[HN Gopher] Mistakes You Should Never Make (2014)
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Mistakes You Should Never Make (2014)
Author : gautamsomani
Score : 67 points
Date : 2023-09-10 18:41 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.sethbannon.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.sethbannon.com)
| [deleted]
| frandroid wrote:
| [flagged]
| [deleted]
| itscodingtime wrote:
| "Entrepreneurs often write about what's going right, but too
| rarely write about what's gone wrong"
|
| They do in retrospectives like this after they achieved later
| success.I found that a lot of rich and successful people in
| different domains love talking about pass failures after they
| eventually succeed.
|
| You very very rarely see a post on here from someone who failed,
| and they do not know how to fix the issue or their next move in
| life.
| sethbannon wrote:
| Fwiw I published this post when my startup was falling apart
| because of my mistakes and I had no idea how to save it (and in
| the end couldn't).
| gibolt wrote:
| Have you had any follow-up advice or epiphanies that could
| have reasonably helped save it, after the time of this post?
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| startupsfail wrote:
| Due Diligence.
|
| Don't forget that the amount of scrutiny that an accepted YC
| startup gets amounts to their YC application being read a few
| times, a ten minute interview with three partners, a background
| check and another ten minutes for a decision.
|
| This is a lot less than a regular job interview. Consequently,
| anyone who can sing a song that YC wants to hear has a chance of
| passing.
| [deleted]
| eldritch_4ier wrote:
| Once you get accepted they do further diligence (that can take
| several weeks if you're missing things or have been sloppy) to
| get it all together before they give you the money and let you
| do demo day.
| philwelch wrote:
| A single bad investment, in a market where most firms fail but
| a tiny minority deliver outsized returns, does not ruin the
| entire portfolio. Conversely, a single bad hire can ruin an
| entire team, department, or company.
| asimpleusecase wrote:
| Company did not survive. Appears he is still citing Harvard on
| his LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethbannon? Even though
| he calls this a mistake in this ten year old blog post
| throwaway89201 wrote:
| > Company did not survive.
|
| He's now "Founding Partner, Fifty Years [Seed fund], 2015 -
| 2023"
|
| > Appears he is still citing Harvard
|
| Yes, because he did study at Harvard's "Extension School",
| which is properly cited on the page.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| It says Harvard university extension school on his profile.
| That's what he said he would start calling it in the blog.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| nohuck13 wrote:
| He is citing Harvard University Extension School on his
| LinkedIn.
|
| He says he regretted implying that he dropped out of Harvard
| College.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree that just saying "I dropped out of
| Harvard" is a bad thing. After all, Harvard is putting their
| name on the "Extension School." If they didn't want to trade
| on their reputation, they could have called it something
| else.
| optymizer wrote:
| I got my Master's at Harvard Extension School. It doesn't
| feel right to say "Harvard", though I _sometimes_ say
| "Harvard" if I don't want to get into the usual
| conversation about what the Extension School is, but only
| if it's not important to the discussion and there's no harm
| done. Sometimes random online forms ask what college I
| attended for no good reason, so I'll just type "Harvard";
| if Mark Cuban would ask, I'd always say "Harvard University
| Extension School" to avoid misleading him.
| stavros wrote:
| What's an extension school? That part of the article
| confused me. Is it not a part of Harvard?
| kelnos wrote:
| It's usually a satellite (or even virtual) location (or
| locations) that the parent university administers.
| Extension schools usually cater to past-college-age
| adults for continuing education, are often part time, and
| are usually commuter schools (and don't really have a
| live-in campus culture). I can't speak to any differences
| in quality of instruction, but I wouldn't be surprised if
| the admissions requirements at most extensions schools
| weren't as strict as for the parent university (which
| makes sense, because people attend for very different
| reasons, often at different stages of their lives, with
| different backgrounds than you'd expect for a high school
| grad going to an undergraduate university).
|
| I think, though, that the disdain for saying "I went to
| Harvard" when you've attended the extension school is
| rooted more in emotion/ego/pretension than anything else.
| A "real" Harvard attendee might not actively _look down_
| on someone who attended HES, but would probably scoff at
| the idea that they "went to Harvard". Higher education
| has a lot of weird social signaling and other crap that's
| hard to unpack.
|
| But I do think that the accepted meaning of "I went to X"
| is that you physically attended classes full-time at the
| university's main campus. Saying that, when you attended
| their extension school, is at best misleading.
| [deleted]
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > I would often let potential customers think we already had a
| feature they wanted and, if they signed, would come back to the
| team and say "we've got to build this before they launch!"
