
| Is it just me or is monospace text unpleasant to read? Obviously
| that's not the case when I'm writing code, so maybe I'm not used
| to reading normal prose in mono typeface?
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| What is telling about this example is that what seemed to have
| made the biggest impression was the least rehearsed, thought out,
| planned answer he could give, but rather the one that was the
| most sincere and most "down to earth."
|
| I think there is so much about the YC format which really hints
| at that strategy likely being your best route of success -- the
| time constraint, the lack of pitch deck, etc. I mean, these are
| people who quite literally go through thousands of these. I can't
| really see any other way to possibly stand out than to try to be
| radically genuine and sincere, even when that seems (as the
| author seemed to have thought!) that it is the "less fancy" or
| "not the thing you are supposed to say." Quite literally anything
| else will be something they will have heard, at a minimum, dozens
| of other times.
| joeberon wrote:
| > I can't really see any other way to possibly stand out than
| to try to be radically genuine and sincere
|
| You could have a unique idea that isn't shit. If you can't have
| a unique idea that isn't shit, you shouldn't be a startup
| founder in the first place.
| RNCTX wrote:
| > If you can't have a unique idea that isn't shit, you
| shouldn't be a startup founder in the first place.
|
| A taxi service available via a phone is not a unique idea,
| and it loses millions every single day (Uber).
|
| A company that trades in government issued tax credits for
| not-pollution is not a unique idea, the Reagan administration
| invented it (Tesla)
|
| A database sold to end users is not a unique idea, IBM did it
| in the 1960s (Oracle)
|
| This list could go on ad-infinitum.
| mdorazio wrote:
| You've grossly mischaracterized every single one of these.
| phillc73 wrote:
| I don't think a unique idea is necessarily required for a
| startup. It could be instead that you've identified an under
| serviced market niche. This could still be a very good
| startup idea.
| joeberon wrote:
| True, but your idea has to at least be good or relevant,
| which OP's unfortunately wasn't. It doesn't take some weird
| emotional outburst to stand out, it takes having an
| actually good idea. Of course you need to convince them
| it's a good idea, but again you don't need an emotional
| outburst for that, if it's an actually good idea it should
| not be difficult.
| Nevermark wrote:
| In this case the emotional outburst suggested the founder
| might be in such close contact with the problem that he
| might find better solutions, and will likely recognize
| many non-solutions before wasting time on them.
|
| At least that is a takeaway I would have.
|
| It is not everything a VC might want to hear, but it is a
| positive.
| joeberon wrote:
| Why would the emotional outburst suggest that when he's
| already spent so much time on something the YC
| interviewer considered a non-solution?
| fakedang wrote:
| You can spend so much time on something, yet it wouldn't
| tell a YC interviewer that it's a problem you're intent
| to solve.
|
| Case in point, my YC idea. I spent loads of my free time
| on building a MVP, got praise for it, but I did not have
| a burning passion to solve that problem, or even any
| desire that I wanted to be in that space long term.
| paxys wrote:
| What startup has a truly unique idea? Doing the same thing a
| hundred other companies are doing and being slightly better
| and luckier is how most of them got successful.
| mwseibel wrote:
| You nailed it.
| ChicagoBoy11 wrote:
| Wait does this mean I get to interview for YC? /s
|
| Not a founder, but a fan of y'alls work :-)
| cardosof wrote:
| It seems to me they're not evaluating the pair {problem,
| solution}, they're evaluating the pair {problem, founder} - the
| solution may be changed and tweaked and not be special but the
| founder has to be special, and carefully designed charts with
| pretty numbers don't explain a founder, emotional speeches do.
| naasking wrote:
| > It seems to me they're not evaluating the pair {problem,
| solution}, they're evaluating the pair {problem, founder}
|
| I think that's a good insight. "Plans never survive contact
| with the enemy", and so solutions are constantly changing as
| a startup explores the problem space. Perhaps what VCs are
| actually looking for is:
|
| 1. The founder identified a problem that actually exists.
|
| 2. The problem actually has a solution that can be monetized,
| in theory.
|
| 3. They have confidence that the founder can hone in on a
| viable solution that can be monetized.
|
| The pitch doesn't have to be _the_ solution, it only has to
| show that a financially viable path to a solution plausibly
| exists, and that the founder seems competent enough to find
| the way towards a financially viable outcome. If even one of
| the above requirements isn 't satisfied, investing money
| doesn't seem sensible.
| dkarp wrote:
| Or as Mike Tyson put it: Everyone has a plan until they get
| punched in the mouth
| bobthechef wrote:
| Or: How do you make God laugh? Tell Him your plans.
| joeberon wrote:
| How are you inferring that from this blog post? Everything
| about it seems to be saying "I've heard this solution a
| million times, and seen a million failures, do you have
| anything new?"
