Posted because a lot of things in this rang true about founding tech companies for me as well:
There's a reason why big accomplishments always come with effusive thanks to family and friends. It's not just about giving thanks—it's about publicly apologizing to the people who've sacrificed so much so you can realize a dream.
The one constant that seems to come up in all these founder stories is that you better love what you're doing. There's no guarantee that your new business will be successful or profitable but it seems inevitable you will sink nearly all your time, energy, and money into it. You better be feel rewarded by the journey because that's all you can count on.
That's true. The only founder story I can think of that doesn't fit into the pattern is Scott Adams'.
Here's the counterargument: When I was a commercial
loan officer for a large bank, my boss taught us that
you should never make a loan to someone who is
following his passion.
[...]
My boss, who had been a commercial lender for over 30
years, said that the best loan customer is someone who
has no passion whatsoever, just a desire to work hard
at something that looks good on a spreadsheet.
[...]
On the other hand, Dilbert started out as just one of
many get-rich schemes I was willing to try. When it
started to look as if it might be a success, my passion
for cartooning increased because I realized it could be
my golden ticket.
I actually side entirely with Scott Adams. I feel like it's a really cliche and popular thing to say "Do what you love and success will follow", but it seems like objectively bad advice to pick your profession based on your passion.
We're all passionate about a lot of things that simply aren't commercially viable.
I sell rental application software for a living. It's necessary, a part of the industry, and not something I'm particularly passionate about in subject matter. I AM passionate about doing the absolute best job by a mile and providing the incontestably, incontrovertibly, unambiguously best option on the market for our customers.
Almost EVERYTHING I do (and the awesome people on my team do) has nothing specifically to do with rental application software. Rental application software is just a widget that we sell that has commercial value and therefore pays the bills.
What we do is: software delivery, customer service, operations, listening to our customers, and a bunch of other stuff that is immediately translatable to <any other widget>. But we do the absolute best in industry at those things.
So I'm not really passionate necessarily about "what I do" in the way people thing (rental application software), but we're really passionate about "what I do" in the way that I think of it (running the best damn business).
Rental application software is just this tiny, tiny, tiny kernel of a thing makes it easy to classify what we do into an industry or subject bucket -- but for what we deliver, what we think about, what we REALLY DO, that tiny kernel occupies less than 5% of our thoughts.
I have on more than one occasion heard founders (maybe in the process of pitching for investment dollars) say things like:
> "This is my life's work. I'm passionate about _____"
Where ________ is something like:
- accounting software
- restaurant POS systems
- online coupons
etc...
If they are saying that to convince someone you're all in on it, I get it. I've pitched/sold before. And don't get me wrong, those are important things for someone to do. It's just not really necessary or important to me that those are things that the founder is deeply passionate about.
Yes, I would MUCH rather invest in someone who is truly passionate about that boring thing. But:
1. If it's true, that person is probably awful boring (or alternatively, I have been blessed with really awesome and interesting friends!), and
2. Coupling your financial future to the commercial viability of "what you're passionate about" still strikes me as terrible advice, though admittedly feel-good advice that resonates with a generation of people accustomed to excess disposable income and who consequently have had the ability to pursue passions.
There's no one right answer. At the end of the day it is about perspective. Specifically, Scott Adams' father was loan officer at a bank. Banks are fairly conservative when it comes to giving loans. They want to see business plans and analyze hard numbers before they commit money to entrepreneurs. So when amateurs come to them asking for funding for an idea because "it is their passion," of course the bank turns them down, for passion alone is insufficient AND it has the risk of blinding someone to the reality of how commercially viable the idea really is.
On the other hand, all other things being equal, someone being passionate about basket weaving is more likely to make a successful business out of it than someone who is in it just for the money. Passion can be a nearly bottomless source of motivation, which helps people stick it out when things get rough. After all, starting and running a business is like a roller-coaster ride: one needs to endure the lows to enjoy the highs.
