It might be a good idea in your blog posts to not write them as so absolute and more circumspect (for some of the points) since the devil is in the details for most things like this. And it's hard to cover all bases with the appropriate caveats in a short blog post.
Statements like this clearly indicate what has worked for you and are good "One thing that has always worked really well for me is to hire a freelance designer and developer to build the first version of the product." (helpful) while a statement like this is to absolute "I’d recommend your first employee should be a designer with strong frontend dev skills. Do not hire a customer support person." in part because there is no caveat as to which cases and types of startups this applies to. Good info though just something to think about.
Advice is good, I don't want to seem like I'm critical of the post or anything, I just thought it's worth pointing out the differences in goals of the folks who tend to give the most popular startup advice from your specific situation.
That difference might help explain why there might be a perceived gap in what's here vs. what's on pg's blog, for example.
Don't change what you're doing based on blog posts like this. Better yet, don't ever read blog posts like this.
There is a cancer in the startup community and it's advice like this. Very detailed and specific advice by people with absolutely no track record, no real experience outside of "the community" and with an inflated sense of self.
Blanket statements and declarations from people who aren't even close to qualified to make them are becoming way too common.
It seems the author might do better framing this as "don't design first" (which would also be a significantly less baiting headline). While it's certainly not how I would build a startup, if it works for some, I won't argue against evidence.
But most of the post is spent venting against a perceived popular bias in favor of visual designers over "real value creators." The problem with that is that everyone who contributes to a product or service can create value—a particular startup may not need design early on, or it may not need developers early on, but it depends on the market it's tackling. The wrong omissions can spell disaster; the right omissions can spell success.
The issue is not that you shared your experience but it is that you provided no real insight or value into how to get a job at a start up. This article is just platitudes referencing your anecdotal experience.
If you're going to post your personal blog, here are some examples of decent posts:
What do they have that your post doesn't? Depth. They bring a topic up and have insightful perspectives on that topic. If your goal is to write compelling or informative articles about getting a job at a start up then you could speak with founders/engineers about what they're looking for in a new hire, etc.
I'm sorry if you take it personally, I'm just giving you honest feedback.
Well the argument of the post is that a well thought out technical career should necessarily land a person at a Startup early in their career. Given this position that the post is taking, adding "startup specific advice" to the title would conflict with the premise of the article.
Now, said premise may very well be entirely wrong (I think the optimal career for most people is to be a lifer at Google), but isn't that what the comments here are for?
What's the context within which this makes sense? Can you imagine a context within which it doesn't make sense? Would you advise Tim Ferris, 37Signals, Seth Godin, Andrew Warner, Paul Graham, Derek Sivers or Fred Wilson to stop writing "startup advice"?
Your advice above is a great example of terrible startup advice. You're over-generalising from your personal situation and experience, you're not including any context, you're being too brief to be convincing, and you're presenting this advice as a one-line comment in an online forum, which gives it little credibility.
That's good advice. In fact, this HN discussion has a "ridiculous" (in a good sense) amount of good advice.
The only problem is it's a lot easier to post, comment, kibitz, criticize than to actually do. It's nice to read the good advice here, but at the end of the day it's still necessary to do something useful in a startup. This isn't a criticism of your post, it's a general observation.
> When writing a startup article, be very careful not to extrapolate from one experience that happened to you to a general rule for startup. "X startup mistakes" or "Y startup tips" are basically collections of generalisations based on personal experiences. Some of your points may even be correct by sheer luck, but the short-form nature of a list of tips means that even those don't have the necessary context to be really useful.
Please pick each of your points in this blog post, and give it its own article, and provide the context within which it applies, and how to action it effectively. Then you'll have a great series of articles that make a difference...
Protip: if you're a founder or aspiring to start a company that may one day employ others, try not to write blog posts that question why anyone would ever work for you.
I actually think this illustrates the main problem with all these opinion pieces: They depend heavily on the authors experience.
I only work in startups where I feel people expect me to know the business needs, I wouldn't want to work at a place where somebody 'breaks down' the business needs in small packages which need no knowledge about the business needs to implement. I think 'the good' startups realize that this old pattern doesn't work if you try to be innovative and agile.
"Not every startup should"... complete that sentence with almost anything and it will be true.
Rather than a bunch of articles on different topics, I hope we can just agree that there isn't one rule fits all or we would all follow that rule and be successful.
It's exactly why you can't just copy how someone else does things and hope to get the same result.
It's not a blanket generalization, I think that's the misunderstanding here. I should clarify that my advice is targeted at early stage startup founders. I don't think it applies to small businesses or lifestyle businesses. I don't think it applies in your case because you weren't working on an early stage startup.
I've always had more of an interest in patterns at startups, particularly early stage. I wrote a book on this because of my interest, and the founders echoed the same sentiment with the pattern of competitors wanting to acqui-hire by talking early on. More info on my profile if you're interested.
These read rather like a horoscope, mainly vague or tautological statements. I'd prefer a blog post of the same length that explores just one of these ideas.
You could make a list of 50 short statements that contradict all of these:
1. Take the time to research your idea and its potential market, customers and profitability before jumping into code.
2. Knowing the basics is not enough, someone on your team is going to have to actually do the work, and they need to have a deep understanding of what's involved. Everyone can learn, and startups are a great place to learn, but you need to have a solid foundation.
3. Your technology stack will be critical to your future success. Don't skimp on this decision, research it well and don't be afraid to learn new techniques.
These are just examples, they're not necessarily any more or less true than the OP. The point is without even anecdotal evidence, they're not much help.
Number 35 has an amusing sentence: "A happy and motivated team is dangerous." :P
It might be a good idea in your blog posts to not write them as so absolute and more circumspect (for some of the points) since the devil is in the details for most things like this. And it's hard to cover all bases with the appropriate caveats in a short blog post.
Statements like this clearly indicate what has worked for you and are good "One thing that has always worked really well for me is to hire a freelance designer and developer to build the first version of the product." (helpful) while a statement like this is to absolute "I’d recommend your first employee should be a designer with strong frontend dev skills. Do not hire a customer support person." in part because there is no caveat as to which cases and types of startups this applies to. Good info though just something to think about.
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