|
| And the takeaway is to make sure your cofounders are OK with this
| first. Maybe just don't commit fraud? If something is truly a
| dealbreaker then just be honest and promise to build it out with
| contract terms giving them an out if you fail?
|
| Do these people use deceptively attractive pictures in their
| dating profiles? Then expect they'll just hit the gym and/or
| plastic surgeon if they can convince someone to connect with
| them?
| zelphirkalt wrote:
| Also make sure, that the people who need to develop it are on
| board. It is a bad feeling, when there is time pressure, just
| because management thought they could promise something that
| does not yet even exist.
| clnq wrote:
| > And the takeaway is to make sure your cofounders are OK with
| this first.
|
| Let's not forget the employees who will actually plan and build
| the features. I've seen not one of these deliverables fail
| because executives forgot to tell their team in time. Or, in
| fact, tell at all.
|
| It's easy to get overwhelmed with all the white lies and forget
| some, I expect. It will damage relationships and employee
| morale. The white lies are not free.
| sethbannon wrote:
| True. And you're likely to lose your team's trust to. If
| employees see a leader telling white lies to potential
| customers (or to anyone) they're likely to ask "I wonder what
| white lies they're telling me?"
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| A coworker said he worked for a person who did this
| routinely, inventing whole offerings in the moment. Then
| demand the team crunch to deliver. Supposedly this was
| their idea of proving the market.
| clnq wrote:
| It's also "what else have we promised that I'll have to
| deliver but don't know about?" and "what else will the
| executive promise before this ships?"
|
| Those are the real morale killers - knowing that you might
| need to start stressing and crunching at any moment, and
| that the roadmaps you have aren't real. Nor are your
| commitments to anyone working in the company if you get
| pulled off your planned work to service a white lie. They
| just complicate everything.
|
| An executive lying to customers is a huge liability. I
| won't take an ethical stance on it, but in a business
| sense, the lies incur a debt that must be paid.
| [deleted]
| sethbannon wrote:
| Post author here. If a customer asked "and I'll be able to
| upload my own data?" and the response was "absolutely" even
| though that functionality didn't exist yet because we knew we
| could build it before they launched, that's nothing approaching
| fraud. I don't believe we ever once didn't have a feature like
| this that a customer wanted before they actually launched. The
| disagreement is whether it's ok to just say "absolutely" or
| whether it's important to say the full "just to be clear, the
| product can't do that today but we can build it before you
| launch." 10 years later I'd take the latter approach.
| dagw wrote:
| I've been on the other side of this. We talked to this
| startup about their product and they claimed it had exactly
| the features we needed. We said fantastic and were ready and
| willing to hand over $10-20k to them for this, and they just
| kept stalling and making up excuses and demoing things that
| didn't actually do what we actually needed. Eventually they
| had to admit that they couldn't deliver the feature we
| needed. We were rather pissed off and cut all future dealings
| with them. They could have ended up with at least $50k from
| us over 2-3 years if they'd been honest and showed
| willingness to work with us, and instead they got zero.
| [deleted]
| sethbannon wrote:
| Great example of how sacrificing integrity to potentially
| cut corners is long term self-defeating.
| 010101010101 wrote:
| Who is the "we" here? Because it sounds a lot like _you're_
| _assuming_ it can be be built for the people who are going to
| be tasked with doing so.
| walr000s wrote:
| My experience being a leader in similar situations is that
| when I say "we will have that in the next release", I mean
| "the engineers who are tasked with that will have completed
| it OR I will personally do it."
| f1shy wrote:
| It absolutely is. What is wrong with you? It is really normal
| to lie to people on their face? I mean, you can perfectly say
| "The feature is not ready, but will be at X time" Ready, no
| need to be dishonest.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| 'Absolutely' is strongly affirmative wording. I'd say it's
| fraudulent even from an engineer deeply familiar with the
| level of effort. Language matters and executives should know
| better.
|
| I know from personal experience it's hard to avoid speaking
| too quickly, yet it's also important to self correct in the
| moment. Otherwise why have such people on a call if they
| cannot communicate accurately and won't even admit when they
| misspeak?
| jimmaswell wrote:
| On the other hand, Bill Gates famously did this to IBM
| regarding DOS. When it works, it works. Sometimes pressure
| makes a diamond, as many of us with ADHD procrastinstion know
| kelnos wrote:
| I don't think this is an endorsement of this practice.
| Consider that Gates then spent the next couple decades
| engaging in anti-competitive behavior that IMO did a lot of
| harm to the personal computing industry.