I think that could be a successful formula for co-founding teams: you need one person who is deeply passionate about the topic and another whose main strength is figuring out how to monetize it. That's how Apple became successful.
Reading your comment (and rereading the article about Scott Adams) I came to think that maybe the most successful people are those that can create a passion matching the needs that exist at a certain time. This view fits well with my personal experience.
Regarding Apple I always thought it was
all about the tech in the beginning, for both Steves.
Only one of them developed a passion for business.
Yes and as per the article and my own experience that's especially true when you think about going into food & beverages as it's the complete opposite of what it feels like being a customer - you have to love it (never-ending, physically and psychologically hard work) there really is no other way.
Edit: I enjoyed Peter Thiel's "Competition is For Losers" as it pretty much sums up what is wrong with this industry from a business perspective - http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec05/
Yes and as per the article and my own experience that's
especially true when you think about going into food &
beverages as it's the complete opposite of what it
feels like being a customer [...]
The article mentions the founder eating fast food at least twice and I found that a nice way to express the difference between how customers see a restaurant owner and reality.
> in all these founder stories [...] you better love what you're doing
I agree with you as a general point but I disagree in that you make it about founders.
As a general rule, if you have the chance/education/abilities to do, you should always pick a job where you love what you're doing, whether you're the founder or an important employee or a random grunt in a giant corporation.
You're going to do that for 8h+ hours a day, 5+ days a week for years on end. Make sure you enjoy it.
Actually, unless you are very unusual, one kind of job you should not pick is one where you love what you're doing, because if you love that activity, so do lots of other people (again, unless you are very unusual), which means they will crowd into that occupation and bid down wages and working conditions until life for almost everyone in that occupation is shit.
Mind you, it's also bad to be in a job you hate. Forty hours a week doing something you hate is a big negative impact on quality of life.
If you're going to be working for money, what you should aim for is something that pays decently and you don't hate.
The problem with that theory is that just because you don't love it doesn't mean that there aren't lots of others who do love it. Trading off your joy doesn't mean you aren't still competing in a field where your competitors love it ... it just means you don't.
For the concern you cite, avoiding what you love is misguided, you want to actually study the markets for various options to see what is getting bid down -- and choose something that has an attractive combination of economic conditions resulting from others preferences and interaction with your preferences.
How do BBQ restaurants work? The two methods I can think of are: 1) you run out when you run out and that's it for the day 2) you keep stuff warm. I'd expect that to dry it out. I've heard some of the famous ones in the south use method #1.
Real BBQ is smoking stuff at low temperatures (not too far from 100C) for a long time - briskets can take 12+ hours or longer. So you can't just throw an extra one on when the customer orders, it's basically got to be ready.
I think if I ever had a serious amount of disposable money, I'd open a BBQ joint here in Italy.
> The reason that chicken is a royal pain in my ass is the execution of the dish in a barbecue setting. Every other barbecue item has a relatively long shelf life—contrary to what some snobs tell you, it doesn't need to be eaten straight from the smoker. At Franklin Barbecue in Austin, Texas, Aaron Franklin takes his brisket out at 3 a.m. to rest while the rest of his menu items cook. The restaurant opens at 11 a.m. and sells out shortly thereafter, which means that brisket you waited on line for hours for has been sitting in a warming box for no fewer than eight hours.
> In a barbecue setting, everything is done and cooked long before you show up. Now chicken? Kept warm, it'll stay nice and juicy for maybe an hour. After that it's all downhill.
I can appreciate that. I used to live in a neighborhood with a decent takeout BBQ restaurant. I tend to eat late, so it wasn't unusual for me to order something at 9:30-10PM and find that they were all out of everything but one or two dishes (they closed at 10:30). Pretty sure at least once I went there and they were completely out of meat and were only selling side dishes.
Where I'm from in Oregon, there are a few places, but they're few and far between, and I doubt the quality measures up to areas where there is more knowledge and competition between establishments. Indeed, I have to admit to having had absolutely no clue about real barbecue growing up.
I think it's pretty cool that it's such a local thing, in an age when so much of life is so homogeneous in the US.
