Had a great birthday party for Lucy this weekend at the skating rink downtown.
The Future of Broadcast TV’s Unsteady as Cable Strengthens - NYTimes.com
Came across this article, which is about how Broadcast TV—CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX—is really struggling, while Cable TV channels are doing well.
It strikes me as an indication of how much the media industry operates on entrenched deal structures and not much at all on real value delivery to end users. Why do I say so? Because when consumers pay their $50 per month to the Cable Co., do they have any idea that Bravo is getting a piece of that and ABC is not? Nope.
So if I were a cable channel, I would not take comfort. Consumers indeed have made a habit of paying $50 a month for cable, but there value proposition for the consumer is a poor one. In time, technology will provide alternatives to consumers, and the cable model will unravel. Cable channels would do well to focus now on a compelling value proposition to consumers rather than simply cling to their distribution deals.
What Start Ups Are Really Like
Came across a great post from Paul Graham, the operator of Y Combinator. He asked all of the founders of start-ups he’d funded to write to him about what they were most surprised about in their start-up experience, and he complied them in to a fascinating—and very accurate in my opinion—look into the start-up experience.
Here are my favorite excerpts:
3. It’s an Emotional Roller-coaster
This was another one lots of people were surprised about. The ups and downs were more extreme than they were prepared for.
In a startup, things seem great one moment and hopeless the next. And by next, I mean a couple hours later.
The emotional ups and downs were the biggest surprise for me. One day, we’d think of ourselves as the next Google and dream of buying islands; the next, we’d be pondering how to let our loved ones know of our utter failure; and on and on.
Your most basic advice to founders is “just don’t die,” but the energy to keep a company going in lieu of unburdening success isn’t free; it is siphoned from the founders themselves.
***
5. Persistence Is the Key
A lot of founders were surprised how important persistence was in startups. It was both a negative and a positive surprise: they were surprised both by the degree of persistence required
Everyone said how determined and resilient you must be, but going through it made me realize that the determination required was still understated.
Several founders mentioned specifically how much more important persistence was than intelligence.
I’ve been surprised again and again by just how much more important persistence is than raw intelligence.
***
6. Think Long-Term
You need persistence because everything takes longer than you expect. A lot of people were surprised by that.
I’m continually surprised by how long everything can take. Assuming your product doesn’t experience the explosive growth that very few products do, everything from development to dealmaking (especially dealmaking) seems to take 2-3x longer than I always imagine.
One reason founders are surprised is that because they work fast, they expect everyone else to. There’s a shocking amount of shear stress at every point where a startup touches a more bureaucratic organization, like a big company or a VC fund. That’s why fundraising and the enterprise market kill and maim so many startups. [2]
Maybe they’ll listen to one of the more successful founders:
The top thing I didn’t understand before going into it is that persistence is the name of the game. For the vast majority of startups that become successful, it’s going to be a really long journey, at least 3 years and probably 5+.
There is a positive side to thinking longer-term. It’s not just that you have to resign yourself to everything taking longer than it should. If you work patiently it’s less stressful, and you can do better work:
Because we’re relaxed, it’s so much easier to have fun doing what we do. Gone is the awkward nervous energy fueled by the desperate need to not fail guiding our actions. We can concentrate on doing what’s best for our company, product, employees and customers.
***
7. Lots of Little Things
We often emphasize how rarely startups win simply because they hit on some magic idea. I think founders have now gotten that into their heads. But a lot were surprised to find this also applies within startups. You have to do lots of different things:
It’s much more of a grind than glamorous. A timeslice selected at random would more likely find me tracking down a weird DLL loading bug on Swedish Windows, or tracking down a bug in the financial model Excel spreadsheet the night before a board meeting, rather than having brilliant flashes of strategic insight.
I learnt never to bet on any one feature or deal or anything to bring you success. It is never a single thing. Everything is just incremental and you just have to keep doing lots of those things until you strike something.
