> Lesson: You can achieve a lot with just a few people and a little money
... if your rent/insurance etc. is magically paid for you by a fairy for the whole duration of your startup's early stage. Easy! If you don't get the lesson, read it again: You can achieve a lot with just a few people and a little money.
People seem to dismiss this factor too easily and assume that anyone can become an entrepreneur the moment they decide to become an entrepreneur. No, it's not that easy for the majority of people.
Sure, if you have a cushy dev job, a nice apartment, a new car, expensive hobbies, no savings, and don't want to change your lifestyle, yeah, you're going to have a hard time starting something without cash.
If, on the other hand, you share a cheap apartment, have parents or a partner who can support you, and are willing to skip the expensive vacation, you might get pretty far with little money.
I think that's the reason why so many startups are started by people just out of college -- they're used to a modest lifestyle, and they usually don't have a problem being dependent on someone.
It's amazing how quickly people think it's impossible to live on less money after a few years of having a regular job.
I don't think its that easy in this day and age, at least in the US. I graduated from college with almost no student debt because my parents (teacher dad, mom didn't work, three kids) were super frugal and helped me a lot. 10 years later I still feel like I had such an unfair advantage, with friends STILL paying back their loans. Toss in healthcare costs, I don't think its as simple as "skipping vacations and living in a cheap apartment". A lot of it seems to boil down to the financial support around you from friends/family/partner both past and present.
And I don't disagree with the statement "You can achieve a lot with just a few people and a little money.", but I think it's missing an asterisk. (always exceptions though)
And don't have kids. Am I supposed to subject my children to hardship, or quite literally put them at increased risk (less financial buffer, possibly worse Healthcare) during formative years because I wanted a different type of job? A big part of being a parent is being around, and making sure you know what's going on. It's not impossible to do while trying to make a startup work, but let's not act like it's so simple to make changes for everyone, and it's just a matter of being willing to tough it out yourself.
You can live frugal with kids as well, but your partner needs to be on board.
For example, we moved in with my parents for some time when our first kid was born to save money on rent. Obviously that specific solution won't work for everyone, but I think that most times there's a way to make it work if you really want too.
Sometimes. I have three children, the oldest two in high school and Jr. High. It's a different proposition to move a large family in with someone else.
I think it's hard to make sure your kids have a good environment conducive to doing well in school, or preparing for college, if they are also forced to make large living arrangement changes which may also change or eliminate good times and locations to study. I think there's a large difference between attempting that so the kids go from poverty to non-poverty (parents doing night school, etc) and parents wanting to go from middle class to upper/upper middle class by running their own business.
Putting your children in what is effectively poverty for a few years to gamble for wealth is what's happening. Sometimes. That's worth it, but sometimes it isn't.
Sure, it's different with older kids, that's why I said our solution doesn't work for everyone. But I'm pretty sure that most people could find a way to live with less money.
But if you feel that reducing your spending means living in poverty, then maybe it's not for you, and you really need to leave entrepreneurship to other people.
> But if you feel that reducing your spending means living in poverty
I think at the point you can't afford to house yourself because your income has been reduced or reallocated so you need to live with relatives, you're in poverty, whether you want to think of yourself that way or not.
> then maybe it's not for you, and you really need to leave entrepreneurship to other people.
There are other ways to go about it, such as doing it in addition to a regular job. It's not always possible, and the type of business you want to start might not be amenable to this, and it does put a lot of strain on the individual, but it is another valid path. It's the one I've been taking for the last nine months.
No, you're not supposed to subject them to hardship. But if you wanted to be an all-in entrepreneur you had a higher chance of success before the kids, I think (or after the kids go to high school or college).
The majority of people out there in America can't afford for one person to quit their job even temporarily. Most of us don't go on expensive vacations to skip.
Remember that the median household income is 58k meaning half are making less than that.
This includes a LOT of people making 58k in expensive areas where jobs are concentrated and rent is high. A Family of 4 would in 2018 be paying about 10k for health insurance 5k for food 20k for rent 10k in taxes.