Just wanted to comment to say that the book you mentioned is great, as are most of the other things that economist, Tyler Cowen, has written. He and a colleague have a blog, http://marginalrevolution.com/, that many HN readers will probably enjoy.
I'll plug my friend's blog here. For years now he's been blogging about visits to BBQ places all over the Southeast, and he's hit a good number of them. A lot of these are the roadside, cinder block building kinda places.
My brother runs a BBQ place in Flagstaff, of all places, and he's done a lot of traveling to sample BBQ around the country. It really is amazing how much regional variation there is, and how proud each region is of their own style.
I've been traveling for a while, and it's pretty surprising how regional most freshly-prepared foods are. Pizza, bagels, barbecue, baguettes, pastries, breads, even produce — all vary drastically in quality depending on the region. Something about having a concentrated pool of talent and competition in one area, I suppose.
Barbecue's a real microcosm in the food world. I'm a pretty learned foodie, but I had no idea just how widely barbecue techniques were spread around the world until I started looking into it a few years ago.
I think the US can legitimately claim to be the barbecue kings of the world, but there are some really interesting barbecue traditions elsewhere, from Japan to Brazil. (I've since become somewhat addicted to Brasilian barbecue, which fits very nicely with a Paleo diet.)
I, meanwhile, come from the UK. We love our barbecue. We're also, natively - and weirdly for a food-loving nation - absolutely terrible at it.
I live in Mobile, AL. Meat Boss, the best barbecue place I've eaten by far, follows method number 1.
Additionally, they are only open for sandwiches from 11am until 2pm (or they run out) three days a week. Racks of ribs and pork butts can be ordered a day in advance and picked up Monday through Saturday.
Considering the low-and-slow technique of a lot of smoked / bbq meats, it's actually really hard to dry out most meats because few of them are lean (chicken breast is notorious for drying out, even with the low-and-slow approach).
You can keep things "warm" without keeping them under lights - a lower heat ( < 100F ) can keep beef and pork plenty moist.
> You can keep things "warm" without keeping them under lights - a lower heat ( < 100F ) can keep beef and pork plenty moist.
Unfortunately, maintaining meat at that temperature is going to be a non-starter pretty much anywhere in the USA for health code reasons. Here in NYC, meat has to be held at 140 degrees or above, or if reheated, has to be heated to above 165 degrees, and then held at 140.
I’ve worked in the food industry for quite a while, 16 years I think, often in kitchens but sometimes in other areas. About 20 months ago I launched my own food business. I’m the only employee. The few products I sell should be served fresh, so I go to the kitchen 364 days a year to prepare and deliver fresh goods. In some ways I can relate to Tyson Ho, in others I can’t, the difference being only how our work is similar or divergent.
He’s had much more attention than I’ve had. I’m not certain what he did to garner it, but I’ve worked hard to fly under the radar. From following the tech industry (and others) for many years, I’ve made it a point to not grow too fast, to avoid taking on more than is possible, physically or economically. I’d rather under-promise and then over-deliver. Or, as is often discussed in places like HN, I want to manage customers’ expectations.
One result is that I’ve done no marketing beyond some occasional use of Twitter. I don’t even have a website yet. In fact, I haven’t solicited one customer. Speaking to one person in food retail led to that person carrying my products when I launched, and every customer since has come by word of mouth. Since I only wholesale, my customers are not the people ultimately buying my products for consumption. So I do everything to keep my customers happy, word gradually spreads about my products, and other retailers find their way to me.
Still, I can understand the tight economics Mr. Ho describes. I was profitable within weeks of launching, but I’m not rolling in money by any stretch. I’d hate to know what I make on an hourly basis. But I don’t know because it’s not one of the measures I use for gauging whether this is succeeding. I measure myself by my performance in the kitchen —things like punctuality, product quality, sanitation. I measure customer service by my customers' satisfaction with how I handle their needs. And I measure the bottom line simply by whether or not the bank balance is going up.