|
| The answer is to have a solution that has not seen a million
| failures.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| pg has in the past been quite blunt that he sees the
| quality of the founders as the most important thing,
| regardless of the solution.
|
| As has repeated time and time again to the point of almost
| becoming mythology in my opinion, pg has posted about how
| he originally hated the AirBnB idea but loved the founders.
| joeberon wrote:
| pg is lying or a moron
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| No, the answer is not to _be_ one of the million failures.
|
| Which apparently means keeping your passion under pressure.
| gerbilly wrote:
| Because, just like the author of the blog, most of us have
| trained ourselves not to share these kinds of feelings.
|
| In his pitch the founder conceived/pitched the solution as
| a veiled way to talk about his real problem.
|
| I see it at my job all the time, we talk about technical
| problems and their solutions as a way of trying to share
| our fears, anxieties and feelings.
|
| All the heady technical talk is just a proxy for what we
| really wish we could say.
|
| I know this because I'm often the only one on the team
| brave enough to state the subtext openly, and have I often
| been thanked for that.
|
| Every team needs a therapist, it would seem.
| joeberon wrote:
| What the fuck are you on about?
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Please. That is quite unwarranted.
|
| I happen to agree with the GP sentiment - business is an
| _emotional_ endeavour, and treating it as such is a good
| idea.
| joeberon wrote:
| I've had enough of these GPT-3 generated spam-looking
| posts
| gerbilly wrote:
| Yes, sorry I replied to a different interpretation of
| your question I guess.
|
| I was trying to say that YC may be looking past the
| solution to the real underlying issue.
|
| To me this would make sense. We often start out with a
| problem that bugs us, and then come up with a half baked
| solution.
|
| Even if the proposed solution isn't valid the founder may
| have identified a valid problem. In our crowded
| marketplace, a unique and unmet need is much harder to
| find than a technical solution.
| Gravityloss wrote:
| Often, a cigar is not a cigar.
| Marlondu28100 wrote:
| Bhjjjj
| joeberon wrote:
| Even more inane and cryptic
| milesvp wrote:
| > Every team needs a therapist, it would seem.
|
| I have really come to appreciate the need for regular
| retros on a team. That a team needs a very safe space to
| explore failures and difficulties. It helps to have
| someone who can facilitate, but cam be successful
| without. It should be long enough to feel slighty
| awkward, so that people have time to articulate thoughts,
| and there should be no manager for at least half an hour,
| so that grievances about them can be aired.
|
| I've seen teams really come together and vastly improve
| with regular safe meetings. I've also seen teams start to
| fall apart when the retro format changed to make it
| harder to delve into some of the emotional parts.
| cardosof wrote:
| This comment is a refreshing take on what real work looks
| like - thanks for sharing.
| anamax wrote:
| The evaluation is {solution, founder}.
|
| Problem is, in some sense, irrelevant. You don't make money
| from the problem.
|
| A good founder makes money from a solution.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| This article got me wondering what it's like working for that
| guy. If you're in a meeting and you're telling him things he
| doesn't want to hear, is something going to set him off and get
| him screaming at you?
| thesis wrote:
| For me it was the "fists clenched, looking down, I let out a
| scream" -- super weird behavior if you ask me.
| rexreed wrote:
| It certainly seems like we're regressing as a society into
| increasingly more toddler-like behavior with ranting,
| infantilizing, treating normal adult behaviors as "adulting"
| and losing touch. If someone screamed like a toddler in a
| meeting I was at, I'd be like "ok, this meeting is over. Calm
| down and collect yourself if you can't communicate like an
| adult. Otherwise, time out for you."
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| he's not really screaming at them though, he's frustrated by
| his own circumstances... I think it would be different if he
| flew off the handle and told them to fuck off or whatever...
| emotions get out of hand in stressful situations, that's just
| part of being human
| Loughla wrote:
| And part of being a leader is learning to control and channel
| your emotions, especially during stressful situations. A
| failure to do that is a failure to lead.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| if that's true than most of the industry seems to be lead
| by failures... this seems like a "no true scotsman" thing
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Isnt the goal of a pitch meeting to stand out? He stated that
| they were not doing well and he knew time was running out. It's
| do something drastic or be passed on. This doesnt seem
| indicative of that guys everyday behavior. Plus I've worked for
| lots of people who do get angry and have outbursts every-time
| you say something they don't want to hear. It's more concerning
| if this guy didnt think it was odd for him to yell because it
| shows he doesnt do it often..
| twic wrote:
| > He stated that they were not doing well and he knew time
| was running out. It's do something drastic or be passed on.
|
| The Galileo Seven maneuver.
| rexreed wrote:
| Being unhinged isn't the best way to communicate a vision.
| But it sure does show how you can't handle rejection or
| frustration well.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| What you call unhinged another might call passion. Let's
| not pretend that all founders are perfectly hinged.
