Slashdot Mirror
Ten Geek Business Myths
hpcanswers writes "Venture capitalist Ron Garret has posted a list of eleven (despite the title) common mistakes entrepreneurs with a technology background make. A common theme is that good ideas sell; in reality, what a customer wants sells. By extension, having a Ph.D. and holding a patent are not particularly helpful if the intended end-user does not have the same level of understanding of the widget as the creator does."
The biggest Geek Business Myth they left out: 1. Collect underpants. 2. ??? 3. Profit! Well, it's covered by Myths #1, 2, 4, 8, and 9, I suppose.
In case of a /.ing
Myth #1: A brilliant idea will make you rich.
Myth #2: If you build it they will come.
Myth #3: Someone will steal your idea if you don't protect it.
Myth #4: What you think matters.
Myth #5: Financial models are bogus.
Myth #6: What you know matters more than who you know.
Myth #7: A Ph.D. means something.
Myth #7: I need $5 million to start my business
Myth #8: The idea is the most important part of my business plan.
Myth #9: Having no competition is a good thing.
Myth #10: After the IPO I'll be happy.
wouldn't that make knowing what customers want a good idea?
...use soap, water, and deodorant liberally.
You can let yourself slide back in to the "code daily, shower monthly" schedule after that seven-figure VC check is in the bank, k?
Slashdot? Oh, I just read it for the articles.
Myth #7: A Ph.D. means something.
Reality: The only thing a Ph.D. means is that you're not a moron, and you're willing to put up with the bullshit it takes to slog your way through a Ph.D. program somewhere.
I agree with the second part of this statement, but take issue with the first. I deal with PhDs all day, every day. Many of them are indeed morons who happen to have a great depth of knowledge in one miniscule area. After several years of doing this job, I've concluded that the only thing a PhD proves is that you were able to devote several years to a PhD program.
This guy's the limit!
It's ironic. The two things that make engineers so good at engineering are the two things that make them so unsuited to running a business.
Hubris is a trait of engineers that makes them strive for greatness in their products. After all, you can't really have good pride if you're constantly getting negative reactions to your stuff. However, it also leads to a close-mindedness and tunnel-vision in regards to other technologies and solutions. A good businessman must be able to survey the market and understand the positioning of his product. Someone who thinks that they have such a great solution that it is applicable to any and all problem domains is selling snake oil. See Netscape and Sun's Java for two examples of solutions that were billed as much more than they realistically were.
Laziness is a good trait for engineers because it forces them to seek efficient, easily-implementable solutions to everyday problems. Automating tasks is absolutely essential to creating value in a company. However, the business side of running a business is not reduceable to a script. There are serious tradeoffs that must be weighed all the time in order to guide a business down the road to success. These can't be automated. The laziness trait leads engineers to seek easy solutions when they should be seeking difficult-to-find synergies. Well-designed software is modular with simple interfaces. Well-run businesses are well-integrated and derive their strength from business units coordinating with each other, not simply acting as a pipeline from one end to another.
I personally feel that a key reason that a PhD may struggle in the industry is miscommunication between him/herself and the real world.
Given the technical capability and the dedication, a PhD with certain sales/marketing knowledge could take off quickly.
^(oo)^pig~
Blogs are a good source of business advice
siener's youtube channel
Myth #1: A brilliant idea will make you rich
:P
No a brilliant idea will make some other company rich because a single person doesn't have the capacity to make a full item. I've had many ideas that made other people rich in my life. I never run out of them. But I still live in the boonies
God spoke to me.
IOW, one for each year that they have existed. As it is, I doubt that you could come up with 5 that others do not point to and show that it came from elsewhere.
Besides, the guy is giving MS a compliment (backhanded, but still a compliment).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
VC's are intellegent/educated.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
to sum it up, most geeks are out of touch with the common user...
I am really attempting to act suprised.
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
In case of a /.ing
I think the site will be fine: it's hosted by Google's BlogSpot, which uses static pages and doesn't crumble under pressure.
I think that there are more than a few cases where all it took was a good idea for someone to make a ton of money.
Just don't count on it paying for retirement..
What did you eat today? http://www.atetoday.com/
He said that Bill G. was a pretty smart guy, but he really had nothing nice to say about MS, aside from the fact that they're a terrifically successful company. Unless you're an evil genius, and you take the phrase "achieved success largely by seeking out and destroying other people's brilliant ideas" as a compliment.
Just junk food for thought...
Of course, they did. Their brilliant idea was to take others' brilliant ideas, copy them, and kill off the original guy. Brilliant idea if you ask me!
He should take a look at a company called Microsoft. Creating a no-competition environment seems to have worked out well for them.
Two words: iPod and iTunes
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
So we have a PhD who still thinks LISP is the best thing since sliced bread and has experiance building networking hardware that was fast, but not compatable with Ethernet. Sounds like a real academic to me. He does have a good point in "make sure customers for your product exist before you start your company", but overall the article reads like a bit of venting steam from an academic that tried to make a go of it in the "real world" and discovered just how different life is on the outside.
