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Really?
"There is something salutary in that proud defiance. And though the debate she sparked about Asian-American life has been of questionable value, we will need more people with the same kind of defiance, willing to push themselves into the spotlight and to make some noise, to beat people up, to seduce women, to make mistakes, to become entrepreneurs, to stop doggedly pursuing official paper emblems attesting to their worthiness, to stop thinking those scraps of paper will secure anyone’s happiness, and to dare to be interesting." - Wesley Yang
http://nymag.com/news/features/asian-americans-2011-5/
"Livin the fast life, in fast cars
Everywhere we go, people know who we are
A team from out of Queens with the american dream
So we're plottin up a scheme to get the seven figure cream" - Kool G Rap
Over the past 6 months I've had more people talk to me about their startup ideas than ever before. I'm not really sure if it has something to do with people being really sick of their corporate 9 to 5 or if The Social Network really flipped on some light switches. Now I'm not saying I'm loaded with advice and everyone is flocking to come talk to me, but I've seen a noticable increase in these conversations over recent months. When I do end up talking to people I tell things straight up and I base conversations on what I've been through ... for whatever that is worth.
The problem I'm facing is telling people their ideas aren't good. I know the responsible thing would be to question them on their ideas, but it feels like I would be crushing their hopes and dreams. Another difficult thing is trying to relay the fact that it is extremely difficult to gain traction in this market because it's so saturated with great apps and other people trying to the exact same thing. Gee and I have tried creating things since we graduated from college 10 years ago and we found that even when you build something cool that doesn't mean people will come. I guess the mentality is if you don't try you'll never know and I applaud people for having that attitude, but I can't seem to ever speak to the difficulty they'll inevitably face along with the BIGGEST question "how will you get users?"
Since I can't tell people straight to their faces here's what I think are the absolute essentials and this is how I would do it if I had to do start all over again:
1) Commit 110% of your time, that means quit your day job and really get into it. And that means the entire team.
2) Build a badass founding team, more than one biz dev is questionable and more than 4 people is out of the question. You're building a web company, you better have good hackers that can wear multiple hats with "in it to win it" written on their foreheads.
3) Think BIG, small ideas and markets are like a fart in the wind.
4) Build, release, iterate, build, release, iterate, repeat and repeat FAST. Divide and conquer.
Anyway, those are just some of the basics I can think of right now. People ask "how was your YC experience?" and I always say "invaluable". YC isn't a classroom, it's an experience and while you're there you soak up all the information you can from people that have had success in this industry ... the tried and true. At the same time you absorb experience from your peers going through the same shit you're going through. Once your sponge starts to fill up you can process everything and do things your way.
Well those are my immediate thoughts ... not like anyone reads this anyway. Stay thirsty my friends.