|
| If anything, this tale about Gates just tells us that you can
| "win" in unethical ways by continuing to do unethical things
| throughout your career.
| jimmaswell wrote:
| As far as business ethics, I feel like a little
| overpromising with legitimate confidence you'll actually
| deliver isn't the worst. It's high-risk high-reward.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _I would often let potential customers think we already had a
| feature they wanted and, if they signed, would come back to the
| team and say "we've got to build this before they launch!"_
|
| Or as most B2B companies call this, "a typical weekday".
| [deleted]
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| - never promise something that has not already been built.
|
| - never put a timeline on something that has not already been
| built (#)
|
| - sell what you already have
|
| Software is incredible. you can sell one copy and instantly have
| another ready to sell. It's the best business in the world -
| don't make your life more complicated
|
| (#) Oh ok. but give timelines with "cones of confidence" and
| ensure everyone else upstream and downstream does the same and
| can adjust their cones. It's kind of like how projects are
| managed today (hit this date or we panic) but with less wild
| swings - I am pretty sure there is some feedback-control logic
| thing there. Percentage confidence of delivering depenandcies
| enables the people expecting multiple dependencies to manage
| their panic levels and their resource allocation
|
| (ie project mama gets need to be in every detail or just don't
| have project managers and have systemic feedback loops)
| gfthcshh wrote:
| Isn't the IRS generally willing to work out plans for paying back
| taxes?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| What didn't make sense to me about that story is that even if
| their payroll system wasn't submitting the tax payments to the
| IRS, it seemed it was _witholding_ the tax on the payroll. So
| the money was sitting in an account somewhere, they should have
| had it available to pay all the back taxes. They would only
| really be out the penalties, which could probably have been
| negotiated down on the basis of an "honest mistake." Though he
| did admit to sloppy bookkeeping overall, so maybe they saw all
| this money in the bank account and spent it on other stuff.
| sethbannon wrote:
| Post author here. We did work out a repayment plan for some
| taxes. Payroll taxes are generally "if you have the money in
| the account, you have to pay immediately" though, so we wrote a
| large check for those as soon as we discovered the error.
| ranting-moth wrote:
| > Just as important are frequent, honest checkins to see how
| everyone is feeling on an interpersonal level.
|
| That only becomes meaningful when there is already 100% trust.
| People learn very quickly (usually the hard way) that honest
| answers are not always in their best interest.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yep, every time I've ever worked for a manager who wants
| regular 1:1 meetings "just to touch base" I pretty quicky just
| start feeding them platitiudes that I know they want to hear.
| They are without exception holding these meetings because of
| their own self-confidence issues, if they were concerned about
| me getting work done they wouldn't keep pulling me away from
| it.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| How often? Do they catch on to the platitudes?
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Weekly meetings were the norm when this happened to me. I
| guess maybe "platitudes" isn't quite the right word but
| there just often wasn't much to say from one week to the
| next and saying "same as last week" was never enough, it
| was like we were obligated to spend 30 minutes talking
| about work because that is what was on the calendar. So a
| lot of it was repetition of stuff that my manager already
| knew (or should have) but for some reason wanted to hear it
| again week after week.
| sneak wrote:
| > _In the early days I would often let potential customers think
| we already had a feature they wanted and, if they signed, would
| come back to the team and say "we've got to build this before
| they launch!" No harm, no foul, I thought, so long as we knew we
| were able to build the feature before they started using the
| product. This is a tactic commonly suggested by lean
| practitioners. My co-founders, though, would often frown on this
| behavior, worrying it was unethical, causing a huge amount of
| tension to grow beneath the surface._
|
| I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure this is the same kind of
| fraud that Holmes got nailed to the wall for committing.
|
| It's entirely possible to close deals without lying, if you can
| still deliver the needed functionality in time. Why would anyone
| do this?
| eldritch_4ier wrote:
| Because even customers don't always know what they want. A lot
| of customers want peace of mind when they're buying a product,
| and you can't always build up that trust in a single call, so a
| white lie that gets them as a customers as long as you can
| fully deliver on that promise seems optimal for both parties.
|
| Telling a customer "we don't have that yet" knowing full well
| they just care if you have it, and knowing full well you can
| deliver it as promised, just creates unnecessary doubt that
| could lead to a worse situation for everyone. One where a
| customer passes on you because they don't know you well enough
| to trust you can deliver, and you don't get the sale because
| you didn't happen to create some very simple feature before a
| customer demanded it. That's a lose-lose.
