by rgarcia on 6/17/11, 1:00 PM
Kind of a linkbait title since less than half of the presentation is caveats and the remainder is advice for starting a startup. Nevertheless I thought it was well done--definitely lays out the risks very nicely.
One thing I'd like to hear more about are people who took "secure" jobs for a period of time out of college and then jumped ship for a startup once they had some money saved up. I feel like most people coming out of college are very risk averse, so they'd rather get a guaranteed salary over a startup with uncertain prospects.
by wccrawford on 6/17/11, 12:17 PM
I think the 'peanuts' slide is an especially good point. Many people here seem to think that a startup is a fast-track to success, but it's not fast at all. It's a lot of work and sacrifice for years.
Don't get me wrong... That time has some valuable lessons that will help you constantly for the rest of your life. But it's not easy. If you go into it with your eyes open, you shouldn't regret it.
by patrickod on 6/17/11, 12:44 PM
This rings true with the TEDx video posted last week about what skateboarding can teach us about learning methods.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHfo17ikSpY&feature=playe...
We learn from mistakes, so failure is to be as embraced as success. The startup community should be just the same. Take the lessons you learn and try again and again.
by lolizbak on 6/17/11, 11:49 AM
Slides from a presentation I gave last week at HEC - would love some feedback if I reuse. Thanks!
by sebastianconcpt on 6/17/11, 6:28 PM
Not to mention how freaking harder is to startup it from South America.
Observation: the topic of "think mobile and platforms" yes, but they're a plus (not the core of the thing.) Besides, relying too much in platforms are a bad idea (adds to the equation some risks parameters that are out of your control.)
The best is to start with the epicenter and iterate often keeping happy the people that will leverage you to ramen profitable.
Lastly, the epicenter should be human centered.
by siiily on 6/17/11, 12:44 PM
There are 63 slides,
the 60th slide ends with: sell anything, learn to code
the 61th slide contains a photo of the author
the 62th slide contains the word: Questions?
by dporan on 6/17/11, 3:42 PM
"You're a visionary product guy? You'll spend your time chasing money, customers, users, employees, facing No's."
How true!
by zem on 6/17/11, 3:06 PM
it sounds like the talk would have been good, but i learnt nothing whatsoever from the slides (possibly because i've been through the startup experience, albeit as an employee, but it just seemed like the usual collection of platitudes)
by kristofferR on 6/17/11, 1:33 PM
Slightly off-topic, but how did you make the SecretPoke video?
http://vimeo.com/19517022Did you make it yourself or was it done by someone else?
by yannski on 6/17/11, 9:31 PM
Nice slides! Thanks for spreading the word about Rails at HEC ;-)
by storm_kid on 6/17/11, 3:54 PM
I think it is a good article, nowdays EVERYBODY is triying to go rich just like that, mostly because of"The social network" movie, we need to understand that this succes cases are rare BUT we need to learn from them, this guys made something different that the rest and place them on the top. Follow me on twitter: @storm_kid