Oct 11
A chat conversation on #startups
I just read this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=874399 and I could relate myself very much to it. I immediately got on the #startups channel and here's the conversation that happened there.
| <SingAlong> | I would upvote this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=874399 very much |
| <SingAlong> | lots of similarities to what has happened to me. |
| <wheels> | SingAlong: for what it's worth, I've noticed as I've gotten older that the amount of time that I can focus on one project has gotten significantly longer. |
| <SingAlong> | wheels: There's just one thing that keeps me the way I am... trying new things, the fear of having to work at some body-shopping company instead of being an entrepreneur. |
| <wheels> | I think I was about 24 before the first time the thought of starting a company even crossed my head. |
| <swombat> | as long as that's something heavy on your mind, the chances that you will end up there are pretty slim |
| <swombat> | 27 here |
| <swombat> | well, i did think about it at uni, but a one-off attempt, not renewed until 27 |
| <SingAlong> | wheels: that fear has eaten me up too much. Every day I get older I feel i'm losing my egde, the edge that i'm young enough to learn more and faster. |
| * raz | launched his first "startup" at 16 :) |
| <wheels> | SingAlong: that's silly. |
| <wheels> | raz: Well, I'm not counting my summer lawn mowing business. ;-) |
| <swombat> | SingAlong: that is silly |
| <raz> | wheels, it was a webcounter service (you know, those fancy gif's that were the rage in 1999) |
| <SingAlong> | wheels: i dunno. but i feel some what retarded when I think I have been trying since 14 |
| <swombat> | most human males are pretty retarded around 14 |
| <swombat> | so you're no exception |
| <SingAlong> | raz: ya I would be calling everything I do a startup if I had not read those dozen "whats a startup?" threads |
| <raz> | fond memories of how the shared host guy shouted at me over the phone as my highly efficient perl cgi melted his host xD |
| <swombat> | SingAlong: what you'll probably find is that as you get older, your ability to do stuff expand exponentially. So actually you'll have even more of an edge 10 years from now than you do today |
| <swombat> | *expands |
| <swombat> | the fact that you've already been going for 5 years today is huge |
| <SingAlong> | swombat: woobius is your first? |
| <wheels> | I think for me it was that earlier on in my life I was more into sampling a lot of things. That's true still, but the rate has slowed. |
| <swombat> | in 10 years, you'll run circles around people like me and wheels |
| <swombat> | SingAlong: second, though i also pitched something to a chemical company while i was at uni |
| <raz> | swombat, not hard to run circles around people in wheelchairs :P |
| <SingAlong> | swombat: chemical company? what were you trying to make? |
| <swombat> | an auction site to help them deal with their spot sales |
| <wheels> | methlab |
| <SingAlong> | swombat: how was the reception? |
| <swombat> | the ILOVEYOU virus hit on the day we demoed. All the networks were down during the meeting. Couldn't demo. My partner gave a great presentation about how b2b was going to change the world and was so awesome, and spent about half a slide on what problem we were trying to solve for them. |
| <swombat> | in hindsight, a *great* lesson. |
UPDATE: I found another thread on HN on a similar topic. The suggestions/advice on this thread http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=838640 are good too. I haven't found the time to read any of these two threads in detail. I just skimmed thru these. I'll post and link to specific comments from those discussion threads in a later blog post.
