I attended YC Combinator’s Startup School last weekend in Berkeley. I’m just getting around to thinking about my thoughts on it (is it possible to think about thoughts?). Mark Bao has detailed notes on the event.
Here are some things that stood out to me:
Paul Graham’s talk was a series of points distilled from the responses of past YC Combinator founders on what the startup experience is really like. A couple of points stood out to me. First, that “Startups Take Over Your Life.” I’ve heard this before. It makes me think: do I really want that? Isn’t there a way to be successful without letting the company take over your life? I’d like to think balance and diversity in your life is sustainable when you’re running your own business. I don’t know the answer yet.
The other point that stood out to me was the “Value of Community.” In this context, this reminds us that the community of other entrepreneurs, in your neighborhood or city or area is invaluable. To me, interaction with this community brings perspective, new ideas, practical help, and, at the least, commiseration.
There were other good points, such as “Don’t Worry about Competitors,” and “Start with Something Minimal.” These are things that I’ve heard other entrepreneurs speak of, and that I intuitively agree with.
The talk that I was really looking forward to was Jason Fried’s (of 37signals). I’m a fan of 37signals and their approach to developing software. They are super user-focused, love to iterate their products, and are huge proponents of the paid model of web software. Fried made a bunch of great points in this talk, and he was, as he often is, blunt, aggressive, and uncompromising. Which in this case was a good thing, even though I didn’t agree with everything he said. You have to have a point of view on things. Fried is a great example of that. That’s not to say you don’t change your point of view over time; you also have to be receptive to new ideas and cold, hard, experience. But being committed to your point of view at any given point in time is important.
On charging for software, Fried talked about putting a price on something forces you to be good, and it gives the customer incentive to give you real, honest, useful feedback on your product. Giving away something for free dilutes these forces. Fried’s rhetorical question to the audience: “Anyone know how to sell things for free?” To which he answers: “You can’t. You can only sell things for money.” Glib, maybe, but I agree with the core point here, which is that charging for things is better for both the producers and consumers.
Fried also says: “planning is guessing.” Business plans, he says, are really “business guesses.” The “start with something minimal” maxim from Paul Graham’s talk is a corollary of this point. Instead of planning a long, complex, product roadmap, start from the beginning, and improvise. Maybe it sounds too simple, but I think the reality is that you’re going to have to do this anyway. Might as well accept it, get your product out faster, iterate, learn, adjust to what’s right in front of you. The role of improvisation in entrepreneurship sounds like a good topic to explore further in a future post.
37signals is one of the more prominent web software companies that bootstrapped. Their existence, and their success, has given me the confidence to bootstrap maha::software. Fried rails against taking funding. It’s distracting to developing the product and building the real business. Not that I know any better, but I absolutely agree. I’m not saying “taking funding is bad,” but the funding-centered approach to starting a company, the VC culture, in Silicon Valley, completely turns me off. It turns something very personal (a company is a reflection of the people that comprise it, after all), into something very cold and impersonal; dehumanizing, almost. It’s a game that some people are very good at. I don’t know if I would be good at it or not, and I don’t want to find out. I want to keep my business personal; I want it to be about real people using a product that real people made. I want it to be about making people happy, if only for a second, or a minute, or an hour a day. I want it to be about making myself and everyone involved in the company happy.
This brings me to Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s talk on delivering happiness. Hsieh touched on a topic that I wish more entrepreneurs would talk about: Why? Why are you doing this? What is your ultimate goal? Hsieh makes the observation that, no matter the context, these questions ultimately lead to the same answer: attaining happiness. Hsieh talk about three types of happiness: pleasure, passion, purpose. Pleasure is the fleeting, instant gratification of money and fame; passion is akin to doing something you love so much you “get into the zone”; purpose is about guiding yourself towards a higher meaning. An interesting way to break it down. He might be right; I don’t know yet. I do know that asking the question of yourself is important. Why am I doing this? I’ve asked myself this question many times. I get a different answer every time. I’ll share those answers as they crystallize in my mind.
The last talk I wanted to wax poetic on was that of Paul Buchheit, of Gmail and FriendFeed fame. Buchheit and Fried are almost polar opposites in terms of presentation style and delivery. David Shoemaker frames the comparison by branding Buchheit a “hacker,” and Fried a “salesman.” I think the comparison is more subtle than that. Buchheit, for example, talked of how he started selling things at an early age. He also stresses the value of experience, of actually doing things, which I’m sure Fried would wholeheartedly agree with. However, where Fried is uncompromising in his advice, Buchheit is more relativistic— to him, there is no absolute advice. It depends. Everyone is different, and there are different paths to success. I tend to think like this, and it makes sense to me. I’m ok with the uncertainty. Some people aren’t, and they need absolutes to guide them. Whatever floats your boat.
Buchheit ended his presentation with this thought: “If you really care about something, do it now.” More than anything else said during Startup School, this really resonated with me. It speaks to the importance of passion in whatever you’re doing. And once you find that passion, the importance of urgency; the courage to take action now. This is not just about business. This is about the eternal quest for the Good Life. The question I ask myself is then: What do I care about?