| rexreed wrote:
| No one is pretending anything. Quite a few founders are
| unhinged. Many are also passionate. The successful few
| know when to be appropriately passionate instead of
| irrationally unhinged. I think we're all smart enough to
| distinguish between the two. Temper tantrums are not
| exactly the same as passionate, well-reasoned pitches.
| joeberon wrote:
| The goal of a pitch meeting is to sell your non-shit idea. OP
| had a shit idea. That's what blocked him. Hence why "standing
| out" didn't actually get him funded.
| joeberon wrote:
| Even scarier, a lot of people in this thread seem to think it's
| a _good thing_.
| dymk wrote:
| Well, that's because it was the point at which the interview
| started going well
| noway421 wrote:
| I really fail to understand why Michael allowed this
| behaviour. If it got to a point where voice has been
| raised, there should have been a concern started and
| security called into place, promptly adjourning the
| meeting. Who knows where else this would have gone after
| that?
|
| I wouldn't want to know the fury of a disgruntled Founder
| looking to revenge for a failed YC interview.
|
| Sometimes it is about professionalism. Even though the
| founder is feeling passionate about their problem space,
| there are some boundaries you never cross.
| mehphp wrote:
| I've had bosses/managers that would lose their cool and yell,
| and they were by far the worst leaders I've ever worked for.
|
| When an adult can't keep their cool in a professional
| environment, it's very telling.
| mwseibel wrote:
| Thank you for posting this. I remember your interview like it was
| yesterday.
| realty_geek wrote:
| Wow, my estimation of you had cranked up a fair bit - very nice
| of you to chip in ;)
| tlb wrote:
| The outburst insight here seems promising. Gen-X people want
| real-world activities to do with their millennial relatives that
| are engaging to both. I'm in that situation myself. I struggle
| with arranging such activities, and I'd be happy to fork out real
| money for curated, guided shared experiences that connect with
| both generations.
|
| The next step would be for the founders to start personally
| arranging such activities and see what works and which parts are
| hard.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> curated, guided shared experiences that connect with both
| generations.
|
| I hate to say this, but just GTFO the house and go do
| something. Anything. Do something neither of you have before,
| explore the world together. Start by going for a walk
| someplace. If you don't even know what you like how is someone
| else going to know?
|
| Curated activities are for tourists on vacation.
| what_is_orcas wrote:
| When I lived in SF, sf.funcheap.com was my go-to for this
| kind of thing, especially random tinder dates.
|
| Everywhere I've lived since has lacked this sort of resource,
| and it's made meeting people & getting out and exploring much
| less newbie-friendly.
|
| Maybe I just need to build the change I want to see in the
| world...
| istorical wrote:
| discovering these event discovery websites themselves is
| one of the challenges.
|
| nyc has theskint, differnet neighborhood specific events
| listings (bushwickdaily, brokelyn come to mind for me),
| industry/event category specific listings (like different
| calendars for music / concerts, calendars for comedy, etc).
|
| one problem is that these event discovery streams are
| scattered across mediums. for example you might find some
| nyc events scattered across some promoter's IG account,
| some that are advertised on TikTok, some on some old
| fashioned blog style website like those I initially listed
| above.
|
| aggregators exist as well but they tend to be un-sexy and
| not likely to find long-tail / niche stuff / cooler more
| underground stuff.
|
| the solution is often to ask people around you or involved
| in the space you're interested in how they find out about
| events. they will then tell you about the mailing list, or
| the IG account, or the website, or whatever.
|
| of course, smaller cities and towns often don't have as
| large of 'scenes'. and anywhere you go, it's often more
| fruitful to just create the scene you want to be a part of.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Woah! Thank you so much for sharing that website
| dougmwne wrote:
| I think about how easy the substitutes for real human
| connection have become. Want a friend to make you laugh? Turn
| on Netflix. Want a quick hit of your favorite people? Pull up
| social media. Want intimacy? Fire up Tinder. This basic idea,
| that someone can deliver you a nice day around the city like
| ordering a pizza is maybe not so off base. It may seem like
| an incredible lack of imagination that people couldn't figure
| out what to do with a free day and a friend in NYC, but maybe
| imagination is in short supply these days.
| meigwilym wrote:
| Yes, I don't think that the answer to too much technology
| is more technology.
| vidarh wrote:
| "something" and "someplace" are the problems here.
|
| What will they like? Which places will be interesting?
|
| It's not at all a given that someone with data and
| information can't give a more informed opinion on what
| options are available that may be popular with a set of
| people than those people themselves.
|
| Why should curated activities only be for tourists on
| vacation?
|
| There are tons of activities people aren't aware are
| available, or are aware of but don't know whether would be
| suitable for them, and which they avoid because there's an
| opportunity cost to making the wrong choice. Exploring that
| yourself can be fun, but it's also hit and miss.