I read the internet for the articles.
I'd pay big bucks to be able to live in the boonies.
Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and... Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten? Nigel Tufnel: Exactly. Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder? Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where? Marty DiBergi: I don't know. Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do? Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven. Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder. Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder? Nigel Tufnel: [pause, blank look and snapping chewing gum] These go to eleven.
- Bundle your OS part with the purchase of any PC compatible machine, not just the hardware we built.
- Only license your core apps (Office, SQL Server) on non-threatening operating systems to prevent switching.
- Bundle TCP/IP connectivity with the OS.
- Bundle a web browser with the OS.
- Make LDAP accessible to mere mortals (AD).
(Of course, these five are also reasons why some people hate Microsoft.) If his target audience is techies (who value "innovation"), then it's not a compliment - period."12) Hot grits..."
in light of this comment on the linked article's page:
(throwing away my fresh mod points on this enlightening article's comments)
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" - Patrick Henry
'x' won't make you rich, your customers will.. Decent nailing of a few good points people tend to forget.
Somebody is getting distracted
But I wish I knew this 6 years ago
- Sales team. The first person you'll ever need is the VP for sales. Then you'll need a good, experienced sales team. No matter how expensive they are, these people will make or break a business. I ended up leaving my job and joining a startup precisely for this reason.
- Time frame and financial needs. One thing all startups underestimate is the need for quality assurance. Generally, testing for defects takes more time than assembling a product. Thus, the time to market should be at least tripled and the cost doubled from what you expect.
- Intellectual property. True, patent protection is overrated. However, there are thousands of inventors and companies waiting to sue your ass off if you infringe on their patents. More important than filing your patent is to research whether you infringe on others' patents or not, and settle any licensing issues. This will get very costly, and in this case getting good lawyers is worth their weight in gold. We pay roughly $5000 per patent examined, but they decreased the number of patents we thought we would license from 40 to 2.
- Company share. Many inventors don't want to relinquish control over the company, and want to maintain a majority stake at any cost. Most investors wouldn't agree with that, with a good reason - a researcher running a company is recipe for disaster. And as the classic saying goes, it's better to have 5% of $100 million than 100% of nothing.
- IP ownership. I talked about infringing on others' IP already, but what about the inventor's IP? The inventor must transfer all the rights to the invention to the company. Otherwise, the inventor will exercise undue influence over the business, and sooner or later (rather sooner) this will create conflicts between the inventor and the management.
There are plenty more rules of the game, but this game is too flexible to make any of them universal. The best thing is to give over your technology to a seasoned entrepreneur and just ride along.It is not going out and destroying other's ideas. It is going out and taking others ideas. PC DOS was bought for a few beads. Micorosft stole the Windows interface from Apple after Apple stole it from Xerox. Micorsoft stole the Stac compression modules for DOS 6, then sued them and ended up paying Stac a bunch of money.
Fight Spammers!
But he just reiterates what I've read in many other places (although he puts a different spin on it).
I've read that you are essentially protected, as an inventor, by the act of inventing. You have created the work on which other things may try to be based, but you are protected by virtue of the fact that you first created it. The patent puts some extra teeth into the matter, but most of it is completed by the creation itself.
I've never quite heard it reasoned, however, in the way the author did.
It's also refreshing to read this from a business perspective instead of from the perspective of "Inventors - pay us money to patent your ideas, and then you'll be rich (if you can find a way to do something with your idea)."
Take it to the limit, everybody to the limit, come on, everybody fhqwhgads.
This whole article smacks of one critical difference between entrepreneurs with an idea and business majors.
Entrepreneurs with an idea think that money exists as a tool to bring ideas to realization, and they want their idea realized. The money to them is rather irrelevant if it's just doing the same old shit.
Business majors think that ideas exist as ways to make money, and they want their money. The realization of the idea is rather irrelevant to them if it's not the best way to make money.
At the end of the day, both can be opportunities for each other, but neither needs the other.
A brilliant idea can make a business major rich and powerful, but they can still get rich with the same old capitalist tactics they're familiar with and nary a novel idea in sight.
On the other hand, a lot of money can motivate people to support your idea and get it out into circulation, but there are other ways to motivate people than money. For an example of this, look at RMS.
It's my opinion that the best way for an individual to get their idea out there is to not only discard the existing business models, but to create models where other parties particpation is rewarding in and of itself, rather than some distasteful task they are being bribed into completing. If you can do that, it will scale globally and you don't need a dime to pay them. If you can't, you'll probably get crushed by the existing players with WAY more money than you and either be destroyed or absorbed.
Unless you're an existing player with tons of money, of course. Then you can bribe people to get behind whatever silly idea comes into your head.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Sucess in school is merit based. It's not like that in real life. If anything, success in kindergarten is a better predictor of sucess in post school life, before they brainwashed you with all that merit based nonsense.
doesn't matter, what they do have is money. also, they'll want 80% or more of the action in return for their money: they will own your butt.
