After quitting my day job for Snapvine (6 months post-MIT Sloan), I stopped spiraling and “just effing did it.” Within 4–5 months I was ROI positive in networking/learning/satisfaction, and by then I felt confident I could find a better, higher-paying role if it failed—startup cost ~$5,000 vs MBA ~$85,000.
Get on the phone and clear the air, then demand better tracking: a work-item list showing what’s done, with access to it (e.g., a Lighthouse-style system). Cut scope hard to a minimally viable release—eliminate features and only fix bugs that truly matter to regain schedule.
Recruit great hackers with three moves: “try before you buy” by enlisting contractor-hackers not tied to agencies so you can hire full-time later; “lots of coffees” by meeting interesting people even if they aren’t looking; and “hyper focus on one school” with deep, ongoing presence—brown bags, affiliate dinners, open houses, and post-fair meetups.
My Hacker News front-page post (“Sell Ice Cream, Not Cream and Ice”) drove ~2,530 visits in 3 days: 1,542 from HN, 574 direct, 50 from Twitter, 49 from Craigslist, 32 from jimmyr.com, plus 200+ from other syndication. Before: ~15/day; after: ~30/day.
Doing a startup? Separate **technology**, **product**, and **business**. At Le ad sCon, I met scrappy, analytics-driven entrepreneurs who built lead-gen businesses: acquire traffic, filter intent with a simple web form, then sell leads—education is said to be a $1B vertical. One home-improvement company earned $500 profit on day one, reaching $10M+ annually. Like ice cream: people buy ready-to-eat results, not raw ingredients.
In 2006 Snapvine’s viral widget and phone app hit 1M signups in 7 weeks, forcing us to turn off signups 25% of the time. Our team got stuck in MySQL/code tuning—so we printed a few hundred new user photo thumbnails daily on the office walls and ran weekly Craigslist-sourced focus groups to stay relentlessly user focused.
After a June 2006 Series A, our first hire was a “Do-It-All Office Admin” to eliminate time-sucks (office space, used fridge/printer/benefits, recruiting logistics, new-hire setup, exec/board prep). In 2.5 years we hired two successful DIAOAs with <1 year experience—recruit via reference checks and situational problem-solving.
Complaints bring value when paired with solution ideas. Failures become the foundation of innovation when they include honest learning. Ideas can become millions with follow-through—so when someone shares one alone, invite them to add the positive follow-up.
Last week at FiReGlobal West (guest on a CTO Challenge Panel), I focused on how tech can boost civic engagement: education should shift from step-wise lesson plans to teacher-as-coach so students learn at individualized pace; building tech must sell on “better, cheaper, or both” (52% CO2 from buildings); remote healthcare via InTouch Health demos; ocean leadership via carbon pricing and tech-driven challenges.
You’re not screwed—competition validates your direction and it’s an advantage when you copy what customers love and replicate it faster. Call/email 10 competitor customers, learn what’s good/bad, and ask for ranked top features and top missing ones. I panicked in 1998 when Yahoo bought a similar e-commerce player; I should’ve kept building.
