| "You haven't explained how your start-up succeeded without YC." Nobody asked. I'll take your response as somebody asking. In both cases, I made myself a recognized expert on an Open Source project that I liked a lot and that I liked the people involved (Squid in the first case, Webmin in the latter...though the first also included a huge amount of Webmin-related work and inspired the second). And then I founded companies built on making some Open Source project easier to use, more powerful, better documented, and more popular. The first never really made it out of the "consulting business" stage, though I constantly tried to convert it to a product business...had I been in the valley, I would have been able to make it work the way I wanted it to. It was a hardware based business, and for that you need volume, which I didn't have the capital to deal with--closing a big sale in the server appliance industry can cost tens of thousands of dollars before seeing any cashflow from it. So, stay out of hardware if you don't have the capital to see it through. Even then, you probably ought to stay out of hardware. So, the first one did not succeed without YC, by my standards, but did buy me a 350Z and keep me in food and houses for 7 years. The primary thing worth learning from the first business (which I built without not only YC but without any outside investment for involvement) was that you can't do it alone. Get a partner, get to the valley (I don't even bother saying get to a "startup hub" because nobody is doing deals in Boston), get to work. As for the second, here's what I know so far: 1. Start or join, very early, an Open Source project. 2. Work on it for several years. Get millions of downloads and millions of users. 3. ... 4. Profit! "> seen Guy Kawasaki's Art of the Start I hope you're kidding about that. " Of course not. Guy's a great motivator. Can't start a business worth crap (see Truemors), but he has a lot of good stuff to say about marketing, salesmanship, morale-building, and lots more. Some accidental experts really do have good advice. |
Actually that's how this whole debate got started -- I asked: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=52613
> because nobody is doing deals in Boston
So in your opinion would YC be better off doing both batches in Silicon Valley? My impression is people would be better served living there and flying to Boston for Demo Day 2 than vice-versa.
> but he has a lot of good stuff to say about marketing, salesmanship, morale-building, and lots more
http://valleywag.com/tech/silicon-valley-tool/guy-kawasaki-2...
http://www.nowpublic.com/don_t_be_a_dude_yamaha_a_gripping_s...
http://techdumpster.com/2007/08/03/toolbox-profile-1-guy-kaw...
> Guy's a great motivator.
In a "scared straight" kind of way, sure.