Startups and Dark Nights

erco

Interesting article: 9 out of 10 startups fail and other fun facts: http://qz.com/780939/silicon-valley-investors-and-entrepreneurs-need-to-get-real-about-how-emotionally-hard-it-is-to-start-a-business-if-they-want-to-improve-their-chances-of-success/

Heater.

My start up, a limited company in the UK, lasted for fifteen years. No venture capital. Only ever one man. One contract at a time. It was great.

Failed when a former 'er in doors, who was also company secretary, decided to run off with all the money saved for Value Added Tax payment one year.

The UK Customs and Excise have no sympathy in such matters. There was a warrant out for my arrest at one point! Until I raised the money to pay off the goons.

So yeah, ultimately, emotionally hard.

Just now I'm contemplating another start up....

What is a "start up" any way? In the old says we just formed a company to carry out some business or other.

Do they ever "fail"?

Sure the project collapses and the founders don't get the millions they dream of. But the young guys trying to do it get paid for a few years.

Sure the investors lose their money. But clearly they hit pay dirt often enough to make it worthwhile.

Is any of this more emotionally hard than having a "real job" now a days? Never knowing if you have a job next month or not. My experience of that was emotionally hard enough.

Jeff Haas

"Start-up" in current Silicon Valley terms is used to refer to a company that will hopefully not only build an ongoing business, but one that will scale up significantly. The investors get involved because they think the founder has what it takes to increase the value of their investment a lot in a few years, either by getting acquired by another company, or by going public.

When a startup fails is easy to see...it's been trying to get off the ground in a big way, never caught on, and runs out of money. A year after taking $1.5M in investment, it's gone.

Heater, what you had would be called a small consulting firm. Nothing wrong with that, it's just a different business. A lot of founders think that if they exit their startup successfully, they'll go onto something like that.

KeithE

Here's a related article about the shenanigans that go on when startups make bad moves perhaps under emotionally challenging conditions:

http://fortune.com/silicon-valley-startups-fraud-venture-capital/

Surprising that the phrase "reality distortion field" wasn't mentioned. If you're at a startup and you've been in meetings with investors or potential customers then you've surely run into this at some level.

Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi)

The last real job I had was laminating fiberglass for a local boat-building company. That was in 1976/77. I've been self-employed ever since:

1. Designed and sold software for the TRS-80, including a card-counting trainer for blackjack.

2. Started a fishing tackle company with a friend and sold out to him two years later. He's gotten rich from it but works too hard. This is probably the only company I had a hand in that could legitimately be called a "start-up."

3. Designed, sold, and installed fruit-sizing electronics with an associate in California, who built the mechanical parts. It was highly remunerative but very stressful. If the phone rang at 8 a.m., I knew I would not be sleeping in my own bed that night. Had to move the business to Canada temporarily, due to some legal problems my associate was having. Got out after that and set up a royalty arrangement with my associate for the electronic designs.

4. Drifted awhile, depending on royalties from the fruit sizers for an income. The money was good, but being idle kinda sucked, really.

5. Started my current company with a friend during a road trip to Baja. Sold visual inspection equipment to bottling plants, automated saw manufacturers, etc., using the TSL1401 sensor from TI->TAOS->AMS -- the same sensor that's included in the Parallax product. Bought out my partner after about six years.

6. The TAOS connection led me to Parallax, who's been a valued customer ever since.

7. Then there's teaching robotics at the local high school, which was more of a pleasant diversion for three years than part of a career path. All the same, it might still be my final work destination. The kids energized me more than solving technical problems ever did.

I never got rich from my various endeavors. But not having an employer has been the key to independence and ultimate happiness. It's not for everyone, obviously, especially if you have dependents to support, which I do not (excepting Browser, who didn't eat much). You never know, from day to day, where the next sale is coming from. In my case, though, fortune seemed to smile when I needed it most. Hopefully, it's provided enough savings to retire -- eventually -- although I cannot imagine what retirement would be like.

-Phil

Jeff Haas

Keith, that article is a great summary of the current state of things.

Heater.