|
| The biggest problem to me with this idea isn't the idea that
| they can do _better_ , but that even the founder took an
| emotionally charged situation to get to the point of
| verbalising that this was what he wanted. Wanting to help
| people who aren't necessarily _aware_ that there 's an issue
| someone could solve for them is tricky.
|
| I live in London. There's stuff to do all over the place. If
| anything, the challenge is filtering and curating. I'd _love_
| a site that did it for me. Especially if it could also book
| things. Heck, I might even pay for personalised
| recommendations if it could cut the time I spend on choosing.
|
| But I don't think I'm typical.
|
| I suspect a lot of their potential userbase would be really
| hard to _reach_.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| I believe Google had a service like this for a bit but it
| got killed. Don't recall what it is called.
|
| You could book an activity on Airbnb, they offer that. You
| could go kayaking. You could go apple/pumpkin picking. etc.
| etc
|
| You just have to think of things.
| vidarh wrote:
| Yeah, but its thinking of things I'm likely to enjoy that
| I may not even be aware of are options and researching
| the options for that activity and which providers are
| worthwhile that makes it time consuming. Some people
| enjoy that aspect. I don't.
|
| EDIT: With respect to Airbnb, they're all group
| activities, which for the most part makes them less
| interesting to me. I'd like the idea, a map,
| tickets/bookings if necessary, but for the most part I'd
| have no interest in guided activities. I get that makes
| it harder to profit of because you're giving away half
| the work by telling users about the activity.
| OJFord wrote:
| A certain sort of tourist on a certain sort of holiday at
| that.
| saeranv wrote:
| But most people don't just go out and randomly walk around.
| And with the exception of high-density cosmopolitan cities,
| even if you did, you'd just end up in somewhere extremely
| boring.
|
| One of the more effective ways of knowing where to go, is by
| talking with friends and collecting, curating that
| information over time. I don't know if this start-up is
| capable of replicating that experience - there are tons of
| urban blogs and the like that claim to do the same that I
| rarely use - but the problem domain and general solution
| seems reasonable.
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Yeah this is kind of the issue. For some going for a walk and
| exploring IS the activity. For some, like op, that doesnt
| seem like its bonding or actually connecting.
|
| It's probably generational and based on how one interacts
| with others (are most of their friendships online or not).
| coffeepot0 wrote:
| "something. Anything". Optionality and lack of time to
| explore options is the issue. There is nothing wrong with
| taking a suggestion. It's obvious that this removes some
| possible serendipity but it also removes barriers to making
| something happen in the first place.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> The next step would be for the founders to start personally
| arranging such activities and see what works and which parts
| are hard._
|
| Yes! If you really believe you have a solution to a problem,
| then it makes sense to execute that solution in a way that
| doesn't scale, to verify that, with infinite resources, the
| solution works, and it feels good. This is a necessary, but not
| sufficient, condition for what comes next, which is (roughly)
| about making the production more efficient with technology. If
| you can maintain the utility of the solution and drive the cost
| down, there may be profit in those hills!
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > I struggle with arranging such activities, and I'd be happy
| to fork out real money for curated, guided shared experiences
| that connect with both generations.
|
| In the last few months this has actually become a relatively
| straightforward problem to solve thanks to now having 10x more
| data on various social activities due to the pandemic.
| devwastaken wrote:
| I want a gaming community wherein every month an old
| multiplayer server based game is revived and people compete for
| prizes. The problem with this is that it requires good
| connections to the corporate owners of those games, to get
| permission to ship the .exe with a simple hex edit changing the
| master server list host. Or even add game modes. The intent
| being donations for various charities too of course.
|
| There's still an existing community for games like the original
| PC Red Faction, as crazy as that is. Perfectly fun games, just
| needs players and some names in game streaming to pick it up.
| jkeuhlen wrote:
| I've thought about this problem a lot too. In my mind, there
| is no "Adult rec league for eSports" that exists right now. I
| can go to my local rec center and sign up for adult soccer,
| football, volleyball to meet people and play for fun in a
| lightly competitive environment, but no one has done that for
| eSports yet.
|
| I like the idea of booting up old games in that format as
| well.
|
| It's definitely a hard problem, but with the increase in
| recreation time, especially for creative workers, that we're
| continuing to see I think it could be a big company.
| coldpie wrote:
| > The problem with this is that it requires good connections
| to the corporate owners of those games, to get permission
|
| Does it? There might be some games to avoid from publishers
| that are still active, but I imagine there's a ton of
| effectively-abandonware games out there to build your idea
| upon.
| Loughla wrote:
| I think that's a chicken and egg problem. The community
| would exist around games that were/are popular (like Red
| Faction for example). You can't just shoehorn in any old
| abandonware game and call it a day for community building.
| coldpie wrote:
| To be blunt: my suggestion is to ask for forgiveness
| rather than permission. Most people who technically hold
| the rights to those older games won't care enough about
| them to enforce it. If they do, they'll almost certainly
| start with a C&D which is basically free to respond to.