A lot of people don't have much savings not because they have expensive hobbies but because they can't afford to save.
Most people can't just move to a cheaper country. First outside of Europe most countries will welcome you to be a tourist but not live their if you aren't financially independent.
Most people not doing remote jobs will also command a much lower income in the cheaper country negating any benefit.
Most people don't have so much in savings that they can just live off their savings for long even if its in a foreign country.
Move somewhere cheaper is just nonsensical advice for 99% of people.
I read the parent post and understand the context. I just don't think that poster understands how many are already "used to a modest lifestyle" because they never had any other choice.
I'm definitely not among those who rent a nice apartment and I forgot what "vacation" even means. I don't own a car as thankfully it is not required where I live (like in most places in Europe). I don't buy stupid unnecessary things either. However, sharing a cheap apartment won't be easy for a 50 year old. Oh wait, that's not exactly a "startup age", so I guess I'm out anyway...
Sounds like you’ve been burnt a few times. It’s not easy, but frankly, attitude is a big part of the determining factors...is you look at the research, your age should actually give you an advantage. 40-49 is the most likely time to successfully start a company. https://hbr.org/2018/07/research-the-average-age-of-a-succes...
The age does give an advantage, but lack of savings is a universally problematic thing for all ages. You do need a safety net if you want to switch to entrepreneurship, or otherwise you have to be exceptionally lucky to get the salary you need and the equity you think you deserve.
Very fair point. I guess the only counter to that is: by 50+ you’ve had a lot of time to try resolve that, if you truly wanted to start something and realized it would be a limit I’m sure that’s enough time to give it a serious shot. Also, if you’re 50+ and have no savings, do you need a serious plan for the next 30 years because you physically cannot work forever.
My personal experience coming from a low income family, i managed to pull off 16k i savings by 21. Individual experience is obviously a low sample size, but I know it’s a possibility.
The whole article sounds insane from my perspective.
If Google keeps acqui-hiring these kinds of people, it's going to turn into a mad house eventually. No wonder Google is starting to have issues about being out-of-touch now.
I think major hurdles of being enterprenuer is achieving strong resilience to external changing factors. Problems will keep coming at every stage, a good one should expect and/or anticipate it and should not get tired by it. Not everyone's cup of tea. Some people are happy with good times and noodle salad.
And 10 years later, sharing stuff with people nearby still kinda sucks.
1. Instant Messaging Apps work for photos and contacts, but it's stupid that you need to transfer things via cloud (makes everything hellish slow when the network isn't fast)
2. Airdrop works only between Apple Devices, and when the stars are aligned just right. Other devices might appear, or they might not. If it works, it's fast.
3. USB drives are still the easiest way to share anything between computers. (SMB / AFS / NFS / SCP / rsync are all annoying to set up and always seem to fail for hard to debug reasons)
I think the opportunity for something like Bump is still there, but it seems that most people just don't care enough about the inconvenience....
I totally agree. Especially for "micro-interactions" between people while remaining anonymous (i.e. not needing to exchange phone numbers, email addresses etc.).
E.g.:
- receiving appointment info at a doctor's office (in lieu of a physical appointment card)
- exchanging links/addresses/numbers with strangers in any kind of conversational interaction ("call this number", "go to this address", "here's a brochure" etc.) without divulging personal identifiers
Phone-to-phone, anonymous, exchange-and-forget type interactions. Can use bluetooth, wifi, or data connections (or even just qrcodes). I've always thought that there would be usefulness for something like this (key being simplicity and anonymity).
I've had a lot of luck with Airdrop, then. Regularly use it to send files/URLs in the office and also from my iDevices to the Mac (or across the devices). The star alignment bit may be due to Bluetooth issues, it's where the device discovery takes place (I think). And well, we all know how good Bluetooth can be...
I wish Android Beam had been pushed harder - it was an OS-level solution, and I understood it as playing really well with the Intent-centric API on Android, which meant basic functionality was essentially "free" to implement.
Between Android/Linux/Windows, I'm quite happy with Superbeam. QRCode for setting it up, then Wifi for transfer. I even use it between laptops, not just with smartphones.