He discussed balancing work with other aspects of life. I’m content with how I’ve done there. Mind you, I’m single and childless, so it’s not fair to compare me to him. But I’ve maintained some social life (that was never too big for me), and I’ve continued the long-distance friendships I’ve long been part of.
All told, I’ve never understood why people get into this industry. It’s physically brutal, mentally endless, hard to make decent money, and customer expectations are brutal. On that last one, I’ll note that every industry has its odd customer expectations, but food is one of the oddest I’ve ever noticed. Example: You have a date with your significant other. The restaurant darn well better seat the two of you within minutes of your reservation time. In contrast, the doctor’s office has a waiting room you’re likely to sit in no matter how punctual you are. Another example: Unless something sells out from popularity, food customers usually don’t tolerate things being unavailable. “I’m sorry, there’s no bread for the table because the oven broke” isn’t something you hear, and that’s because customers, and in turn restaurant owners, won’t tolerate it.
The best description I’ve ever heard about restaurant life is that it’s like working in an emergency room but without the life and death. But you can bet anyone worth their salt in a kitchen treats it like like and death. Still, I enjoy what I do and find both the work and customer service rewarding. I don’t blame anyone for trying this industry and fleeing it as fast as possible. And since it sounds like Mr. Ho is doing good work, I certainly hope he’s able to make his business work.
Whatever thing you're selling, it's obviously good, and people like and want it.
I don't know if you care for my advice, but that's what I would start with:
* Website, a very simple one where one can order your stuff, wholesale and small amounts (priced differently). This kind of thing doesn't require any coding these days.
* Automate as much as you can.
* Make sure you learn how much you make per hour, because this will pay for the salary of the person doing what you're doing.
* It sounds like you're close to being maxed out, and your only options are A) Raise prices B) Expand. I would try both.
* When you know how much you can pay, start expanding. Hire people, one at a time.
Not everyone measures success by money and leisure time. Especially in more creatively-derived industries, like culinary arts, I find that money has little to do with what people judge as success. Many simply want to make the best food they can.
It's true what you are saying (not everyone..) but I am not sure that there's so much creativity in 99% of the food industry. Take NaOH, he makes pretzels, using a very good recipe that he probably doesn't want to change, how much innovation can he put in that? Please note that I'm not critizing or bashing his work,not at all, I've upvoted his posts because I found them very interesting, it's just that I think that when you move to "professional" food production, at some point what you are asked is delivering with consistency, and you have less space for being creative.
I like cooking, I am not bad at it, and when I moved to this country (Luxembourg, coming from Italy) I was unemployed and so I was joking with friends saying things like "if I don't find a job I could open a restaurant" but of course it was just a joke, first of all because you should really have worked in that sector before starting to do something on your own, and second because one thing is cooking a good Risotto for your family once a week, another thing is doing it for 10 tables every single day...I think it can become quite repetitive and not enjoyable
On the food side, I agree with you about there not being much room for creativity in my setup. I'm comfortable with that. I like it, even, since coming up with new items or menus was never a part of the work I particularly enjoyed. Plus, that work complicates ordering and increases the risk of food waste. Sure, I do some of that, but not much and not on a regular basis.
Yet there is plenty of room for creativity. I focus on trying to bring that to customer service. I've worked diligently to make it so that all my customers know I will do whatever I possibly can to help them, pretzel-related or otherwise. Some things are across the board, like not requiring specific lead times for orders (in this field it can be up to 48 hours). Others are customer-specific, like getting an order at 9:15AM and delivering it by 11AM (fresh-baked goods, remember), or doing dishes for three hours because I've got time and my customer's dishwasher decided to no-show, or bringing a customer a giant 5-pound pretzel to help that group of people celebrate its first anniversary of being open.
All of that contributes to my business doing okay despite the lack of marketing on my part. People rave about the products I make, and the businesses to whom I sell are comfortable recommending me to other businesses. I mean, we all know word of mouth is the best marketing—not just for its low cost but mostly for the weight it carries—and since I’m a wholesaler my best opportunity for generating word of mouth is through customer service for the businesses buying from me. That’s an area where there’s always room for creativity since circumstances and the people involved provide diverse opportunities for me to respond well.