| Very little risk. By the time you're large enough for
| them to care about, you've already succeeded and can ask
| for permissions properly.
| devwastaken wrote:
| Maybe, or maybe they particularly consider a hex edit to
| be an infringement on their image of the product and
| think it will harm their chances of selling the rights
| for a remake. Therefore they sue you because they can. If
| you can't ask for permission, you're not in a place to
| ask for forgiveness either.
| stopagephobia wrote:
| I think the bigger problem here is not just that people have
| trouble finding those experiences but that all the stuff is
| targeted at young people. We do some serious work on systemic
| agephobia and shift some of the cultural focus to People of Age
| if we want generations to connect.
| dymk wrote:
| "People of age"?
| RNCTX wrote:
| Yeah, which is itself a form of condescension, lol.
|
| Gonna start calling millennials "people not of value" and
| call it woke.
| agent008t wrote:
| Just go for a hike together?
|
| I thought the pandemic showed us all that we don't need to
| pay anyone money to connect. We could just go for a walk
| together and talk. If that unnecessary massive part of the
| economy was to disappear, we would have more free time to
| connect, too.
| pawelmurias wrote:
| Just taking a walk and talking with someone with no extra
| activity for me can be often tiring and not that fun if I
| don't know the person well. Especially for dates I would
| rather spend even a fair bit of money to do something super
| fun rather then hope the conversation goes well.
| mwseibel wrote:
| I totally agree!
| trhway wrote:
| >to listen to that pain
|
| With the business problem being at its core "Millenials have too
| much disposable money and time on their hands, much more than
| they know what to do with", one really has to put an effort to
| creatively search for and to listen very carefully to find any
| pain in that.
| GDC7 wrote:
| You gotta skate where the puck will be, not where it is or where
| it was.
|
| Problem is by doing so you may look like a fool if the puck is
| not there, but you only need this to work 1/10 times or even
| worse because when it works you basically are in front of the
| empty net without a goalkeeper and all you have to do is touch
| the puck to score a goal.
|
| I am deeply convinced that this is the way, people rebut that it
| leads to subpar outcomes, but they won't proceed to demonstrate
| why or how.
|
| Even if it leads to subpar outcomes, the outcome is only chased
| because of the brain juices released when we reach it.
|
| If you go through the world as it was your own creation you don't
| need positive outcomes at all, you are already in the zone.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| Years of experience make some things incredibly obvious where
| things are going.
|
| My failure to convince others makes it _appear_ like I am
| skating where the puck is going, when I was simply following it
| down an obvious path, and no one else was.
|
| But maybe this is common for tech focused people surrounded by
| non-techies?
| GDC7 wrote:
| > My failure to convince others makes it _appear_ like I am
| skating where the puck is going, when I was simply following
| it down an obvious path, and no one else was.
|
| It's not like there is a difference isn't it? Gretsky
| probably thought other players were stupid or were poisoned
| by lead or something.
|
| #1 is the lonliest number, you are at the local top, meaning
| the local #1
|
| What you are experiencing goes with the territory, you should
| focus your efforts on hyping yourself up as the individual
| sitting at the local top, instead of ruminating on the
| collective organizational goals which are not being reached
| in the most streamlined and effortless way because other
| people aren't at your level.
|
| But you can still try to stimulate them to improve like
| Gretsky himself and Jordan did in their own teams.
| RobertRoberts wrote:
| But I have been horribly wrong also, so I'm not so inclined
| to lead boldly. I think Jordan and Gresky had the benefit
| that their team also thought they knew what was best.
| GDC7 wrote:
| > But I have been horribly wrong also, so I'm not so
| inclined to lead boldly
|
| I think Musk spews a lot of BS, but one thing I agree
| with him is that if you think you have an edge you want
| to bet frequently because as the high frequency will have
| your edge manifest itself and you'd end up better/way
| better than random.
|
| Also yet another important point is that your competitor
| is not somebody who is Omniscient and gets it right 100%
| of the times, but people who hold your same role in
| competing organizations.
|
| So being wrong is not terrible, unfortunately the
| terrible part is that unlike sports the mistakes of
| people in your same position in competing organizations
| are hidden from your collegues and teammates. Hence the
| grass is always greener, and the comparison immediately
| skips to the Omniscient being.
|
| That is a huge problem, and I don't know if it will ever
| be solved given that work is unspectacular and there is
| not a trail of events and decisions which can be publicly
| examined.
|
| No such thing as a highlight reel (and even there was,
| nobody would ever bother looking at it.)
| ThunderGorilla wrote:
| Was this written by GPT-3?
| joeberon wrote:
| GDC7 quite consistently posts incomprehensible shit. Honestly
| a lot of HN regulars have become incomprehensible recently.
| OJFord wrote:
| GDC7 was created 62 days ago and has two-digit karma, sure
| you're not thinking of someone else? (Just seems unlikely
| you'd recognise such a new and not particularly highly up-
| voted account.)
| joeberon wrote:
| I've had an inane conversation with them previously.
| Probably they have two-digit karma as they are downvoted
| a lot.
| GDC7 wrote:
| I love you too, Joe!