So true. At my previous employer we spent years waiting for the competition to blow us away, because our product sucked and we treated our customers like shit. But the customers didn't have any place to go, because every vendor in the market sucked.
Gads, where's the coffee machine?
I like LISP (Scheme actually, don't know full LISP yet), but is it really so good? I even borrowed Paul Grahams book from the library recently, but only flipped through it. I simply have my doubts about the syntax: is it really OK for productivity? It looks kind of ugly and verbose.
I like some of the language features, but I am not convinced enough to switch.
Any experiences out there?
Heh... am I the only one that finds it deliciously ironic that a venture capitalist is advising brilliant phds with good ideas that they needn't worry about other people stealing their ideas and shouldn't protect them?
Kind of like a wolf telling you that you don't need to worry about fencing in your sheep.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Someone explain the dept tag? Who or what is "Kari"?
Media that can be recorded and distributed can be recorded and distributed.
-kfg
The problem with knowing what customers want is that more than likely everyone else knows what they want also. You are garenteed that everyone is going to want your product but you will end up with a lot of competition. The other side of the spectrum is that you end up developing a highly innovative product where there is no competition. The problem with that methodology is that if you do in fact go that route there will be no competition but little certainty in how much sales you would make.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Well... I don't see you with a Fungineer degree!
"Don't Forget to Salt the Fries"
Microsoft is probably the canonical example of a successful business, and it has never had a single brilliant idea in its entire history.
False. Microsoft bought many of the most intelligent technicians in the world from its competitors, and some of them had brilliant ideas while working for Microsoft. How Microsoft used those ideas may not have been so brilliant, but they were there.
And if they don't have any brains then it doesn't matter what they do.
What a contradiction! He spent the whole article blasting away at variants of the myth that smarts will make you rich, and then goes and says something like this. The fact is that many people without brains can wind up very rich and in control of armies of lawyers, and they can harm you.
One of the ironies of the programming world is that using Lisp is vastly more productive than using pretty much any other programming language.
Sounds like religion to me. I have worked with Lisp, and I have not found this to be true. In my experience, different languages are often better suited for different tasks, and those who believe that one language is optimized for everything just have a biased view based on their own preferences.
A C programmer, by contrast, can't do anything useful except as a member of a team.
More religion. It depends on what you are trying to do and how good you are with C, of course, but situations do occur, in the real world, where one programmer can do something useful with C.
and no one will give you the money to hire someone to do it for you
Uh, well, maybe it is unlikely, but there are VC's out there and sometimes they do make investments in a new idea.
Meh. That's all I feel like saying for now. I agree with the overall theme of what he said, but some of these bits are far too ill-founded to go unchallenged.
When the linux community finally understands that (too many) choices are bad (and that automated everything isn't evil), linux on the desktop will be a real viable alternative. In the meantime, OS X is the only real-world alternative to Windows.
It's amazing the extent to which too much choice can be not only frustrating, but paralysing for some people.
My Mom actually hates going to Baskin Robin's ice cream, because there are 31 flavours, and she hates having to make decisions. She's repeatedly stated that she prefers going to places where the only choice she has to make is chocolate vs. vanilla.
To the common man, too much choice can be worse than not enough.
I did a lot of Lisp back in school. I've never used it in real life, though. Here's the thing: most programming algorithms boil down to performing some operation over a list of objects. Languages that facilitate this process while alleviating you of housekeeping tend to be very productive. But if the syntax is too unconventional, no one will use it. So you need a language with built-in lists, easy iteration and mappable functions, and a conventional syntax that is easy to learn. Also, it should have lots of good libraries and be "correct" in a certain academic way, so there are no surprises and everything is explicit.
In other words, learn Python.
I like LISP (Scheme actually, don't know full LISP yet), but is it really so good? I even borrowed Paul Grahams book from the library recently, but only flipped through it. I simply have my doubts about the syntax: is it really OK for productivity? It looks kind of ugly and verbose.
Syntax is not the reason to avoid Lisp.
The biggest reason to think twice about using Lisp is library support. Do stuff in Python or Ruby (or even Perl) that uses regular expressions, ftp and email, date conversions, reading from zipped files, Unicode, MD5 checksums, MIME handling, and so on. Then do the same in Lisp using an out-of-the-box implementation that runs on all platforms. Just try it yourself.
No, they will own everything your butt produces.
t
As someone else said, entrepreneurs have different goals than venture capitalists.
Build something or sell a service you like. Don't base the product on *just* you and your buddies, but if you do no like what you are making or providing, you'll hate yourself. Feeling good about yourself and having someplace worth going to every morning is worth much more than getting rich from an IPO. There will be plenty of opportunities to do something you don't like even when making a product you love. One of the best things about having your own business is that you can walk away. It may take food off your table, but you have the *choice*.
