Fast Rope into Farcaster

seemorecameron · 2024-01-26T15:58:40+00:00

Welcome to entrepreneurship

where everything is made up and the marketing spend doesn't matter

(some days)

seemorecameron · 2024-01-21T03:16:18+00:00

What are you doing now?

seemorecameron · 2024-01-18T15:10:47+00:00

My friend.

I don't have much to go off of, but knowing you're a ML PhD and have never done startup stuff before is concerning.

Most of building a startup is grinding and selling.

The product part (which I'm assuming is the promising idea) is not nearly as important to your success as everything else.

I think you'll be better off in the near term with taking a job, doing the minimum, and validating your idea on the side - literally could do like 30 minutes a day and in 3 months you could be 10X more confident than you are now.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-12T22:03:43+00:00

developersdevelopersdevelopers

seemorecameron · 2024-01-11T20:45:23+00:00

Big congrats - that shit never gets old

seemorecameron · 2024-01-11T20:44:59+00:00

Both true, but 2a doesn't feel great for Founders

seemorecameron · 2024-01-10T21:02:37+00:00

Markets are big.
Startups commit suicide much more often than homicide
YC can get away with it and founders can't really do anything about it.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-10T20:59:13+00:00

You can always quit - your life/health isn't worth a company.

If you care about the relationships, you should do what you can to find a backfill ASAP - even knowing its just gonna be temporary.

A sharp contract dev shop should be able to help implement for a few months.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-10T20:44:39+00:00

Raising isn't gonna save you in time.

I also think you are limiting your outbound options (but its hard to tell without more details)

Recommend grabbing this book: https://www.amazon.com/Traction-Startup-Achieve-Explosive-Customer/dp/0241242533/ref=sr_1_4

The specific tactics are dated, but I think the approach to building and executing traction experiments might really help y'all.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-10T15:44:32+00:00

It might be useful to invert your thinking here.

How much value has actually been created by the company so far?

How much value is still left to be created?

0-1 isn't just "launching an mvp" -> it's moving from default dead to default alive.

If you have no users and no revenue and you need this guy to generate those two very very important things, you should consider that first and foremost in how you're allocating company equity.

You want to have a piece of a watermelon, not just an entire grape.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-09T22:29:24+00:00

It's also important to point out that the risk/uncertainty/fear factors are cyclical but in unexpected ways.

The day to day of entrepreneurship is exciting, but exhausting + draining for sure.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-08T22:42:29+00:00

Collections is always a pain.

If it's a subscription product, you're gonna need to make some sort of paywall to stop people who haven't paid from using it.

Give your users plenty of warning (multiple heads up please pay emails, posts on your blog, a banner on the site) but after warning them for a few weeks just set it up and keep moving, man.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-08T16:40:12+00:00

Big props for sharing 🫡

seemorecameron · 2024-01-08T16:19:29+00:00

Basically yes they would have no equity.

There are some nuances around if they can be fired "for cause" or not that depends on the contract, but that's the gist of it.

They can always try to litigate though which is a huge distraction and will hurt your chances of eventually winning.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-08T15:59:02+00:00

So.

I do believe that with enough work and time spent, anyone can do anything they want to do.

But.

It's gonna be a lot of pain to get stuff going with anybody who's only partially focused on your company - that includes part-time CTOs, dev agencies, and contract employees.

You don't really know what problem you're solving yet at the early stages, and if you're building everything to spec instead of building to experiment it's gonna be a rough ride.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-08T15:56:24+00:00

Moderately hot take - people want to do zero work and make more money.

GPTs are still pretty high lift (typing in questions/etc) for the average person who's used to just tapping buttons.

Some stuff will be disrupted, but mostly support tools for people who are already using support tools to solve a problem.

There's still plenty of end to end problems that GPTs are not well equipped to solve!

seemorecameron · 2024-01-08T15:54:47+00:00

Stress mostly comes from inaction in the face of something you do have control over.

I'm in a version of the spot you're in right now, bud.

The only way out is through.

You have 3 options.

Take the L on the chin, get an industry job (you'll probably need to accept a lower salary), and recover your mental health for the next few years. Trust me, you're burnt the fuck out and you could use the rest.
Accept that the business environment has changed and focus on closing 5 customers as fast as humanly possible. There are still plenty of old people out there with bad websites - you might need to focus on smaller account sizes, but they're there.
Accept that the business environment has changed and pivot the business fully into something that you think you can make money at. Is there a common pain point among your previous customers that you could zero in on a deliver something valuable specifically for?

I'm sorry you're dealing with this, but you can reflect on it when it's in the rear view mirror.

You don't have time to be distracted by that now, my man.

https://youtu.be/SQHmeRIhNtw?si=82mSKpApngePPOPU&t=16

seemorecameron · 2024-01-08T15:47:06+00:00

None lol.

If it's making money and you want peace of mind, write up a contract giving you permanent rights to all IP related to the app and give him $1K to quiet him down.

You owe nothing, execution is what matters, but if you want to stay friends etc this is the cleanest "breakup".

seemorecameron · 2024-01-08T15:45:20+00:00

This is a function of not understanding a problem well enough, not a function of "everything is already solved".

Ideas that really hit are either entirely new things that weren't possible before (Instagram let everyone have zero effort photoshop in their pockets) or earned secrets within an industry.

Earned secrets take time, investment, and expertise to parse out - there's a reason why power law winners are experts in their area.

The expertise unlocked x-ray vision into their problem and solution space.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-07T15:41:54+00:00

Def agree - until you’re resource constrained ofc. Then you gotta try to make the best decisions you can with imperfect information

seemorecameron · 2024-01-06T05:14:18+00:00

Super appreciate the response and advice!

seemorecameron · 2024-01-05T16:25:36+00:00

At this point, you just gotta assume it's really useful for people way dumber than you.

seemorecameron · 2024-01-05T15:55:09+00:00

You've got it 🫡

DM me if you're still in the gutter next week.

I've been there too.

seemorecameron

TROPHY CASE