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| Got to farm that karma somehow so you can sell thought
| leader hackernews accounts.
| Danieru wrote:
| Has there yet been a known case of HN account selling?
| Digg started with voting brigades but I've yet to hear of
| even that on HN.
| Loughla wrote:
| Also, what would be the purpose of selling an HN account?
| Taylor_OD wrote:
| The same reason you would sell any other social account.
| You build a profile that seems real, sell it, then the
| buyer uses that profile to upvote and post comments on
| their new product release which blows up on HN and
| generates much more interest and potential revenue than
| it would otherwise.
|
| I don't have proof that it is happening but it happens on
| every other social site so it would be shocking if it
| isnt happening here.
| pram wrote:
| Agreed, entrepreneurs these days severely undervalue the
| benefits of releasing brain juice
| erklik wrote:
| I read this. I then re-read it because I was thinking that
| maybe I just missed something or didn't understand the analogy
| since I am not a hockey fan (pucks are for ice-hockey, right?).
|
| I then re-read it once more. I am now convinced that this
| doesn't mean anything. It's a vomit of words. Someone please
| help explain this to me.
| kjrose wrote:
| This has been my experience with so many entrepreneurs. They have
| these visions that are planned and structured and overly though
| out that they miss the primary pain point their business is
| trying to solve and lack the ability to pivot because they have
| overly planned everything out.
|
| I have gone out with entrepreneur clients and after a few drinks
| I suddenly have clarity as to why they really are trying to build
| their app/product/etc and that always changes everything. I sorta
| wish people would be more honest like this more often.
| geophile wrote:
| I hear what you're saying, but I think you've drawn the wrong
| conclusion, from OPs story, and your experience having drinks
| with clients.
|
| OP blew up in his interview and got to the truth. But really,
| what he shouted when out of control wasn't that different from
| the story that he started with. Imagine that he started with
| that honest story. It would have been part of his elevator
| pitch, and part of his deck, and he would have given that same
| speech a few hundred times, and all the color and passion would
| have long since evaporated.
|
| The conclusion that I draw is that you get to the truth by
| getting someone to switch off autopilot. And that can be done
| by provoking an emotional reaction (not that that's what the YC
| guy was intending to do, I'm guessing), or by loosening up
| through the application of a little alcohol.
| kjrose wrote:
| It's what I meant. The stop trying to overly polish something
| and just be honest with your goals. Turn off the "salesman
| autopilot" so to speak.
| chana_masala wrote:
| > I sorta wish people would be more honest like this more
| often.
|
| I don't believe that the majority are being intentionally
| dishonest
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I think everyone appreciates and responds better to a genuine
| human interaction, even if they don't realize it.
|
| The first things I look for when I'm evaluating someone in
| almost any context are:
|
| * stand for something, anything
|
| * show me some passion and where you find joy or, conversely
| what makes you sad.
|
| * tell me what you don't do/support/optimize. Negative space
| k1rcher wrote:
| It is that inherent human tendency and bias that limits one's
| worldview, a concept I have grappled with and am still
| learning to manage every week that goes by.
|
| We as humans are all victims to it and we (at least most of
| us here on HN) recognize the patterns and the innateness
| within our own selves.
|
| Hopefully as a society we can begin moving forwards to a
| point in which we are taught from a very young age to
| recognize these biases and unintentional and/or subconscious
| behaviors of ours that may be counterproductive to our own
| individual goals and efforts.
| [deleted]
| drdeadringer wrote:
| So "Keep It Simple, Stupid" is forgotten for whatever reason?
| Ozzie_osman wrote:
| Entrepreneurs can get better at story-telling.
|
| But frankly, fundraising is so formal that it makes it really
| hard to try. You get a 30m (maybe 60 if you're lucky) slot with
| an investor and a pitch deck. The investor may decide to lead
| the meeting themselves and just ask any question that comes to
| mind (most questions are objections disguised as questions...
| Sometimes not really disguised at all) or they may just stay
| quiet and let you do the old pitch monolog.
|
| In any case, it's really stressful especially for first time
| entrepreneurs and especially if you're introverted and not the
| witty think-on-your-feet type.
|
| The good news is with time and practice you can get better at
| it. But generally it is soul-crushing work, at least until you
| find one investor who "gets" it.. And usually you only need
| one!
| vlovich123 wrote:
| As an entrepreneur, what would you like from your investor in
| that initial pitch meeting?
| jacobr1 wrote:
| Ideally you want to know what boxes you need to tick to get
| the check. Do they already like the product, and just want
| to vet the founders. Do they not understand the problem? Do
| they get the product, but question its ability to scale?