Doing something you like just plain sells better, too. Customers know when you are really excited about your product, and they know when you are just handing them a line. The worst sales job is selling something you don't care about, or worse, that you actively hate, to people you do not respect. Respect your customers, find out about *their* needs, but, at the end of the day, deliver something you care about or walk away. I never made it rich as an entrepreneur, but I would do it again in a heartbeat.
I don't have a lot of LISP experience, but it looks like once you grok the LISP nature, it's an incredible environment. You can write new language primitives (no more complaining "Well, when I used to program in $LANG, we had the $FOO feature" -- you write an implementation of $FOO and use it just like it was part of the language). It's also easy to write complete mini-languages (or maybe I should say "extension languages"), so you can create a domain-specific language, then write all your code in that language. Kind of like writing numerical analysis programs using Mathematica instead of FORTRAN. It also seems to lend itself to "bottom up" development, making it easy to write (and test) small routines, then use those routines to build more powerful ones.
I've been meaning to get a handle on LISP for a long time now, just wish I had the free time to do so (I've got Paul Graham's book, as well as SICP).
Just junk food for thought...
Myth #1: A brilliant idea will make you rich.
Myth #2: If you build it they will come.
Myth #3: Someone will steal your idea if you don't protect it.
Myth #4: What you think matters.
Myth #6: What you know matters more than who you know.
Myth #7: A Ph.D. means something.
Myth #8: The idea is the most important part of my business plan.
These myths pretty much sum up many of the misconceptions I think my previous boss had. That said, these are only part of the reason I got a new job, although the other reasons are largely related to paranoia surrounding rule #3, combined with arrogance from rules 4, 7, and 8. Posting Anonymously to protect my former co-workers, as I know both they and the boss read Slashdot.
Having ideas doesn't mean you should get paid . It's just a matter of choice , if you want to be rich you get financial education , if you want to develop or research , you study something else . Studying engineering while dreaming of becoming rich is as silly as studying psychology to become a chef . It's not like engineering is easier to study or practice , it's just a matter of personal preference .
My Starcraft 2 Blog
If I wanted links to blogs pretending to be news articles, I'd be at digg.
I think most of these myths are right on the money. It has always amazed me, for example, how many people have foolishly thought that a mere [untested, undeployed] idea could be relatively valuable. And I've often felt that patents are like viagra for investors... ultimately they may be unenforcable, but if you can attract some dumbass investor on the premise that you own "intellectual property" you can cash in.
Most of the dot com failures can be directly attributed to people beliving many of these myths. Priceline.com was one of those companies that I immediately thought, "WTF?" and they're a good example of believing in all of those boneheaded myths.
I particularly like Myth #6: What you know matters more than who you know. I'd add as a footnote to that: "See Bush, George W."
Why use libraries if you have unix tools?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signaling_(economics)
Deleted
In bussiness, all rules and ideas have exceptions, all of them!
Humans are contradictory in nature, hence bussiness too.
It reminds me of a quote from the Simposons.
Judge: Lisa Simpson, for lying under oath I sentence you to life in exile in Monster Island.
(Judge whispers)don't worry the existence of Monster Island is a myth.
-Lisa running away from Godzilla and Mothra through the Jungle -
Lisa: I though that Monster Island was a myth!
Person running away: Actually Monster Island is a peninsula!
The only myth is that in a world were people live in extreme poverty
a profit driven society is morally acceptable.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
which means whatever works ex post facto. Meritocracy is by definition is an a priori definition of sucess. You can predict and plan for that. In today's environment success is considered a predictor of subsequent success despite all the disclaimers of past performance being no predictor or future performance. Just look at all the dot com millionaires who've been successful in their second ventures. Not a lot of them, are there? TFA is probably right, it's not what you know but who you know that matters more (myth #6). That's why the top schools are important. They built your personal network. Most Harvard grads probably don't learn more than the average community college graduate.
"Venture capitalist Ron Garret has posted a list of eleven (despite the title) common mistakes entrepreneurs with a technology background make."
There are 10 types of people in the world. But ten of them think base-eleven is ridiculous.
Copying or stealing is NOT innovative.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Or they'll do both. They'll sell what doesn't exist in order to get the business going, and the development team will have to try and keep up. You will succeed, as long as the development team can do this. But you will reach a point where you grow a little bit too quickly, and sales starts to promise too much. The development team flounders, and mistakes start happening. Sales is able to sign bigger and bigger deals with bigger clients. But the expectation for development is that "they have always been able to pull it out in the past". Burnout ensues. This is where the execs will sell off the company and make out like bandits.
# Time frame and financial needs. One thing all startups underestimate is the need for quality assurance. Generally, testing for defects takes more time than assembling a product. Thus, the time to market should be at least tripled and the cost doubled from what you expect.
What? Did I just read that? Holy crap. I want to come work for you. I have been doing QA and testing for 13 years. Finally someone who gets it. Did you read my statments to the first point? QA and testing wasn't even considered an afterthought at one startup I was at. Not only did the execs not understand what it was or what it was for, they wouldn't listen to the people who did know. If your executives don't get it, and are only there to pump and dump a company, your best bet is to GET OUT. They will promise you anything, and deliver nothing.