Jeff Haas,

I'm quite familiar with the "start up" idea. My question was somewhat rhetorical. For sure my business was not such a "start up", just a way for me to conduct by business.

The idea I was hinting at is about this idea of a start up failing. The whole start up and venture capital scene is a kind of "meta business". Sure many individual start ups fail. But so do most new product ideas by big established businesses. The company invests money into the development, the product flops, they keep quite about it. Move on to the next idea...

So far the "meta business" of Silicon Valley has not failed. It's a way for smart young guys with ideas to get work for some years. It's a way for investors to find profitable enterprises.

And perhaps this is cheaper and more efficient all around than the old big business idea. The investor does not need to keep a big staff on hand. The plug can be pulled on a failing idea at a moments notice. Heck, that is why big companies would hire guys like me at great expense. When the project gets cancelled we are out immediately, no fuss, no mess. I even advised one director to cancel the project I was working on as it was clearly going to be very expensive to complete and nobody could see a very big market for it.

I found the article a bit whiny. This whole idea of the "Dark Night of the Soul" of entrepreneurs, as if every other human on the planet does not have such a bad time or such feelings. If one is fishing for my sympathy it's not for those juggling with huge piles of money in Silicon Valley.

localroger

This whole idea of the "Dark Night of the Soul" of entrepreneurs, as if every other human on the planet does not have such a bad time or such feelings.

The phrase has been used for over a millennium to refer to the Prophet Muhammad's spiritual crisis around the age of 40 which led to his formulation of what we know now as the religion of Islam. The phrase does have a bit of poetry to it which is why people seem to hear it and reuse it without realizing it has a history.

Heater.

Interesting.

There I am thinking it comes from the great English Prophet Douglas Adams: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Long_Dark_Tea-Time_of_the_Soul

More seriously. I suspect every prophet, or at least those that do the writing about them, has conjured up such poetry to make it seem he is more deep and meaningful that us unfeeling followers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Night_of_the_Soul

Also checkout Isaiah 53. All the verses.

localroger

Heater, Douglas Adams was clearly doing his parody thing. When he wrote that being targeted by jihadists was not so much of a thing so he could pretty much let rip.

As for St. John of the Cross, the 16th century was both a bit late and in Spain a bit scalded by an attempted violent Islamic invasion, so I suspect that might be a bit of propaganda to co-opt a central Islamic meme.

Buck Rogers

And given the fact that the Moors ran Spain properly for many years until the year that screwy business surfaced regarding Columbus and company.......

Besides I happen to know that the founder of Islam sought solace with his many cats and they were almost all helpful up to a point.

Incidentally erco I saw all of your robots in Times Square today exploring it to find the right place for the big event.

Heater.

Whatever civilization we have now owes a lot to the forebears of our Arabic friends.

As much as it does to the Chinese, the Romans, the Greeks and so on.

We use "Arabic numerals" (Yeah I know derived from Asia), in school we study "arithmetic". In CS courses we learn about "algorithms". All concepts and words coming to us from Arabic civilization.

Somewhere along the line the Arab civilization, collapsed. The quest for knowledge was stamped out. And still is to this today.

Here and now, in the western "christian" world science is being ridiculed. Myth and nonsense is being promoted as if it stood on an equal footing.

We are descending into another dark age.

Why am I saying all this?

Sure Douglas Adams was poking fun at religious beliefs. Douglas poked fun at all manner of weird ideas we accept as "normal".

When it comes to the point that people want to kill you for poking holes in their ideas, then we have a problem.

Anyway, happy new year all!

MikeDYur

Here and now, in the western "christian" world science is being ridiculed. Myth and nonsense is being promoted as if it stood on an equal footing.

We are descending into another dark age.

Heater. wrote: »

Anyway, happy new year all!

Agree, the worlds temperature has gotten a lot colder.


EDIT:


Humanity will overcome.


Happy New Year to all.

Heater.

MikeDYur,

Humanity will overcome.

I think I know what you mean.

However, what actually is "humanity"?

If it's that thing that humans do to each other, for whatever reason, then I'm a bit worried!