|
| Basically what is the current set of things they require
| more depth of understanding in order to make their
| investment decision.
| solumos wrote:
| A check
| jimbokun wrote:
| > In any case, it's really stressful especially for first
| time entrepreneurs and especially if you're introverted and
| not the witty think-on-your-feet type.
|
| Yes, but maybe it's still a good predictor of which founders
| will succeed and which won't?
|
| If you can't spontaneously answer probing, challenging
| questions from customers, employees, vendors, and yes
| investors, will you do a good job running and growing a
| successful company?
| lazide wrote:
| Many do, by eventually finding and hiring the right person.
|
| There are a lot of confounding variables and luck involved.
| I've met some frankly terribly antisocial founders that
| happened to get the perfect niche, I've met some that
| worked their asses off and were doing everything right but
| still failed due to terrible timing and a market crash, and
| everything in between.
| adriand wrote:
| I wonder how much of this has to do with the medium of
| communication. People often have wonderful clarity when
| speaking but then muddle things up horribly when they
| write/create decks/etc.
|
| I previously worked with a very smart and capable woman who was
| in charge of a client-facing department at an agency I was part
| of. She would ask me to review a presentation she had put
| together (often sales-focused, but not always), and I'd go
| through and at the end I'd often find myself saying, "You know,
| I'm finding this is (muddled | too much information | unclear).
| What exactly are you trying to say?"
|
| And then she'd give me a succinct, spoken paragraph that
| completely nailed it. And I would say, "Okay, write that down
| and present _that_! "
|
| I thought about this a fair bit because it was such an
| effective approach. It bears noting that, AFAIK, different
| parts of the brain are used for written communication as
| opposed to spoken communication. For instance it is possible to
| acquire a brain injury that prevents speech but not writing or
| vice versa. So although I think part of this issue is
| psychological (people get less clear, e.g. unnecessarily formal
| or stilted, when writing), I think another part of it has to do
| with the way people think.
|
| I think a good technique that helps with this is having someone
| verbally ask you pointed questions ("what does this do?", "why
| should I care?", "how is it different?") while being recorded,
| and then take your spoken answers and use those in your written
| materials.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Totally. Speaking is so easy for me, writing is a bloody
| challenge. I think it has to do with interaction resonance
| with another person, too, not just the medium.
| jamiek88 wrote:
| Opposite for me. I often wish I could end verbal meetings
| and send a note instead.
| boringg wrote:
| I feel while decks are terrible they force whoever said
| intelligent individual to sit down and try and package all
| their thoughts into a cohesive narrative. If they can't do
| that, then they have a seriously problem ahead of themselves
| getting capital and people to come work for them.
|
| Alternatively - if they can't do that as they are really good
| speakers, they need to find someone who can translate their
| in-cohesiveness into something digestible for other people.
| This skillset is very rare and I would argue is super
| important in the early days alongside building effective
| product/executing/product fit.
| jacobr1 wrote:
| I often find the confusions comes from not clearly
| understanding what is being communicated, and what you
| think the other side expects. The slide deck format, is
| often build from top-down hierarchy. Slides for areas A, B,
| C. When really you might have a narrative where you want to
| convey the material from C, with A & B as footnotes. Are
| you telling a story or writing the table of contents for
| textbook?
| dcuthbertson wrote:
| I wonder if that happens because an entrepreneur may be caught
| up in a feeling of what needs to be done, but has yet to
| clearly articulate the pain/joy/humor driving the work. It
| wasn't until the OP really pushed himself that he articulated
| the pain-point his startup was trying to solve.
|
| [Edited for grammar]
| jimhi wrote:
| The best response to an investor who absolutely dislikes your
| company idea is to talk about your real users and why they use
| you. It sounds like you were saying a bunch of hypotheticals (not
| convincing) until you finally gave your family as a use case.
| mritchie712 wrote:
| They probably didn't have users, looks like the thing still
| isn't really launched and this interview was two years ago.
| whymauri wrote:
| basically, get to the point of how you can make them money. if
| you can't clearly make an argument for that, you've ended up in
| the room too early.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| "I wish there was an app to help me connect to my niece" is a
| really fucking weird vibe. Not every problem you have can or
| should be solved with a piece of software.
| RandallBrown wrote:
| That's not what they said.
|
| They want a place to go and connect with their niece and their
| app is supposed to help you find that place.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| Yeah I know that's what they said, to which my response would
| be: "Just talk to her, ask her what she's into. Failing that,
| pick a social thing that people do like mini-golf or a
| Starbucks or a restaurant, and invite her to do that".
|
| The pain point of "I can't connect with my niece" is not
| solved with "I need an app to recommend social venues I can
| invite her to". That's just not the problem you're trying to
| solve - but it is a bullshit yarn you can spin to try to
| pitch yet another local venue discovery app.