Yes, I am bitter. But I am much happier since I got out of that environment. There is a reason that startups fail - because they end up being about someone somewhere in the company focusing on getting rich instead of building a company.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
What's that got to do with anything?
That's why they fund you.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
It was (and is) designed to take revenue from a partner. And it works great when you are a monopoly (legal or not). If you lose the monopoly, then pissing on your partners will kill you.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The author was indeed responsible for this comparison between Lisp and Java which will be in line with your "real academic/Lisp-lover" crack.
Please note that he was also responsible for this paper describing a Lisp-based system that successfully flew a NASA spacecraft. He knows exactly how difficult it is to make things work from an engineering standpoint.
In terms of writing software that deals with real-world problems, Ron Garret is a lot closer to the Paul Graham end of the spectrum than he is to the pointy-headed academic end.
To a Lisp hacker, XML is S-expressions in drag.
A common theme is that good ideas sell; in reality, what a customer wants sells.
/. egghead and his capacitors overheat.
Try telling this to your typical
I can't even count how many times have I been modded down for saying this sort of thing, but now this dude is a hero for saying it.
But this dude is a hero for saying this, because he is against patents? Pffff, you guys are less consistent than Irish weather.
Yes, he was a bricks and mortar type guy, but in reality you still want competition. For instance, if you have an idea for a better search engine than Google wouldn't you be glad that Google already exists and has proven the idea to the world? I mean, if I had an idea for a better search engine, I imagine it would be very easy to attract VCs who missed out on Google by telling them I had a better engine and needed money. Assuming I could actually demonstrate the superiority of my software, I imagine I could get a LOT OF MONEY really quickly because Google already exists and has proven the concept. :)
We have always been at war with Eurasia!
its funny b/c the ability to make choices is very important in getting the best. sad that poeple are too stupid/lazy to be able to do so effectively.
Someday I look forward to a day when not everything you read has to be political. Forget about which side is being picked on here, it is an article about geek myths! Why the Republican bash?
Oh yea, /. requires all articles to have a bach against Republicans or (even better) George Bush.
Just remember - if the world didn't suck, we would all fall off.
By extension, having a Ph.D. and holding a patent are not particularly helpful if the intended end-user does not have the same level of understanding of the widget as the creator does."
Somehow this lends itself to explain some of the legitimate criticisms of Google. Having it explain Google's doubt for the Midwest outside the occasional visit to a convention would be a bit of a stretch.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
1. Not MS's idea, IBM approached them to make an OS. Since they were purely a software company, obviously they also let clone makers bundle their OS when the clones came along.
2. Kinda like every software company that made an OS and apps? Did you honestly see any unix vendors selling their apps for competing unixes?
3. Bundle TCP/IP with the OS? Are you fucking shitting me? This was normal practice until DOS came along. This was just MS being stupid and not including TCP/IP until 15 years after the rest of the world.
4. Also not new, IBM shipped a web browser with warp 3 before MS figured out that the internet mattered.
5. Ldap is very much accessible, and was already wildly popular (see novell). Active Directory makes ldap far more complicated that it really is, and a horrible pain to administer. How stupid do you have to be to think making an existing, well established technology that your competition has used for years into a hard to use pile of shit is a brilliant idea?
What exactly do you find "verbose" about Lisp? I find it makes for extremely succint code that's modeled closely after the concepts of the problem domain, myself. If I can understand the problem domain well, typically the most understandable program I can write will be in Lisp, because it will get in my way far less than any other language.
Are you adequate?
Smug lisp weenies have been reduced to "lisp has powerful macros!", since perl, python, ruby, pike, etc all have all the other functionality of lisp that slws used to brag about in the 1970's. Many people consider slws to be just outright wrong though, and that the idea of dynamic languages is not actually good. Try ocaml or haskell, and then notice how not only can you write code faster than you can in lisp, but its an order of magnitude easier to maintain.
I think this entrepreneur might disagree with that statement.
Your fantasies contain the seeds of important concepts.
Which part of "Patent protection does serve one useful purpose: it can make investors feel warm and fuzzy, especially naive investors." is hard for you to grasp? Nobody gives a rats ass about wether or not their bogus startup patents will do well in litigation, or in negotiations for licensing. They exist solely to make stupid investors feel good about you, so they will give you money. I know my patents are bullshit, wasting more money on having them filed by a professional crook will not change that. I just need to say "look, we have 12 patents" to the stupid investors so they think we are special and give us money.
AMEN
What else need be said?
I have to agree. Vulture capitalists can be the worst offenders when it comes to stealing ideas. They will never agree to any kind of NDA, and if they like what you present, but not your team, they'll sometimes go build a team on their own to pursue your idea. Of course, if they really do hate your team, you probably will fail anyway.
Those were all really good points in the article. I've personally stumbled into most of those traps (being the prototypical geek). Just for fun, I'll list some of my mistakes that correspond to his points:
#1 - A brilliant idea will make you rich.