Tried to download Superbeam. The iOS version is only available in the US store, can't download it in Austria. The Mac version requires me to download and install an old version of Java first. Not going to bother with that.
I would also prefer a libre alternative, but I could never find one. Some file managers have transfer, but none use Wifi direct or provide a simple way to connect, from what I've tried.
The developer put them in because the developer needs money to live. I don't think the economic reality of needing money to live is a slap in the face. One alternative would be to only have the pro version, not the free version. But that seems worse.
It's not doing anything to be annoying on purpose. It's just a fact of life that ads are annoying. If they could use non-annoying ads, I'm sure they would.
> And 10 years later, sharing stuff with people nearby still kinda sucks.
It does still suck, and once every few years I feel that. But that's a problem. Solving a minor, "kinda" pain point that people experience once in a while isn't that big of a win. I'm sure that other people want to do this more often than I do, but I'm also sure that this case is a small subset of the need to share stuff with others generally. I.e., you're always needing to share stuff, with people in Boston, LA, or Singapore, or your manager on another floor of the building, or wherever. You know how to do that. So while it seems silly that you can't share something more easily with someone sitting across the table from you, the methods you already use do work.
Bump was such a silly idea. It's a miracle that they were able to get so many users. It's one of those ideas that sounds good at first glance but after thinking about it for a couple of minutes, you understand that it's actually a very bad idea. Maybe it picked up because of all the YC hype.
I don't see how the act of physically bumping phones together to share content adds any value at all.
It's disturbing that the founder would then go on and write an article about the whole experience. This represents everything that's wrong with startup accelerators.
It took off because back then having an iPhone was an exclusive thing and Apple promoted it in one of their early app commercials. Being able to 'bump' was a mark of status and one which had a special "handshake".
>> It took off because back then having an iPhone was an exclusive thing and Apple promoted it in one of their early app commercials.
I can guarantee 100% that if Bump was not associated with Y Combinator, they would not have been mentioned by Apple. It has more to do with business connections and network effects than actual usefulness to the consumer.
>> Not sure why you're picking on the accelerators.
Because often they create hype around products which aren't actually useful. In doing so, they take attention and funding away from other products that are actually useful.
> They ran an experiment. None of their lives have been ruined.” He knew they’d get good jobs, even if it meant the life of a project manager at Yahoo. “And none of their investors’ lives have been ruined either. When they close up shop, their investors will say, ‘That’s one more off the books. I don’t need to help them anymore. I get my time back.’”
[...] “Let me tell you what the worst thing would be. The worst thing is that these guys get their funding tomorrow and are stuck doing this for another year. So far, they only lost one.”
[...] All the while, Martino’s ultimate warning—that they might someday regret actually getting the money they wanted—would still hang over these two young men, inherent to a system designed to turn strivers into subcontractors. Instead of what you want to build—the consumer-facing, world-remaking thing—almost invariably you are pushed to build a small piece of technology that somebody with a lot of money wants built cheaply. As the engineer and writer Alex Payne put it, these startups represent “the field offices of a large distributed workforce assembled by venture capitalists and their associate institutions,” doing low-overhead, low-risk R&D for five corporate giants. In such a system, the real disillusionment isn’t the discovery that you’re unlikely to become a billionaire; it’s the realization that your feeling of autonomy is a fantasy, and that the vast majority of you have been set up to fail by design.
- I agree with the notion but I don’t think it’s only because it’s cheap. It’s also about speed. Some projects take ages at large companies no matter how much you throw at them
- that’s the reason they havin PMF before you get funding is key. Show the models works and then get money for scaling the business
- I imagine getting VC money for a moonshot is great though when you don’t need to get rich anymore. See Musk
> - I agree with the notion but I don’t think it’s only because it’s cheap. It’s also about speed. Some projects take ages at large companies no matter how much you throw at them
I believe one thing that really kills (software) projects is throwing too much resources (people) at them too soon in the anticipation of growth and success.
I think it's valuable to look at his BATNA (alternative strategy).