| inerte wrote:
| Chiming in to say it might also be the thinking that
| quality is more important than quantity in social
| relationships - true to point, but when your quantity is
| zero, ANY interaction has quality. Just knock on her door
| and go out for a coffee, almost any random thing would
| work. Not even out of 0 and freaking out to achieve the
| local maxima.
| marklubi wrote:
| Except that sometimes talking with someone doesn't yield
| any results aside from "I dunno", "whatever", etc.
|
| They're looking for the piece that says "here's an
| attractive idea" that gets that someone involved.
|
| Sometimes I have a similar issue with my son. It's usually
| as simple as saying "here's what we're doing this weekend"
| as opposed to getting the brick wall response to "what do
| you want to do this weekend?" of "I dunno."
|
| There are tons of different websites that offer "Things to
| do in ____" but most of them are so spammy. Something that
| was personalized based on your preferences/interests, or
| based on a group of people's preferences, would open up a
| lot of doors.
| andrewzah wrote:
| This is not a technical problem. If anything, what you
| would really need is a seminar or paid course to teach
| people how to interact with other humans instead of
| trying to rely on some app... Some people really don't
| know how to just talk to other people and express their
| feelings / figure out plans. No app is ever going to
| solve that.
|
| Perhaps there's value in a business of "teaching humans
| how to human".
| Loughla wrote:
| >Perhaps there's value in a business of "teaching humans
| how to human".
|
| If you hire people, the answer here is yes. My experience
| is that technical skills are 'easy' to teach, but
| interpersonal skills are almost impossible.
|
| If you figure out how to train people from a wide swath
| of humanity, different backgrounds, and disparate
| experiences to be human people and communicate
| effectively and efficiently, you'll literally, not
| figuratively, be the king of the planet.
| wombatmobile wrote:
| > "I wish there was an app to help me connect to my niece" is a
| really fucking weird vibe.
|
| It's not so weird. Facebook is essentially the same folly.
|
| Perhaps you meant sad.
| beaconstudios wrote:
| I feel like Facebook used correctly is more like social
| broadcasting, updating your entire social circle on your
| goings-on, alongside messenger and WhatsApp for one-to-one
| constant contact. Of course, Facebook used wrong is a similar
| weird vibe when you pretend you have friends because you
| constantly "like" the statuses of people you used to be close
| with.
| noway421 wrote:
| This is a similar feeling I got while reading the story.
|
| > Well I thought that we'd spend a lot of time doing things
| together but that's not how it turned out. She's always in her
| room, and I'm always at work or doing my own thing.
|
| Maybe she just doesn't enjoy his company anymore? People's
| relationships fall apart, and not much can be done. Maybe they
| are at different stages in their lives, and there's not much of
| a connection and need in each other anymore.
|
| ---
|
| There's another comment up the chain, I thought of replying to
| it but deemed too off-topic. Why would Gen-Xers and Millennials
| would want to connect with each other in a social setting? I
| get the mentorship/work related networking/etc part, but other
| than that, why would those 2 groups talk to each other if they
| are not relatives?
|
| Even being just a few years apart with your friends can be
| weird.
|
| Sometimes it's better not to connect to each other.
| keithwhor wrote:
| The armchair quarterbacking in this thread is ridiculous. This
| was a great, and really human, take on pitching that 99.99% of
| founders miss. Pitching VCs (or YC) is only ostensibly about
| raising financing. Pitching is about refining your idea,
| identifying problem / solution pairs and subsets (or supersets!)
| of your primary pitch you haven't considered, building
| relationships and a whole lot more.
|
| That fact that Michael Seibel is responding to folks in this
| thread who are doing the quarterbacking speaks _volumes_ to the
| success of this founder 's pitch in spite of not receiving an
| invitation to YC this go-around. First, a rejection today is not
| a rejection tomorrow. Second, Michael is a busy guy. The fact
| he's taking the time to speak up for a founder he feels a
| connection with is perhaps worth more long-term than a single YC
| acceptance letter. There are YC-backed founders that never get
| that level of attention.
| [deleted]
| dhanvantharim1 wrote:
| what impresses me about this situation is how Siebel was trying
| to get the crux of the problem and not just the sales spiel.
| gnramires wrote:
| There's a famous passage in Dostoyevsky's Brother's Karamazov:
| "It is pain that teaches to scream" (can't find the exact quote)
| -- manifesting your pain is important most times. Just make sure
| to manifest and communicate it in a good way!
| andi999 wrote:
| So what happened to the product?
| Clubber wrote:
| It sucks being forced to place your dreams in someone else's
| hands.
| recursive wrote:
| I don't think anyone is forced to do that. Put another way,
| maybe people should consider other dreams.
| axiosgunnar wrote:
| Did he literally scream? At the floor?
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-10-20 23:00 UTC)