In 1991, I started DataDraw as a company on the side that would sell software to make teams of programmers more productive. It's a great idea, with huge potential to benefit the whole planet. All it requires is that all those programmers out there understand how they can be more productive, care, and then take action to change. The harsh reality: they don't figure it out (go read datadraw.sf.net if you think you're really smart); they don't care (it's all just money after all); they don't like to change (show me your computer language of choice, and I'll guess your age within 5 years).
#2 - If you build it they will come.
Err... see #1. The next company I started also suffered from this problem. A friend and I started OpenASIC to solve the terrible communication problems between EDA tools. I wrote a very complex and fairly complete LPM module generator, simulator, and various readers and writers. My problem this time was that I BELIEVED what the customers were saying. Just because every major EDA and FPGA company issued press releases supporting LPM doesn't mean that they actually want anything to do with it (it's basically now an Altera specific format). Learning the difference between what a customer will buy, and what he says he will buy is key.
#3 - Someone will steal your idea if you don't protect it
I've had ideas stolen by professors and managers, and I've been stiffed by clients who decided not to pay me after they learned all they needed. The underhanded BS that happens in startups is unreal. Stop worrying about protecting your ideas, and worry about the guy who's gonna try and steal you blind.
#4 - What you think matters
I agree and disagree with this point. Many geeks imagine that if they like something, then so will customers. That's just plain wrong. However, if you actually listen to the customers, and go build what they ask for, you're sure to go broke. You have to be like Steve Jobs, and figure out that people want to pay more for a music player (not less), and that looking cool, and being bone-head easy (so dummies can use it) is what counts. You wont get average customers describing themselves as vain and stupid, but you'd better understand that most people are!
I started a company in 1996 called FPGA Technologies, with the purpose of creating embedded FPGA IP for SoC applications. I listened to all the SoC guys complaining about rising tooling costs, and heard their very enthusiastic response to my proposed FPGA cores. So, I went and built it... and got out when I realized that the customers were wrong. FPGA cores are waaaay to big to make sense in SoC applications. Stupid vulture capitalists keep on funding these poor doomed startups that want to do the FPGA IP thing. It makes a great elevator pitch, but a lousy product. The latest is M2000, which will most likely go broke when investors get fed up with them.
#8 - I need $5 million to start my business
That's funny coming from a VC, since few VCs will consider investing in a company that needs less than $10M to go public. They often have hundreds of millions of dollars to invest, and they can't waste time tracking every $1M investment.
However, I believe there's a huge opportunity for geeks like us to get semi-rich doing non-VC funded startups. In 2000, I moved to North Carolina, and started ViASIC. We have some angel investors, but no VCs, and our investment to date has been qu
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
It is interesting that you brought it up, but it's true that consumers like having a few things to choose from, but not too many. It reminded me of a recent study that showed that too many choices would hinder a consumer's decision. Similarly, I think that a blinding array of options in an application intimidates the average user. There is no reason not to offer the options, just keep them out of the way for the most part.
I found the 'hidden menu items' feature on MS Office software annoying to the point of distraction, so I always set the option to show full menus. Almost all my co-workers, however, don't seem to mind.
Dark Reflection
Kari is the yummy redhead on Mythbusters.
Complain about the science all you want, slashdotters, I don't care. If Kari is busting the myths, I am so there.
"If you only want to chose between chocolate and vanilla, do so. The other 29 flavours are irrelevant."
...
If you want chocolate you still have to ponder:
World Class® Chocolate
Chocolate Fudge
Chocolate Chocolate Chip
Chocolate Mousse Royale
Peanut Butter 'n Chocolate
Chocolate Almond
Fudge Brownie
Chocolate Chip
Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
Chocolate
I mean doesn't world class chocolate sound better, or chocolate fudge or
If you are careful and pay yourself last, you at least have some leeway to walk away from specific jobs. You can choose to take the hit financially in order to avoid a situation which would compromise either your ethics or standards. It is not a card you can play often, but it is one you do not have as an employee.
Probably yes.
Because if your idea can be "stolen" by anyone, then it's because the idea is so lame anyone can implement it and succeed.
If it's really so brilliant and so smart that it is really worth something on an by itself, then you may be the only one who "gets it" and only you would be able to move it forward.
But if you avoid any investor seeing your idea (no, they won't bother signing NDA's), you'd better be able to pull the trick on your own, because they won't help.
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com
actually supervised a group of people to meet a goal?
you come off as a consultant... not someone who actually gets dirty doing stuff (tm).
That's all I can say. Awesome post, probably more worthwhile than the actual article.
13) I hate people who think society should help them. Why don't they buy an overpriced house and suck out the equity like everyone else?
14) Waaaaaah! House prices are falling! My equity's gone and my credit cards are maxed out! Where's the government to help me?
"if your job is to Manage people who are doing a task, and you put forth an image that shoves your own cultural meme right into their faces, that's confrontational"
Is it professional behaviour for an engineer to distress over a coworker's fashion sense?
