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Cingulate posted:Who is "we"? Are you like, the Startup Fixers? That's about 70% of what we do, yeah. Business is good. edit in case you're interested, we basically do a couple things: help these guys reign in their "big idea" and come up with a strategy that actually makes sense in the real world, go over the technology and figure out what of their crazy idea is actually doable in 2015, and then get into development ASAP by actually bringing in developers, of which these startups almost always have none. And this is almost always after they've blown through their initial funding, so we usually prototype the thing and help them put together what they need to go out and raise more funding, this time with a hell of a lot more organization. Jake Armitage fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 18:38
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Bank maybe? Or an investment firm.
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Jul 9, 2015 19:19
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Jake Armitage posted:That's about 70% of what we do, yeah. Business is good. I don't understand what the need of the original startup people is once you actually bring in your own developers. If you like their idea, and you have your own developers, can't you just build it yourself and completely discard the startup people? Or is it just smart to have their company take out the loans and other such things to minimize your liability?
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Jul 9, 2015 19:44
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NDA agreements are usually signed before everyone sits down and chats. The model I've seen thrown around for this type of company involves negotiating for a sizable-but-not-majority ownership stake in exchange for the services Jake is describing here. In relation to the show this thread is for, imagine if Richard didn't have Jared handling the business end or any of his coding help on the aspects of the tech he wasn't that good at. He'd be the type of guy to sit down in front of Jake Armitage.
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Jul 9, 2015 19:53
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So what is the point of the startup people? Are they all Erlichs?
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Jul 9, 2015 19:58
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Well the short answer is that if we took a startup's concept and built it ourselves, we wouldn't have any of these guys calling us very much longer. The longer answer is that sometimes there are NDAs (although often these companies have been very public about their concept by the time they meet us). Also we get paid whether the concept succeeds or fails, and we sometimes take equity as well, so we get the best of both worlds. Plus, a lot of time these ideas are about as thrilling as you'd expect. More often than not we pass on the equity offer until it gets to a level where we feel the concept "works". Until then, they are paying full price for our services. And then to be completely fair, the teams we talk to generally aren't completely worthless, they just have little to no technical capability. So a lot of times they are good at raising money, marketing, shaking hands, making noise, and all the other important stuff that someone like me either isn't good at or hates to do. If we took over completely, we'd probably drive that part of the business into the ground, because that's not what we do. In a way, they are a lot of Erlich's, but Erlich is an important guy. You just don't need 10 of him, and you don't even need one of him if you don't have any coders. When its all over, we make a good living helping these guys out, and if one of them turns into the next WhatsApp or whatever, we get to stop working. But in the meantime, we still get paid.
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Jul 9, 2015 20:17
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adrenaline_junket posted:This is why I'd want Jared on my team. Goes the extra mile, even when it looks like all is lost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vfXoUNDYA "Which one? Which one? Which one?" has become a thing in my circles. Team Jared all the way.
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Jul 9, 2015 20:55
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Jake Armitage posted:That's about 70% of what we do, yeah. Business is good.
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Jul 9, 2015 21:09
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Cingulate posted:Can you estimate your success rate? Depends on what you mean by "success" but so far we've launched 100% of the products we've been contracted to build. Now, to what extent they have become viable, or, more importantly, purchasable or investible companies, is a completely different question. But almost always that's basically out of our control. We advise and suggest but we don't get to make the final call on what direction these companies take. And even if we did, we're definitely not right all the time. A lot of this comes down to just dumb luck and perfect timing. I can say that from my perspective, the odds of success are staggeringly, mind bogglingly low. But that gut wrenching risk is I guess offset by the possibility of exiting for billions. And you can increase your odds substantially by simply not being as completely dumb, naive and/or clueless as most people are. Just operating like a real, serious business instead of a frathouse puts you in the top 1%, easily. Jake Armitage fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 22:12
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Bobby Digital posted:"This week, on Gordon Ramsay's Startup Nightmares..." This code is poo poo! If I wanted spaghetti, I would have gone home and cooked some.
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Jul 9, 2015 22:35
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Shame you can't smear bad code on somebody's apron. This data is RAW! edit: nesting tags are the scallops, capitalizing them is the Risotto. kiimo fucked around with this message at 22:45 on Jul 9, 2015 |
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Jul 9, 2015 22:42
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Jake Armitage posted:Depends on what you mean by "success" but so far we've launched 100% of the products we've been contracted to build. Now, to what extent they have become viable, or, more importantly, purchasable or investible companies, is a completely different question. But almost always that's basically out of our control. We advise and suggest but we don't get to make the final call on what direction these companies take. And even if we did, we're definitely not right all the time. A lot of this comes down to just dumb luck and perfect timing. Will you guide my boob alert app?