He was never going to work in a biochem wetlab to cure cancer. I feel safe saying he would have gone into investment banking or management consulting, prestigious jobs with high pay. Where people also regularly pass out from working long hours and don't take holidays.
BATNA stands for "Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement," which applies specifically to situations where you are in multi-party negotiations. The term doesn't generalize to "alternative strategy." I think maybe the term you were looking for was "opportunity cost."
It's helpful to see a thing like career choice like the market participation that it is, and see market participants, in a sort of game theory view, as participants in an ongoing implicit negotiation.
Surprised the parent's downvoted - it's as close to the truth as anything else.
Like a lot of Google products, Photos has a lot of forebears. Picasa was one of them, as was Google+ (IIRC, the Picasa team was folded into Google+ when Larry refocused the company on Social in 2011). Sounds like Bump was also aquihired into it, and I think there was also a lot of cross-pollination between Image Search, Research, and Google Photos around some of the search & content recognition features.
It’s fashionable to bash Google+ and ignore/diminish its contributions.
Almost all features in Google Photos for the first 1.5 years of its existence already existed in Google+. Further, the infrastructure that the Google+ team created runs a very high percentage of Google servers today (excluding Search), and ships in a lot of Android and iOS apps by Google. For insiders, I am referring to Boq, BoqWeb, Wiz, Tiktok, and Service Registry.
It's the best app from the last few years. It's radically simple: snap a photo and (by default) it only gets uploaded when you are on WiFi. Later, you'll get a notification that it used AI to find the best pictures of the dozens you took and and assembled a photo album with them.
You'll get notifications telling you that you had an important event a year ago and can see the most relevant photo from that day.
It creates then and now photos, so I can see how my kids have changed from exactly a year or exactly five years ago.
It automatically shares my photos of the kids with my wife.
All this happens without any interaction other than snapping photos freely. For a busy parent, this can't be understated.
Compared to Facebook, I don't have to put up with the noise. And, it only shares with a very limited set of people.
Of course "it" does now know my kids'names. It's pretty amazing and scary to see how it knows my infant daughter's face is the same one as she has four years later. I'm not sure I would see the similarly if she weren't my own.
Lightweight interactions with powerful AI and massive processing power behind it makes for an incredible app. The reviews are not lying.
This was an email chain in October 2008? The iPhone had only been out for a little over a year, the official SDK for 8 months, and the store for 3 months.
There were people around who had been writing Cocoa apps for years, some with 15+ years of experience going back to NeXT.
The iPhone SDK was very simple to pick up with that background because it was basically a simplified AppKit where you get a single tiny window instance.
As someone who wrote Windows Mobile apps back in the day in C# - that used the same frameworks as the desktop equivalents - and since then has been responsible for the back end architecture of mobile platforms, there are so many more considerations that you have to think about when writing mobile apps than just knowing the same language and frameworks as you would use on the desktop.
Some of those considerations are interface design on a much smaller screen, syncing, dealing with a semi connected state, much more resource constrained hardware (especially in 2008), a much more restrictive permission system, etc.
I remember the same with Android, I saw job offers asking for 5 years Android experience whereas Android itself was still maybe 3 years old at the time.
I've seen a few of those type of ads. I've heard people say it's for H-1B visa jobs, where the position has to be advertised locally (in the US) first and if they can't find the correct candidate then they can hire internationally.
It drives me nuts. To be fair, usually it's a non-technical hiring manager who just doesn't know current/recent tech history, and they probably assume they can get higher quality by requiring more experience.
For me as the potential candidate, it usually turns me off enough that I don't even bother contacting them.
huh, I was just wondering what happened to bump the other day when I was asked for a business card and contact info. Had no idea this is how the story played out.
This isn't a technically hard problem to solve, but it seems people have been chasing it for years without any strong uptake. I suspect this is something that will have to be 'built-in' to the OS, and ideally some cross-platform protocol compatibility, before it ever becomes a 'standard' (assuming it does).