To perceive hairs on an engineer's head as "shoving" or "confronting" requires an active imagination.
A busybody who objects to her coworker's hairstyle is probably difficult to work with in other respects as well. I would recommend against hiring such a person.
Ok, I use C++. Guess :).
To do list for Windows
My favorite language is C. Care to venture a guess?
The timing of this is interesting, had this fwd'd to me the other day. Other people figure this out eventually too.
I think we all tend to do this to a degree. Think about conversations with friends over just about anything you pay money for, and most times you'll list a bunch of things you want on something. Then stop and think of how many of those things you really could afford. I think that's where most of it comes from... we think of how the product could be perfect (or as close to it as we can currently think) without considering what it would cost if/when it were done to those specs.
Hell, I'd love to upgrade my home theater to a TV (I already have a 65" Mitsubishi HD TV) that does 1080p (mine does 1080i) and has some HDMI inputs. Plus I'd love a setup with a receiver that does what my current one does, but has at least 5 Component inputs (currently have 2, but with DVD, HD DVR, xbox 360, PS2 likely to be a ps3 in the future, etc.. I had to buy a remote controlled switching component box), and more.. but I don't have the cash for all that.
- My favorite error message: xscreensaver, running on an old Sparc 5 w/ 8bit color: bsod: Couldn't allocate color Blue
Actually, that happened all ready with delicious. The concept was a radical departure from Google or Yahoo because it organized websites based on user tags. There was no competition to delicious because it was mainly driven based on technology. The creater of delicious said," You have to solve a problem that people actually have. But it's not always a problem that they know they have." It's an interesting corrundum because a product can be successful without being a radical departure (Ie Ipod) but if you hit upon a device that techologically radical then you will be rich. Another such example was the Rhoomba. Everyone thought that the Rhoomba was going to be a flop. VC's wouldn't even give them money. Guess what??? You can now buy Rhoomba's in Target.
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
"A common theme is that good ideas sell; in reality, what a customer wants sells."
This is true. Good ideas don't necessarily sell. What a consumer wants, sells. An effective company will either find something that the consumer already really REALLY wants, or more likely convince the consumer that they want the company's product.
It's all marketing. You can sell a good idea or a bad one, or you can go bankrupt on a good idea or a bad one. The product is irrelevant.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
But if you avoid any investor seeing your idea (no, they won't bother signing NDA's), you'd better be able to pull the trick on your own, because they won't help.
:)
Yeah, that's about what I had in mind
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I guess you're 36 +/- 5 years.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
This ties in with something I read about Nintendo Wii, that if they just listened to customers on what to build as the next generation gaming platform, it would have been things like better graphics, etc. We will see if they were right not to listen to their customers.
In theory, theory and practice are the same; in practice they're different. (Yogi Berra & A. Einstein)
I love this sort of challenge. I also used to tell pretty (but not very bright) drunk girls in bars that I could read their auras. I'd tell them that light blue in their energy meant that they had recently healed from some deep emotional scar. The funny thing: I'm color blind.
You're probably about as old as me. I'm guessing 42 +/- 5 years. By "My favorite language", I assume you mean the one that you actually prefer to write real applications in, not the one you like coding in. C sucks, always has. C is also the language I use. I also still use VI (and Emacs when I talk to my computer).
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
OK, I'll bite... I write mostly in assembler. How old am I? :)
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
I think I see the problem with your old business.
You didn't make anything available except a code download.
No documentation. No description of capabilities, purpose, performance, extensability, flexibility, etc. No examples of what the code could be used for.
Just code.
I have code that could do amazing things, but I'm trying to make it useful, documented, and have examples before I try to do anything business-related with it. Without the documentation and examples behind an attention-holding introduction, no software has a chance to do anything but bit-rot.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Btw, I'm not the previous poster, but I too prefer C over C++ (as in, all code I write and sell is in C) and haven't bothered to even look at any of those new-fangled fad languages like C#. I'm 29.
I was the same, but finally gave in and learned C++. It is a great language. You don't have to use every crazy feature or go insanely OO. It's unfortunate that the C++ discussion is dominated by people who love the weirdest, least useful parts of the language.
Example: most books on C++ use cout << foo instead of printf. I tried it, hated it, went back to the printf family with a sense of guilt ("it's not typesafe"). Reading code from C++ programmers I respect, I found they use printf too. Iostreams is just trendy crap that unfortunately became part of C++.
I recommend Eckel's Thiking in C++ - written for the skeptical C programmer.
#2 - If you build it they will come.
Yup, I've suffered from this as well. Sad part is, I was dumb enough to do it after I laughed at other people doing it [worse].
I once heard a lady wanting a website so she could get rich (dotcom). Didn't know what she wanted the website to say or what to sell, but she figured begging Technical Support to build her one since she didn't know how to program would make her millions (real story). I laughed my butt off for weeks.
Then, being young and stupid, I built a web design company. I picked up 1 client and made a decent amount of money quickly. I wrapped my car in advertising and sat back and waited for the money to roll in. It never did and I eventually shut the business down...