|
| This complaint just reeks of "I've never worked in a company or
| role that didn't already have all the uncertainty figured out".
| Building features nobody wants as insurance in case somebody
| finally asks for it is a waste of human talent.
| gnicholas wrote:
| > _I 'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure this is the same kind
| of fraud that Holmes got nailed to the wall for committing._
|
| Interestingly, she was found guilty of defrauding investors,
| but acquitted with regard to defrauding patients:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Holmes
| nicce wrote:
| There is a saying:
|
| "The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well
| as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets,
| and to steal bread."
|
| - Anatole France
| jauntywundrkind wrote:
| Lying to customers isn't good, but lying to investors is a
| crime against rich people & will certainly cause trouble for
| you.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| bee_rider wrote:
| If you are competing against folks who always tell the truth, a
| willingness to lie will get you some short-term wins. He said
| it is "commonly suggested by lean practitioners" whatever that
| means.
|
| Personally it makes me want to figure out what a "lean
| practitioner" is so I can avoid them like the plague.
| [deleted]
| hectormalot wrote:
| From experience, this is quite common in enterprise sales.
| Having been on both sides of such transactions, I'm now quite
| sceptical of features/functionalities unless I can test drive
| myself. Some stuff I've seen:
|
| - chatbot sales: "see how it recovers here because I
| misunderstood the question and gave a different answer than
| expected?". (Demo was a linear path with this 'recovery' hard
| coded) - Buy side: "yes absolutely we already integrate with
| X". Queue 12 months of delays because they had never
| integrated with that platform before.
|
| But, I think I get it. The deals are huge and you only sell a
| few a year. Once an enterprise commits, it is unlikely to
| switch vendors unless it goes really really bad. So, the
| salesperson that convincingly lies gets the deal, and
| surprisingly the downside is relatively limited.
|
| OTOH, not massaging the truth might mean losing that deal.
| Huge downside, very limited upside. (Yes the buyer might be a
| bit more happy, but that likely doesn't outweigh sometimes
| missing a multi million deal, unless buyer talk a lot with
| each other).
| wavemode wrote:
| Guess it all depends on how you value your company's
| reputation versus short-term profits. I've personally
| worked on an API integration with such a company who
| delivered less than they'd promised. We certainly won't be
| building anything new in the future with their platform.
| And even this existing project will probably migrate away
| when feasible (though that, admittedly, will be quite a
| while from now, given how busy we are).
| Jtsummers wrote:
| "lean practitioner" probably means the lean startup types. A
| set of ideas ostensibly based on Lean Manufacturing (aka,
| Toyota Production System) that, like Lean Manufacturing, are
| often implemented by imitation rather than by comprehension
| and serious consideration.
| [deleted]
| EatingWithForks wrote:
| There's a massive difference from saying "yeah, this thing has
| keyword search already, we just didn't turn it on yet" during a
| software from giving a diabetic saline while claiming it's
| insulin. Holmes did the latter. People actually expended
| additional bloodwork and treatment due to the false testing.
| passwordoops wrote:
| >I'm pretty sure this is the same kind of fraud that Holmes got
| nailed to the wall for
|
| Yes but she got nailed for violating FDA laws. Saying your
| software can do something before it's even on the roadmap is
| what I've experienced in every org I've worked in...
| overpromise and if the oompa-loompas can't deliver it's their
| fault not mine
| srcreigh wrote:
| ITT we're all learning why people don't honestly share their
| mistakes. Be better folks.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from
| https://web.archive.org/web/20140803073308/http://sethbannon....
|
| Submitters: Please don't make archive links top-level submissions
| unless you've searched and there's really no other option.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
| clnq wrote:
| Another mistake/very expensive hard lesson I've learned is to
| never bring people into leadership on potential. Not unless there
| are exceptional circumstances where you can confidently say the
| person, even lacking experience, will perform.
| calderwoodra wrote:
| In "the hard thing about hard things" they echo this advice as
| well - usually your executive team should have previous
| experience with the exception of maybe one person.
| clnq wrote:
| Thanks for the book recommendation!
| sethbannon wrote:
| I'm the author of the post. Happy to answer any questions anyone
| has! So many lessons learned the painful way.
| calderwoodra wrote:
| Thanks for writing this up, I found it very useful and I
| promptly went to go check that we're paying our payroll taxes
| haha.
| jajajsjsjjd wrote:
| [flagged]
| __s wrote:
| fyi you misspelt startup as starup at one point
| sethbannon wrote:
| Thanks for helping me catch a 10 year old typo!
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