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Jul 9, 2015 22:47
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Jake Armitage posted:Well the short answer is that if we took a startup's concept and built it ourselves, we wouldn't have any of these guys calling us very much longer. Have you read this article by Venkatesh Rao? http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/09/03/entrepreneurs-are-the-new-labor-part-i/
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Jul 9, 2015 23:07
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I have no idea what this is, haven't listened to it yet, but I found it when looking for new music. Anyway its free and if its half as good as steinski... http://illegalart.net/compilations/tjmiller/index.html quote:The Extended Play E.P. Illegal Art ReMixTape MP3
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Jul 10, 2015 04:18
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Mad Dragon posted:This code is poo poo! If I wanted spaghetti, I would have gone home and cooked some. Berates startup staff for having coors light at their micro-bar.
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Jul 10, 2015 05:29
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Mad Dragon posted:
These pointers are SO loving RAW, I'm still chasing them around the codebase!
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Jul 10, 2015 15:10
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Analytic Engine posted:Have you read this article by Venkatesh Rao? That was a great read, thanks. I agree with him. Almost everyone dreams of cashing out and immediately becoming and investor, and letting other suckers do all the work. Y Combinator is my favorite predator. They give $120k (a squirt of piss, really) for 7% and throw in a little obvious advice, and in turn own a piece of Reddit, Dropbox, AirBnB, Stripe... no wonder they keep increasing the number of startups they take in. But of course, if Y Combinator wants you, you gotta go. Holyshoot posted:Will you guide my boob alert app? Oh god, I could fill a book with all the stupid idea pitches I've had to sit through. Nipalert doesn't even come close.
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Jul 10, 2015 19:02
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Jake Armitage posted:That was a great read, thanks. I agree with him. Almost everyone dreams of cashing out and immediately becoming and investor, and letting other suckers do all the work. Y Combinator is my favorite predator. They give $120k (a squirt of piss, really) for 7% and throw in a little obvious advice, and in turn own a piece of Reddit, Dropbox, AirBnB, Stripe... no wonder they keep increasing the number of startups they take in. But of course, if Y Combinator wants you, you gotta go. Is that why most startups fail? They are in it for the wrong reasons? Seems like most successful people aren't in it for the money when they start out.
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Jul 10, 2015 21:01
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Holyshoot posted:Is that why most startups fail? They are in it for the wrong reasons? Seems like most successful people aren't in it for the money when they start out. if you have a good idea and want to make a successful product, you're probably in good shape. but it seems like everyone's "good idea" is to "have good ideas!" and that's why the bubble's going to burst. can't wait for Silicon Valley season 4 or 5.. should be interesting.
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Jul 10, 2015 21:10
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Holyshoot posted:Is that why most startups fail? Most fail because the idea is simply horrible, to be honest. Worse, most horrible ideas are not even original horrible ideas. After Uber hit critical mass, for example, no joke every other meeting we took was for "Uber but for....". House cleaning, handymen, haircuts, massage. Some guy wanted to do Uber to have a pickup truck come pick up your poo poo. Many of those actually launched, but when they did there was a ton of competition, and very little public interest. We met with three Uber massage startups, and at the time of the first meeting there were already two launched that we knew of. By the time the first one of these went public, I think there were 7, plus one "Uber for everything!" app which is utterly appalling. None of them were successful. I mean, at that point what are you even trying to do? Other reasons: biz guys who suck at business, pivoting because CEO had a fever dream, feature creep delaying release until months after you've gotten your rear end kicked, IP lawsuits, Google/Facebook/Twitter/Apple squash you like a bug as soon as they see your idea works, Apple decides to ban all apps in your category, incompetent developers, incompetent CTOs, incompetent interns, investors mucking up everything because their wife said she likes pastels or puppies or whatever, or a total failure to understand the audience, (e.g. overly complicated UI, too many features/options, users start using an app in a different way than intended and team fails to adapt, etc), failure to scale, failure to be able to afford to scale (yep, you can go out of business by being too successful). We're working with a company right now that just had a mass exodus -- the entire tech team just up and left. A million ways to fail. By the way, that's why I laugh when people say this show is unrealistic because Pied Piper keeps getting poo poo on. That's reality, you really do just keep getting poo poo on. Unless your battle plan is flawless and flawlessly executed, horrible things will happen constantly. Jake Armitage fucked around with this message at 21:35 on Jul 10, 2015 |
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Jul 10, 2015 21:32
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Holyshoot posted:Is that why most startups fail? They are in it for the wrong reasons? Seems like most successful people aren't in it for the money when they start out. lol no. They are all in it for the money but it's considered gauche to ever say that. In fact, you can't say it and get funded - VCs will try and trick you with a 'if we gave you 10 million right now to sell your company, would you take it?' question. If you say yes (which you should - that's low end gently caress You money) they will pass. They want you to say absolutely not, this is a billion dollar business and we're in it long term. So even if you have what should be a modest, decently performing company you can't get out early easily. Everybody wants a Unicorn. If you don't want to be the best in the world, why don't you go be a (scoffs) manager at Google or Adobe or something?
