[HN Gopher] How to Start a Startup (2014)
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How to Start a Startup (2014)
Author : gmays
Score : 59 points
Date : 2020-12-24 20:14 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (startupclass.samaltman.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (startupclass.samaltman.com)
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| This is a collection of videos. Most are not by Sam Altman. He
| just gathered them together.
|
| I will probably watch the Adora Cheung video later today. I think
| that's one I haven't seen and I've really liked everything I've
| seen by her so far.
|
| YC also has a free library of stuff. You don't need to be in
| Startup School to start accessing their educational things.
|
| So if you want to learn and don't yet feel ready to commit to
| starting a business, you can start learning on your terms, at
| your pace.
|
| Don't discount the value of that for laying the groundwork for a
| future business. If you can only give it an hour or two a week
| now, do what you can now. It adds up over time.
| smurf_t wrote:
| Just to add to this comment. If users can't watch/read, you can
| listen to podcasts while you run or drive a car, it can help
| you to understand how people try to build a business. There was
| a podcast (How to Start a Startup | Podcast on Spotify) . On
| that note, I enjoyed also listening to those who are building
| projects, and share their journeys e.g. Nathan's interviews
| with SaaS founders (https://nathanlatka.com/podcast-thetop/)
| and The Startup podcast(https://gimletmedia.com/shows/startup)
| [deleted]
| xwdv wrote:
| (2014)
| smurf_t wrote:
| These lectures are timeless. The advises in there are still
| valuable in .net era.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| It's not a criticism. It's standard practice to put the year
| in the title on HN for older articles so as to give context.
| smurf_t wrote:
| Gott yo :)
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Not to be a dick, but Sam hasn't started a sustainable business;
| so keep that in mind when you read this advice.
|
| From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Altman:
|
| > In 2005, at age 19,[9] Altman co-founded and became CEO of
| Loopt,[10] a location-based social networking mobile application.
| After raising more than $30M in venture capital, Loopt was shut
| down in 2012 after failing to get traction. It was acquired by
| the Green Dot Corporation for $43.4 million.[11][12]
| engineer_22 wrote:
| Would you recommend another place that has all this information
| together?
| simonswords82 wrote:
| No because I didn't learn how to start a sustainable business
| from a book or online resource unfortunately.
|
| It was more a case of trying something, seeing if it worked,
| keeping it if it did and stopping it if it didn't. Aka trial
| and error.
|
| Problem with trial and error is that unless you're naturally
| gifted at running a business (I'm not) or lucky (I'm not) it
| takes a long time to learn all the lessons you need to learn
| to make a successful business.
|
| The best shortcut is a good mentor...but those are hard to
| find.
|
| Edit: Having said that, Reddit has a lot of smart people on
| it that are able to provide sensible guidance for specific
| business problems.
|
| Also: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Great-CEO-Within-Tactical-
| Building-... <-- this was a great framework for running
| various areas of a business. Wish I had stumbled across it
| sooner than this year.
| pontus wrote:
| Thanks for the book suggestion, just bought a copy. Looks
| really great!
| simonswords82 wrote:
| You're welcome, enjoy. It's super practical which I
| loved.
| mojuba wrote:
| I also never find the things he says very inspiring. Just
| rehashing the obvious mostly. Of course even the most obvious
| things might be useful to someone, but the bars for what Sam
| Altman says during what he calls a "lecture" should be higher
| than that.
| nowherebeen wrote:
| If you listen to what a lot of YC partners say, most of them
| never say anything that is very insightful. Most are generic
| advice that can be applied to anything. And some partners
| have already spent more time at YC than actually founding
| startups, which makes me think how useful their advice really
| is. I, myself, don't really find much value in them. But I am
| sure young 20 something founders gobble their advice up.
| antaviana wrote:
| Back in 2014 I found his lectures, and many of the other
| videos in the course very useful. Coincidentally, at the time
| of the course I was launching a software product and by
| applying some of the concepts learnt in the course it became
| something that is now bringing some $600K yearly in mostly
| passive income. So you do not need to go all the way in start
| up mode to get value from it. Reharshing the obvious is still
| great advice. We all have lots of blind spots.
| simoncarter wrote:
| What were some of those concepts that ended up being usefu?
| lonesomewhistle wrote:
| I'd take a look at the material and his writings before making
| that kind of judgement. Besides being smart, he seems to have a
| lot more humility than most of the people who give advice about
| startups, and he's seen an unusually high number of startups
| throughout the process so he is in a great position to observe
| what works and what doesn't. I'd much rather hear what he has
| to say than someone with one successful exit, mostly because
| I've come to trust his mind observational skill and his humble
| demeanor over the years.
|
| Most of these videos had counterintuitive information that I
| was happy to have heard before getting started -- especially
| since I came from a completely different industry. They won't
| tell you near everything you need to know to get started, but
| nothing will so as far as these things go I found them to be
| very helpful.
| augustt wrote:
| Maybe I'm not seeing the right material but when I watch
| stuff like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0lJKucu6HJc from
| him, all I hear are mind-numbing platitudes. Having a
| "sensible business model" might have been my favorite piece
| of advice from that one.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Very happy for you to disagree with me friend. My mentor is
| super successful, one of the smartest people I've worked
| with...he's never started a business. I don't think he could.
|
| Just because you understand the theory doesn't mean you can
| start a business. That's all I'm hoping to point out. I wish
| to take nothing away from Sam's success. In purely monetary
| terms Sam is infinitely more successful than I might ever be.
| memset wrote:
| The page is a collection of video lectures, the majority of
| which are by guest lecturers, such as Patrick Collison and
| other founders or VCs. There is no written advice on this page,
| and only a small number of the videos feature Sam.
| courtf wrote:
| These SV made-men, taken as a group, are Exhibit A for
| survivorship bias. Their primary talent is having been in the
| right place at the right time and they've spun an entire self-
| help industry out of it. If they hadn't gotten lucky early on,
| they'd just be dopey middle management parasites at some
| investment firm. These aren't they people that can build
| anything, they're just the middlemen between rich idiots and
| people with actual talents.
| smurf_t wrote:
| That doesn't change the fact that there were many people in
| SV at the time. Arguably, Sam and the team did very well.
| courtf wrote:
| You're just making my point for me because what you wrote
| is the definition of survivorship bias.
| tyu2 wrote:
| Right, but the point is those materials are not for starting
| a sustainable business, but a startup, a whole different
| thing as you understand. For sustainable business you
| probably don't want to listen to anyone involved in VC-funded
| startups, it's in their interest even to sabotage you.
| courtf wrote:
| Fair point, I just want to point out that this "lecture"
| series could be greatly reduced to one simple rule: do what
| the money-men tell if you want to get funded.
|
| These guys don't know how to build your business, they know
| how to get funds to change hands. So kiss their ass, jump
| through whatever inane hoops they use to trick the wealthy
| to part with their jewels, and you might just be among the
| chosen few.
| pontus wrote:
| The fact that some think there's a distinction between a
| startup and a sustainable business says a lot about SV. A
| startup should be sustainable too. There's a distinction
| between a quickly growing business or a slowly growing
| business for sure, and sometimes it makes sense to forgo
| the sustainable part in the short term in order to promote
| growth, but to think that a startup somehow should not aim
| to be sustainable leads to really perverse incentives.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| The Tropical MBA (https://www.tropicalmba.com) is a good
| podcast for startups. Those guys have started businesses from
| scratch, the advice is very practical.
| simonswords82 wrote:
| Thank you I'll have a look.
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(page generated 2020-12-24 23:00 UTC)