Does anyone else dislike the "Startup" community?

[TreyAllDay]

A bit of a rant here - I'm just curious what everyone's opinion is of their local "startup" community. It was "Startup Week" this October in my town (not sure if this is a global thing), so there was a few open events. Honestly, a majority of the community seems really self-absorbed. Constantly throwing around buzz words like "disrupt" and "hack", and focused on "impact" without seemingly any reason why. I don't know why I have always sort of disliked this community, maybe need to give it more of a chance!

 

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[Mr.Brandtastic]

Yea I would weary of events like that. Unless they had some really great speakers I would steer clear.

 

[TStrike]

A bit of a rant here - I'm just curious what everyone's opinion is of their local "startup" community. It was "Startup Week" this October in my town (not sure if this is a global thing), so there was a few open events. Honestly, a majority of the community seems really self-absorbed. Constantly throwing around buzz words like "disrupt" and "hack", and focused on "impact" without seemingly any reason why. I don't know why I have always sort of disliked this community, maybe need to give it more of a chance!

Agreed. Not much of a startup community locally, but I got tired of Tim Ferriss for his constant startup talk.

 

[G-Man]

The people that start and run successful "startups" don't throw or attend events like this, they're too busy working.

If the shit these people peddled worked, they'd be so busy creating massive companies that they wouldn't be interested in having seminars and networking events.

 

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[eliquid]

I hope I don't catch slack for this, but I kinda dislike it as well.

I'm from Louisville and they have a small startup scene. These events they have like the OPs event experience happens in parts of Louisville that tend to be "hipster" and "trendy" and "starbucks-y".

Now, just for clarification.. I love my coffee from Starbucks. I have nothing against hipsters or "trendy". I really don't.

But what happens is a group of 100 or so "wanna-bes" get together and cheer on whoever is speaking at the time about their "dreams" of a startup and what they are working on, which almost always I can tell within the first 5 seconds is something that will flop and fail.

No one with real business experience comes to the events. It's always people working a 9-5 or people living in mom's basement with no real goals showing up. The word "startup" tends to attract people that are new, inexperienced, and green.

Hey I know people gotta start somewhere, so I am not digging at these people. But if you try to tell them something different like, "maybe you should do this instead".. they look at you like you're a dream killer and then proceed to ask you, "well who are you mr bigshot.. I didn't see you pull up in a maybach".

Eh. Maybe it will change.

Startups is the new MLM

.

 

[TreyAllDay]

The people that start and run successful "startups" don't throw or attend events like this, they're too busy working. If the shit these people peddled worked, they'd be so busy creating massive companies that they wouldn't be interested in having seminars and networking events.

Exactly. And the funny thing is, these types of people worship Elon Musk because he does things to "propel the world forward" and isn't just concerned about money. But don't realize how much value he had to create to make his dreams a reality.

 

[G-Man]

these types of people worship Elon Musk because he does things to "propel the world forward" and isn't just concerned about money.

People unwilling or unable to produce anything others are wiling to pay for always idealize and regurgitate this drivel. It takes me back to the nonsense I had to listen to back in my non-profit days. Back then, everyone was talking about "social enterprise", then the word "sustainable" got tacked onto everything.

Next year it'll be another word, but it'll be the same people, and they still won't have done much.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Can't speak for the start-up scene locally, but over on the tech-coast it reminds me of a high-school clique where you're either part of the "IN" crowd, or you're trying to get in.

Both times I sold my company involved a Silicon Valley company and it became pretty clear to me, if you aren't a part of the clique, you aren't anybody they want to hear from.

Speaking locally, I went to a startup event many years ago and while the woman speaking had a good resume, all she did was name drop and use buzzwords from the aforementioned clique. She then proceeded to talk about an hour how you can become part of the clique through various networking events, cold-emailing, and VC prospecting. Zero mention of "build something valuable." By the time she was done, I found her somewhat sniveling and disingenuous -- not someone I'd want to work with.