There is no such thing as a killer feature. Or at least you won’t know what it is.
***
9. Engage Users
Product development is a conversation with the user that doesn’t really start till you launch. Before you launch, you’re like a police artist before he’s shown the first version of his sketch to the witness.
***
10. Change Your Idea
To benefit from engaging with users you have to be willing to change your idea. We’ve always encouraged founders to see a startup idea as a hypothesis rather than a blueprint. And yet they’re still surprised how well it works to change the idea.
***
15. You May Have to Play Games
Because investors are so bad at judging you, you have to work harder than you should at selling yourself. One founder said the thing that surprised him most was
The degree to which feigning certitude impressed investors.
A lot of what startup founders do is just posturing. It works.
***
16. Luck Is a Big Factor
Actually the best model would be to say that the outcome is the product of skill, determination, and luck. No matter how much skill and determination you have, if you roll a zero for luck, the outcome is zero.
These quotes about luck are not from founders whose startups failed. Founders who fail quickly tend to blame themselves. Founders who succeed quickly don’t usually realize how lucky they were. It’s the ones in the middle who see how important luck is.
***
The Super-Pattern
There were a few other patterns, but these were the biggest. One’s first thought when looking at them all is to ask if there’s a super-pattern, a pattern to the patterns.
When I look at the responses, the common theme is that starting a startup was like I said, but way more so. People just don’t seem to get how different it is till they do it. Why? The key to that mystery is to ask, how different from what? Once you phrase it that way, the answer is obvious: from a job. Everyone’s model of work is a job.
[Considering it relative to a job] explains why the ups and downs are surprisingly extreme. In a job there is much more damping. But it also explains why the good times are surprisingly good: most people can’t imagine such freedom. As you go down the list, almost all the surprises are surprising in how much a startup differs from a job.
You probably can’t overcome anything so pervasive as the model of work you grew up with. So the best solution is to be consciously aware of that.
The Last Picture Show
author: Larry McMurtry
name: toby
average rating: 3.86
book published: 1966
rating: 4
read at: 2009/11/19
date added: 2009/11/19
shelves:
review:
reminds me of springsteen in its…
Morgan's Run
author: Colleen McCullough
name: toby
average rating: 3.76
book published: 2000
rating: 4
read at: 2009/11/06
date added: 2009/11/19
shelves:
review:
"My sister’s status update today:
10 years ago today Caine and I got married in a Burnsville courthouse while chewing gum and holding baby Hannah……would do it all again. I loved that. Just had to share it because I think it’s such a great reminder that sometimes the unexpected challenges in life turn out to be the greatest blessings."
Did our first winter hike today at Bear Peak. At 7 miles, 3,000 vertical feet and 30 degree under a light snow, it was a great release after a week of airplanes and office buildings. It was also my first time using YakTrax—basically chains for your boots—which were invaluable in the snow.
Boston to San Fran
Typically you’d think this a miserable flight, but as the image above shows, being on Virgin and enjoying free wifi, it can be both productive and enjoyable. Thanks Google.
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
Kita and I watched Away We Go last night. It’s the story of a couple whose first pregnancy provokes them to realize that “real life” is starting and that they want to find the right place for their family and for the rest of their lives. They embark upon a trip to Arizona, Madison, WI, Montreal and Miami visiting friends and family looking to figure it out. It’s both funny and explores well the question of place and community in America which is an issue dear to me. I loved it and highly recommend it.
It is directed by Sam Mendes, written by the husband-and-wife team of Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, and stars John Krasinski (The Office), Maya Rudolph (SNL). The soundtrack fantastic and is 80% by Alexi Murdoch, who was a classmate of mine in college. We were both English majors and had lots of classes together. His cowboy boots, Scotish accent, earnings were bohemian and mysterious back then, but I see now how it was all meant to be as he’s a great artist very reminicnet of Nick Drake. Here’s “All My Days” from the soundtrack.