I worked with a startup for a while on a couple variations of this problem, and it's very much a classic chicken and egg problem. The angle that I was a bit more intrigued with taking was not about 'friends', and more just about the geo part. In other words, having your pics be available publicly by geo info. This conflicted a lot with the use cases of "share party pics with family/friends", but it seems there's dozens of ways to do that (facebook has a whole separate dedicated app that, to this day, few people I know knows about, but they all use facebook).
When I get done with an outing, Photos prompts me to share pictures of it with other people who were there and are pictured. So maybe it is being solved?
would be far more useful to share with anyone else who was there, regardless of if they're pictured (and, I have to presume, the app can determine via facial recognition who they are and if they're in your contact list).
all your pics would go to others, and all the pics from others would go to you. (think concerts/events)
Airdrop is incredibly unreliable. In my experience, you have a 50% chance that the other device will appear. If it works today, there's no guarantee it'll work tomorrow. And that's with all devices on the same Wifi network, in the same room. I don't know why it works so poorly.
Airdrop is pretty much useless because its proprietary and only works on apple devices. A useful tool for photo sharing has to work for almost everyone.
Let's try to rescue this statement. Airdrop is useful in general, but there are still large pockets of people for whom it's useless. Large, like don't know, Europe.
Airdrop is the kind of tool that follows Metcalfe's law (with "network" being "people who can Airdrop to each other"). In places where Android is the dominant market player, you'll have little luck trying to use Airdrop to exchange data with other people. This is not dissing Airdrop, just calling out that there's a huge market segment that still has this problem.
That's the case pretty much everywhere, including in the US. I thought that the post implied some structural reason why Airdrop can't be used in Europe by people with iPhones.
Something is not "useless" because it is only "useful" to a portion of the population. Floppy disks were a useful tool for file sharing in the 1990s, but not amongst people who didn't own computers.
some of that team helped build the Google Photos app, but Google Photos was a product in its own right even before Bump joined the company and they were part of a (much) larger effort, of course.
Android Beam is built-in since 8 years, but like many Android features, there's little to no discoverability when using the OS past the initial marketing on release.
It detected you bump your phone, sent your GPS location to a server, then looked for someone else who bumped their phone in the same location at the same time.
Both phones send a precise timestamp of the "bump" to the server. The server finds bumps that happen at the same time, and "connects" the phones.
If multiple bumps happen at the same time, the server would probably use approximate geolocation or something like that additionally, but the better the resolution of the time stamp, the lower the probability of collisions between bumps.
"precise timestamps" from two phones is a hard distributed systems problem.
If timestamp and geo were the only things that the app used, I wonder if it worked well only because there weren't too many people 'bumping' at the same time from that geo.
read something about it a long time ago, so fwir : the accelerometer gives you a motion angle of the « bump », and finding the symmetrical motion in a given time window gives you the other phone involved in the bump.
I don't think the "angle" of the bump played into it, since accelerometers only give you relative angles, not absolute values. And the compass isn't precise enough.
I remember Bump from their early days 2009 / 2010, they were demo-ing at either SFBeta or SFNewTech (don't remember which, I used to work with the organizers of both events back then).
It was pitched as a Business Card / Contact info exchange app back then and I do remember getting a demo of it where 2 guys bumped their phones to exchange professional contact info. I thought it was funny, didn't think I'd use it.
Interesting how their story played out. Looks like the Google acquisition was more of an acqui-hire and less for IP...
Bump was always pretty much a joke. It's amazing that these guys saw decent success without really contributing anything of value to anyone. Also, how do you work so hard you collapse when you really aren't doing anything?
Success without achievement is the whole story of YC. Everybody worships Sam Altman, who cashed out a worthless app/site/service. PG's big claim to fame is having sold something of no enduring value whatsoever to Yahoo! (same as Mark Cuban, FWIW).
... if your rent/insurance etc. is magically paid for you by a fairy for the whole duration of your startup's early stage. Easy! If you don't get the lesson, read it again: You can achieve a lot with just a few people and a little money.
People seem to dismiss this factor too easily and assume that anyone can become an entrepreneur the moment they decide to become an entrepreneur. No, it's not that easy for the majority of people.