Anyway, to go back to the question... I don't "dislike" the startup crowd, but IMO, they are teeming with elitism, or wannabee elitism.

I'm sure Hollywood is similar.

 

[Daniel...D]

A bit of a rant here - I'm just curious what everyone's opinion is of their local "startup" community. It was "Startup Week" this October in my town (not sure if this is a global thing), so there was a few open events. Honestly, a majority of the community seems really self-absorbed. Constantly throwing around buzz words like "disrupt" and "hack", and focused on "impact" without seemingly any reason why. I don't know why I have always sort of disliked this community, maybe need to give it more of a chance!

Really, if you don't find anything useful for yourself there, just don't spend time on events like this

 

[minivanman]

There is good reason for what goes on at these 'events'. If I showed up and talked about how hard it is, how many hours it takes and what hell some have to go through to get to where they want to be do you think anyone would be cheering me on? Would they buy what ever I had for sale? The people that want to hear the real world challenges read books by people who have actually been there and done that. It's an act, I look at those things like I do a tv show..... I never go to them and I never watch tv.

 

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[Andy Black]

I worked in a startup once upon a time. You know, the one with full blown VC funding, weekly vision updates to the company, play stations, and free breakfast.

I even bought "The Lean Startup"
to try and get up to speed... except I couldn't get past the first few pages as it was so academic and ... well ... non-lean.

All the startup language makes me want to puke in my mouth a little. You can take all your pivots and validate somewhere else thank you.

When the goals are a round of funding and an IPO then genuinely helping people gets lost in the mix.

Supposedly €40m funding ... down the drain. I wonder if anyone misses it?

Don't get me wrong, Paul Graham's essays are excellent.

But I'm not into unicorns.



As for the culture surrounding startups ... I avoid that. I want to deal with local service businesses that actually have customers, preferably with designs on going national or international.



One of my neighbours went to a county enterprise event where the success stories paraded in front of everyone were those "startups" that secured big rounds of funding. He asked if any had made any revenue yet and was told to sit down and shut up.

The Irish government is looking for the next "Stripe"d Unicorn. I don't know if employees in government organisations are the best for advising startups. They're giving away free money, but the time it would take to jump through all the bureaucratic hoops is too much. You literally couldn't pay me to apply for a grant.


And as for big events explaining how to start your own startup? I always wonder what the likes of MJ or Vigilante would think when they're there.

If bona-fide business owners wouldn't want to be there then I figure it's not a B2B play, so must be a B2C play.

 

[Eskil]

Lol, yeah you're not the only one... and I giggled to myself when MJ brought up his thoughts about the 'startup' terminology in his latest book, Unscripted . I nodded in agreement, lol..

When I hear the word startups, I immediately think of what @eliquid and @TreyAllDay said - hipsters throwing buzz words around, wanting to 'disrupt an industry' or saying shit like "we're gonna be the ________ of ______" (insert whatever gazillion dollar valuation success company here) - but without actually being focused on value, or often not having any business experience.

I mean, we're technically all "startups" here too, but you never see Fastlaners throwing these words around. It's kinda cheesy IMO. Just say you're starting / running a business. Saying you're a 'startup' more often than not comes across as trying to impress.

 

[TreyAllDay]

I even bought "The Lean Startup"

I found this book SO dreadful as well. What I did like though, was drilling home the point of minimum viable product, using testing to better understand how to serve the need better than anyone else. Again, stuff explained in MFL and unscripted , just expanded on.

What I don't like is the start-uppy stuff - VC funding, science, learning, etc. Just for some reason at the time in my life that I read that book, it made having a "Startup" seem like such a daunting task.

 

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[TreyAllDay]

"we're gonna be the ________ of ______" .

This is my biggest pet peeve, any time a company says they're going to be the UBER of X, I want to throw up in my mouth.

 

[ZF Lee]

The people that start and run successful "startups" don't throw or attend events like this, they're too busy working.