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Jul 10, 2015 21:54
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How common is this kind of toxic, childish, elitist work environment in early startups: http://thebillfold.com/2014/10/my-day-interviewing-for-the-service-economy-startup-from-hell/
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Jul 10, 2015 22:11
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Jake Armitage posted:A million ways to fail. By the way, that's why I laugh when people say this show is unrealistic because Pied Piper keeps getting poo poo on. That's reality, you really do just keep getting poo poo on. Unless your battle plan is flawless and flawlessly executed, horrible things will happen constantly. I've run 3 failed businesses, it's really true that you just keep getting poo poo on. I'm just bad at business though, there are a million things I've done wrong, and the people I know who kept at it just fail until they find something that works. Support costs go up, customers come in waves, it's hard to know when to change things and when to keep them the same, unless you've got a whole team you can trust you're pretty much hosed. I find Silicon Valley to be pretty accurate in regards to how impossible it is to make money without knowing poo poo about business.
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Jul 10, 2015 23:27
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ElCondemn posted:I've run 3 failed businesses, it's really true that you just keep getting poo poo on. I'm just bad at business though, there are a million things I've done wrong, and the people I know who kept at it just fail until they find something that works. Support costs go up, customers come in waves, it's hard to know when to change things and when to keep them the same, unless you've got a whole team you can trust you're pretty much hosed. I find Silicon Valley to be pretty accurate in regards to how impossible it is to make money without knowing poo poo about business. I find that to be one of the more interesting facets to this show. A lot of what is being illustrated looks uncanny to most people, when in fact these decisions have to be made by these people that have never experienced these decisions before. And it isn't a regular business proposition, these guys are tasked with more money than they know what to do with. This only re-enforces how skilled Mike Judge is when it comes to social commentary. He wraps up his stories in enough layers that if you're not paying close attention to what is going on, you might miss the underpinnings of what is trying to be illustrated.
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Jul 11, 2015 00:01
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Jake Armitage posted:Oh god, I could fill a book with all the stupid idea pitches I've had to sit through. Nipalert doesn't even come close. 
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Jul 11, 2015 02:22
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Here's one from a few years ago: an app that uses your location to determine all the billboards you drive by, so that later you can go back and review any that you might have missed while paying attention to the roads. Kind of like location based Shazam for lovely truck driving school ads. They were putting together partnerships with ClearChannel and poo poo. Bear in mind that even if for some who-the-gently caress-knows reason you really wanted to review some lovely DUI lawyer's billboard, you still couldn't unless you already had the app installed and had given it anytime access to your location, and the billboard was in the database. Which means the user and the service needed to anticipate this bizzaro occurrence. Of course my first question was, so would any of you actually use this app? The longest minute of silence ever. They honestly never played that out in their head.
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Jul 11, 2015 03:37
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Do businesses just not do things like user testing, persona mapping, assumption validation? poo poo I thought our product guys at work were terrible for going with the "our gut tells us this is a good thing", but to not actually test these theories out themselves? I've tried (and failed) to do a couple of different start ups in my spare time, and each time I've at least drawn up a business plan that covers the basics of who, what, why, and how. With all the lean canvas stuff out there, it should be pretty easy to get the fundamentals right. Right? Maybe my idea of becoming a product management consultant isn't such a stupid one after all! Someone has to make these ideas sensible or set the expectations to be realistic.
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Jul 11, 2015 05:06
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adrenaline_junket posted:Maybe my idea of becoming a product management consultant isn't such a stupid one after all! Someone has to make these ideas sensible or set the expectations to be realistic. I worked at a startup once and my unacceptably creativity stifling suggestions like, "let's write a business plan" and "ideally our mailing list shouldn't break the law" got me let go.
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Jul 11, 2015 06:24
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Pharmaskittle posted:I worked at a startup once and my unacceptably creativity stifling suggestions like, "let's write a business plan" and "ideally our mailing list shouldn't break the law" got me let go. Don't you need a complete business plan to be able to file for a business in the first place, or are the rules in the US different...?