Venture Capitalists know something about business.
I'm not saying this guy sucks and know nothing about business - I actually agree with a lot of what he is saying.
But am I only only one who thinks that having a load of cash doesn't make you right. Generally, people who have lots of money made it in a quick windfall and invested it well - which basically is not that difficult to do. It's like taking advice from a lottery winner.
There are of course many very skilled business who made astute decisions and deals (in would include Bill Gates in there).
But I have occasionally watched programmes like 'Dragon's Den' or that thing with Alan Sugar or now god forbid Jade bloody Goody, and thought what the 'hell do you know' - sure they are entitled to say 'sorry I wouldn't back you' - it's their money. But they have absolutely no right to say 'mate, sorry but you're wrong, and if I say it won't work then give up' - that's just stupid.
Remember, one of these guys said that the Internet would never take off.
Anyway, I'm just using this as excuse for a rant; as I said I liked his 10 myths.
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
My dad writes only assembly. He's of the generation that can't move up into C. However, that generation doesn't read /., so you can't be 68, like my dad.
I am going to assume you are an embedded software developer, where code size, speed, and power still count. That probably makes you under 30, so I'll guess 27.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
I would guess you've got to be at least as old as this guy, so I'd say your at least in your 80's.
Myth #6a: It's not what you know, it's who you know.
Reality: It's not who you know, it's who knows you.
27. Off by 4 years... You should have followed the link to my website ;).
To do list for Windows
Damn, I should have asked as well. I prefer C/C++ and I'm 23. :)
Wow, I'm impressed. I just turned 26, and I'm an embedded developer specializing in micropower sensor systems (on of my current projects is a wireless health monitoring system entirely powered by vibration), so every cycle I can shave from a repetitive calculation is less time I have to keep the core powered, which adds up after a few years :)
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Nice about the auras... That's a bit like when Jim Morrison was yelling something about astrology at a show; he had a bunch of the girls in the audience screaming for his attentiong. Then, he mentioned that he thought it was BS. Of course, different but still reminiscent.
Well, I guess I don't count. But, I'm 16. Though, it's not as if I only know C. I know C++, Java, Perl, PHP, QBasic, javascript, and some other minor scripting languages(and (X)HTML and CSS(2,3) though not really programming languages).
And, I don't like Java, despite having taken two years of "Advanced Placement Computer Science"(which uses Java) and scoring 5/5 on both exams.
The fun thing about reading auras is you don't have to be accurate very often. Get 1 in 3 right, and you've impressed at least one pretty drunk girl. Not that it ever did me any good, other than having fun in bars.
At 16, you're skills beat my own teen years hands down. Of course, all I had access to was an ADM3A terminal at Emory University after 10th grade, and I use to drive into Atlanta twice a week just to use it. Up hill, both ways. I'm not surprised you don't like Java. It offers few of the features found elsewhere.
Still, I remember being a sponge. I learned assembly, BAISC, Pascal, FORTRAN, the VMS scripting language, then C, Lisp, Prolog, C-shell, C++, Awk, Perl, Java, and a few I can't even remember. I learn best from other people rather than books (I don't read very well). I had some great mentors up until the age of about 30. Then, one day, I looked around and realized everyone else in the group was interested in what I could teach them, and there was no one left to mentor me.
It was kind of weird forcing myself to change how I get satisfaction from work. Instead of watching myself grow every day into a more valuable engineer/programmer, I learned to gain satisfaction watching others grow. Now that I'm in my 40's, I'm discovering new ways to grow, which is refreshing. I'm learning to read and write better, for example, and I'm learning sales skills, and one day may even begin to learn leadership skills (shudder). It seems that the experiences I've had at all those failed business attempts, plus the experiences at successful ones (Synplicity, QuickLogic) are beginning to add up. There are only so many ways you can screw up, then unless you're totally dense, you begin to learn.
Beer is proof that God loves us, and wants us to be happy.
"Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats."
-- Howard Aiken quoted by Ken Iverson quoted by Jim Horning, 1979
RTFM; please, I beg you.
Haha. Well, the aura thing has given you a fun story to tell.
;) ). It's nice to talk to someone who's relaxed and clear-headed. It often seems people get caught up in their stress.
In learning programming, I've had the benefits of an in-home computer for most of my life, a very good teacher for a few years in middle school(I was essentially free to learn what I pleased, and I ended up with my own computer there even. Though, I was already maintaining all the computers.), and the internet(along with the helpful people like yourself on it).
And, may circumstances favor the fulfillment of your desires("Good luck"
You're twenty-six, and I claim my five bucks... oh wait, you already answered. Never mind...
Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow.
Ha! :)
You can have the five bucks... just come out here and get it
Caveat Emptor is not a business model.
Oh, don't worry, I'll get that five bucks out of you. Eventually. (Soon... soon... soon I shall be free...)
Deliver yesterday, code today, think tomorrow.