If the shit these people peddled worked, they'd be so busy creating massive companies that they wouldn't be interested in having seminars and networking events.

I hope I don't catch slack for this, but I kinda dislike it as well.

I'm from Louisville and they have a small startup scene. These events they have like the OPs event experience happens in parts of Louisville that tend to be "hipster" and "trendy" and "starbucks-y".

Now, just for clarification.. I love my coffee from Starbucks. I have nothing against hipsters or "trendy". I really don't.

But what happens is a group of 100 or so "wanna-bes" get together and cheer on whoever is speaking at the time about their "dreams" of a startup and what they are working on, which almost always I can tell within the first 5 seconds is something that will flop and fail.

No one with real business experience comes to the events. It's always people working a 9-5 or people living in mom's basement with no real goals showing up. The word "startup" tends to attract people that are new, inexperienced, and green.

Hey I know people gotta start somewhere, so I am not digging at these people. But if you try to tell them something different like, "maybe you should do this instead".. they look at you like you're a dream killer and then proceed to ask you, "well who are you mr bigshot.. I didn't see you pull up in a maybach".

Eh. Maybe it will change.

Startups is the new MLM

.

@eliquid , I don't think it will go away anytime soon.
It's simply group polarisation at work. Put a bunch of similar-minded people together, and they become even more convinced that what they are doing is absolutely notable. One person's mind plus one person's mind...you get double the power of the ideology involved. Multiplication in play.

I feel that 'hipster' and 'trendy' are very generic terms even for clothing or fashion. These terms could mean anything. Last time, they might mean rock or disco music. Now its some new-fangled techno music lol.

I get an ominous feeling when I see businesses advertise themselves using such generic phrases....do they stand apart by themselves at the end of the day?

Agreed. Not much of a startup community locally, but I got tired of Tim Ferriss for his constant startup talk.

....and Richard Branson too. Clogged up my social feeds.

Honestly, his business that made him rich were actually BORING and UNSEXY industries. A music distribution business at his time was a taboo industry. And the airplane business was rife with politics and blackmailing and commoditization. There was absolutely nothing startup-ish about Branson's major ventures. I just don't understand why he adds fuel to the falsity of such events.

Can't speak for the start-up scene locally, but over on the tech-coast it reminds me of a high-school clique where you're either part of the "IN" crowd, or you're trying to get in.

Both times I sold my company involved a Silicon Valley company and it became pretty clear to me, if you aren't a part of the clique, you aren't anybody they want to hear from.

Speaking locally, I went to a startup event many years ago and while the woman speaking had a good resume, all she did was name drop and use buzzwords from the aforementioned clique. She then proceeded to talk about an hour how you can become part of the clique through various networking events, cold-emailing, and VC prospecting. Zero mention of "build something valuable." By the time she was done, I found her somewhat sniveling and disingenuous -- not someone I'd want to work with.

Anyway, to go back to the question... I don't "dislike" the startup crowd, but IMO, they are teeming with elitism, or wannabee elitism.

I'm sure Hollywood is similar.

It is. How else do you think for every successful actor banking coin, there are fifty who can't even put food on the table?
The illusion of elitism blinds lots of the newbies so that they lose track of what to aim for.

New actors get the buzz from the triumph of the big names and marketing, that they leap into the fray aiming to be 'one of them', only to miss out the whole point of acting: to present authentic artistic and visual prowess.

it is akin to the falsity of studying to get a big score instead of enhancing one's knowledge. Blinded by the elitism of the 'nerds'.
It's not as if everyone were trained on a daily basis to always, aim for value.

But IMO, I suppose that the end test of it all is whether the effort, be it going to a startup event or not, banks coin eventually. Will I be able to get my stuff out to more people? Better suppliers? More legacy structures to sell more?

I never went to startup events because they DIDN'T offer any of these opportunities, not even in their testimonials, if any.