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Jul 11, 2015 09:28
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Xoidanor posted:Don't you need a complete business plan to be able to file for a business in the first place, or are the rules in the US different...? Haha. Nah you just need to tell the government you're opening a partnership or LLC or whatever. You likely need one to get a loan though. Most startups fail. It's real hard to launch a new business for a looooong list of reasons. The stuff Silicon Valley satires is specific to tech culture, and something like a new restaurant would fail for entirely different reasons.
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Jul 11, 2015 14:41
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Xoidanor posted:Don't you need a complete business plan to be able to file for a business in the first place, or are the rules in the US different...? Hahahhaa. No. You can just pay a tiny fee to some random state and suddenly you have a legal entity separate from you but with all the rights and freedoms of a person. All they need is the name, someone to accept correspondence in the same state, and a description of the management structure. That last part can just be someone's name that is allowed to make decisions and sign official documents.
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Jul 11, 2015 20:32
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PostNouveau posted:Haha. Nah you just need to tell the government you're opening a partnership or LLC or whatever. Not really startups fail similar to other businesses such as inadequate experience, no experience in the account/financial side of running a business or not having a good business strategy. The more unique startup problem is how they hate to hire older more experienced people since all you need a genius recent grad from Stanford to be successful.
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Jul 11, 2015 20:47
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They don't like to hire older developers because they have families, lives outside of work, and most importantly, confidence. If you hire a kid out of school, you can usually work his rear end to the bone for a fraction of the cost of an experienced guy. And often those kids will love every minute of it, because they don't realize their market value yet, and think the experience is worth it. No developer with 20 years experience and any self respect would work 80 hour weeks for what a lot of these startups are looking to pay. The problem is that a lot of the guys doing the budgeting don't realize that the cost of hiring a kid over the long term is much more likely to be catastrophic compared to just paying a competent developer what he/she is worth. But there's a shortage of recent grads as well. The schools can only turn out so many compsci kids a year. If it was really about hiring a spunky young genius, the second best thing would be a 30 year old with a little spark left in him. No, its about money, which is why they pass up the older, more expensive guy and go right to India and Pakistan. edit not that that's entirely stupid, mind you. Just last week I saw two offers come across my desk for mobile developers. One was 230k a year for a loving junior iOS developer, another was $200k for Android with a $250k signing bonus on a one year commitment. That's $680k for two guys the first year ffs, not including benefits, payroll taxes. and other expenses, with the expected experience being "please show us at least one app in the app store". Its definitely an area where it makes sense to save whatever you can. Jake Armitage fucked around with this message at 21:43 on Jul 11, 2015 |
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Jul 11, 2015 21:35
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Jake Armitage posted:They don't like to hire older developers because they have families, lives outside of work, and most importantly, confidence. If you hire a kid out of school, you can usually work his rear end to the bone for a fraction of the cost of an experienced guy. And often those kids will love every minute of it, because they don't realize their market value yet, and think the experience is worth it. No developer with 20 years experience and any self respect would work 80 hour weeks for what a lot of these startups are looking to pay. Ironically the whole the cult compound nature of startups resembles japan. You will have micro-bar, ping pong and pizza on call. However you expected to sign away your whole life to the startup. Make sure to work 16 hour days to show that you have real passion!
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Jul 11, 2015 21:48
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Nah, you're taking Silicon Valley culture as synonymous with startups in general. Most new businesses aren't some young hotshot with great ideas but no experience. Most new businesses are started by seasoned vets in their industries. Average age of a successful entrepreneur is 40. And they start laundromats and poo poo, not firms based around proprietary IP.
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Jul 11, 2015 22:55
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Some guy who has something to do with Mozilla wrote a spec script for Silicon Valley and it's actually not bad: http://blakeross.com/SiliconValleyS03E01.pdf if somebody told me this was a leaked s03e01 script i would have no trouble believing it.
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Sep 7, 2015 21:23
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:Some guy who has something to do with Mozilla wrote a spec script for Silicon Valley and it's actually not bad: Wow, he's got the characters, tone, and overall style down cold. That's amazing.
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Sep 7, 2015 22:21
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:Some guy who has something to do with Mozilla wrote a spec script for Silicon Valley and it's actually not bad: Yeah, that's surprisingly good. 'Cauc Cave'
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Sep 7, 2015 22:31
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32MB OF ESRAM posted:Some guy who has something to do with Mozilla wrote a spec script for Silicon Valley and it's actually not bad: One of the co-founders of Mozilla apparently. However, that script makes me think that like Mike Judge, he could ditch engineering for entertainment. The Jack Dorsey bit alone was so dead on.
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Sep 7, 2015 23:24
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So who else is wondering where Jared is going to sleep now that the neighbor with weasels is moving?
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