Networking is not wrong, but it's not supposed to be the only thing you do.

Startups are not the only way to get rich. Or, it's NEVER the way to get rich. To think it does would be barking up the wrong tree.
This reminds me of last week's dinner with my relatives.

My dad took me to my grandpa's house. In front of it was a huge house. A bungalow with multiple balconies, an elegant gate, and they seemed to be expanding the side of the house with more rooms!

I had seen that house every time I came to my grandpa's for Chinese New Year. I never asked about who lived there although they were neighbours with my grandpa.

Out of the blue, that day, my dad said, 'Son, the people who live in that big house made their fortune in selling chickens.'

Yup, chickens. Not some new-fangled app or spreadsheet mahogany I keep seeing trumpeted on the Quora startup section. Raw chickens. Chickens that you take home to fry, boil or stew.

Wholesale chickens, to be exact.
Supplied to the city markets. We were in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of my country, so there was a lot of space for banking coin.

My dad continued, 'In fact, they send us chickens every Chinese New Year. Lots of them.'

Me: 'Oh! No wonder grandma cooks a whole bunch of them!'

I don't think such people ever went to startup events to make a fortune, let alone freedom!

 

[cor]

It just seems very vain lately. There are a lot of people that invent or create solutions to problems that never really existed and that people don't really need. It's also usually done in the hopes of getting acquired. So the business model doesn't even need to work or turn a profit to be successful. It's usually just the appearance of doing something or creating something valuable.

It reminds me a lot of the internet of shit. Overengineering solutions or products, putting too many features that nobody wanted or that lack substance. I see this a lot and it's a real head-scratcher. I guess it's people starting businesses, that aren't business people, but know how to program.

 

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[Eskil]

What I don't like is the start-uppy stuff - VC funding, science, learning, etc.

Haha yes, not to mention another cringe word... "incubator".
So, you're gonna join an 'incubator' to start/launch a business? So you can sit around in some cool facility and circle jerk with a bunch of other dudes who also thought they could make it big because they are in an 'incubator'? Ok buddy.

(Not saying these are all worthless but to think being part of one is gonna help skyrocket yourself to your dreams is not that different than ordering business cards with 'CEO' on them before you have even picked out a product)

 

[ZF Lee]

Haha yes, not to mention another cringe word... "incubator".
So, you're gonna join an 'incubator' to start/launch a business? So you can sit around in some cool facility and circle jerk with a bunch of other dudes who also thought they could make it big because they are in an 'incubator'? Ok buddy.

(Not saying these are all worthless but to think being part of one is gonna help skyrocket yourself to your dreams is not that different than ordering business cards with 'CEO' on them before you have even picked out a product)

God protect me from their influence!
It's like thinking that a machine incubator can grow a baby instead of a normal human mother to provide the infant attachment.
I know because I was born premature, and I used an incubator myself! Six months or so early.

Even in the literal sense, an incubator does not guarantee success. As a premature baby, I was weak af, had jaundice and had a couple of tubes stuck in me. Yet if it were not for my family who stuck it along, I might not have made it. But that's another story....very effort fueled. Same goes for business.

To compare it with a business incubator....F*ck....circle jerking and not going all out to save the biz from dying even before it even started for real is like murder.

This reminds me of last week's dinner with my relatives.

My dad took me to my grandpa's house. In front of it was a huge house. A bungalow with multiple balconies, an elegant gate, and they seemed to be expanding the side of the house with more rooms!

I had seen that house every time I came to my grandpa's for Chinese New Year. I never asked about who lived there although they were neighbours with my grandpa.

Out of the blue, that day, my dad said, 'Son, the people who live in that big house made their fortune in selling chickens.'

Yup, chickens. Not some new-fangled app or spreadsheet mahogany I keep seeing trumpeted on the Quora startup section. Raw chickens. Chickens that you take home to fry, boil or stew.

Did these folks go for an incubator to sell chickens and make it big? I think not.

 

[rollerskates]

The whole scene to me in a nutshell: unkempt hipsters young enough to be my children throwing buzzword frisbees in hopes of hitting someone who wants to give them money.

 

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[socaldude]

I absolutely can't stand any of these terms.

It's as if Academia went on an awkward blind date with Entrepreneurship, and Academia raped entrepreneurship with some date rape drugs and had a bastard child called "start up" or "disrupt" or "pre-revenue".

It's more about academia trying to put their nose where it shouldn't with their know-it-all and elitist hard headed ideas.

We got a 12% acceptance rate, million dollar endowments and a big name! So don't you dare try to explain this phenomenom called entrepreneurship on your own cause we got it all figure out! Oh and we also came up with some BS terms so you can memorize them for the next exam! Nevermind thinking critically.

 

[Azure]

It sounds like a lot of you are jealous of the super successful growth hacker ninjas out there.

 

[Chromozone]

I've been to a few of these startup events and I feel exactly the same way - just too much talk about garbage that doesn't matter and no talk about working hard and bringing value.

>99% of people at these events haven't even started something or are constantly coming up with excuses on why they haven't built their Unicorn yet.

Probably the reason behind all of this is that anyone can call themselves an "entrepreneur" or a "Startup founder" now, and as it's so fashionable you can't tell whose for real and whose not.

Reps to @TreyAllDay - your threads always seem to hit a nerve (in a good way!).

 

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[C-Jay]

I find that I associate the term "startup" with "likely going to fail."

"Oh, I just have a small startup"
"I'm investing my money into my little startup"

Stop. It's your F*cking business. Act like it. Either own it or dump it.

 

[G-Man]

"pre-revenue".

Hadn't heard this one. You just made my day.

 

[TreyAllDay]

It's as if Academia went on an awkward blind date with Entrepreneurship, and Academia raped entrepreneurship with some date rape drugs and had a bastard child called "start up" or "disrupt" or "pre-revenue"..

This had me dying laughing lol.

>99% of people at these events haven't even started something or are constantly coming up with excuses on why they haven't built their Unicorn yet.
.

That's exactly what I thought! None of these people ever seem to be creating something people will pay for. I would never be one to say that failure is bad, because it's important. But a lot of people, specifically lots in the startup community, kind of bastardize failure as a learning opportunity/excuse for why their ideas don't work out and why they have to move onto the next one, instead of just learning and improving their business. Keyword is "idea".

 

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[rollerskates]

"pre-revenue"

My new favorite term!

 

[ApeRunner]

All the startup language makes me want to puke in my mouth a little.

WOW. I really think I belong so much in this community. I have always criticized the "startup" hype. Because of all what you guys have said. And when I open my mouth to these wannabes they always dismiss me as a dinosaur. It's always funny to me that I earn more than them. And also having more freedom.

Let the blind stay in the darkness.

 

[TonyStark]

My new favorite term!

They use it on Shark Tank all the time.

 

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[LeoistheSun]

Ill be honest here:

Sometimes I get lost in all this stuff. Everyone wants to change the world and to me a startup is an idea of changing the world in X way without actually making any $$. (notice how I said Idea and not Business).

I get lost in wanting to change the world too! But all I gotta do is SOLVE A PROBLEM that is EXISTING NOW- instead of in the future like alot of these startups are.

Did you hear about the TEA Compressor Startup that failed recently? The device costs ~$1000. How is that solving a problem? How does that justify that large of the price? Or that juice-Squeeze machine that also failed?

IMO Startup community is just perpetuating spoiled-brat dreaming without an ounce of common sense. Angel Investors arent helping when they keep thinking a TEA Compressor is going to be the next Facebook or whatever...

 

[AndrewNC]

But I'm not into unicorns.

But all seriousness aside, I really forgot what my initial reply to this thread was.

It was logical, it made sense, it was a very valuable insight. But then the unicorn came in and I lost all train of thought.

bump.