I love programming, and think I'd do it even if it didn't pay well, but I'm not sure you can do that forever. Most people get married, have kids and so on, and can't keep up the intensity with low pay.
Also, there's a lot to be said for creating a viable business - "working on your business, rather than in your business" as the quote goes, that can run without you.
I'd add that a website can assist with the 'pull' aspect of the business, in planning and being as forward looking as possible through the entire supply chain, rather than responding, 'push' like, to requests.
But agree, keep it super simple. Perhaps review some online classes in operations management, LEAN or similar.
Good luck to the OP. The business can be brutal, but it sounds like some initial hurdles are cleared. :)
I intentionally omitted that information. I wasn't commenting on the article to promote my business, so I left out the specifics of what I do in favor of focusing on the article and the industry. But I don't see much harm in adding that I make Bavarian soft pretzels and a couple of other soft-pretzel products. I had the good fortune to train under a German chef whose pretzel recipe is what I use.
From that, I'll note that my strict focus on soft pretzels is another thing I learned from following tech industries. That is, do something really, really well. Don't try to do too much or be all things to all people. People I meet often seem surprised when they learn I only do pretzel products. I tell them I'm not out to become a bakery—randomly making cupcakes for someone's child's birthday, decorating cookies for some other random order, etc.
People then often say that what I do is very simple (in the basic sense, not in the easy-to-do sense). I tell them it's focused.
It's been a long time since I've had a decent Käse- or Butterbrezel. Good on you for knowing what you want out of your business and sticking to it. You remind me of the German fisher and tourist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anekdote_zur_Senkung_der_Arbeit...
What you are saying is similar to philosophy of Jiro from "Jiro dreams of Sushi". If you haven't seen it then you should. He also focuses on very specific type of food, and after some tests with trying to introduce more products he decided its not worth it. Amazing documentary.
A quote from a David Sedaris article [1] sums it up nicely through a conversation he had with an entrepreneur who was intending to retire at 55.
> "One burner represents your family, one is your friends, the third is your health, and the fourth is your work." The gist, she said, was that in order to be successful you have to cut off one of your burners. And in order to be really successful you have to cut off two.
This is a really interesting idea. I wonder if there's anyone who's been extremely successful in their work who would object to it.
My instinct is that if you're smart about your time investments, you can get pretty far on most those burners without out a lot of time invested.
For example, for me, health is a non-negotiable. But I can maintain it with only 4-5 hours a week of investment vs. 0 hours if I abandon it. I just have 3 rules: get enough sleep, eat only healthy things, exercise at least once a week.
If you are running your own company and you can't sleep enough, I think you are either not prioritizing it or you're doing something wrong. You're unsustainably stressed or not managing your company's execution well enough. Not enough sleep affects your performance and ability to think as much as your health, so I really don't see any benefit to being chronically sleep deprived.
Eating healthy doesn't take much more time than eating unhealthy. It means buying groceries, and knowing what's open around you that's cheap and healthy (Most Chinese take-out vegetable stir fry is a good option). The groceries come from Amazon Fresh, and mean 2-3 hours more per week cooking than you would if you got fast food.
And exercise takes no more than 2 hours a week. The goal here is not to be athletic, it's just to be healthy.
I think that whatever your main burner is, you can usually maintain the other burners adequately with 4-5 hours per week, and no more unless something unusual is going on.
The key word here is adequate - it's not the main dimension of your success, and you may just be ok at it. But I don't think you need to fail at it in order to succeed at the thing you're focusing on.
And if you can hit adequacy, you still have more than enough time for your main burner. If other burners combined take 15 hours per week, you very likely still have at least 80 hours a week left for your main focus.
The specific numbers I hypothesize here applies only if you don't have kids, which I imagine skews your family number significantly.
A little side question - I love Serious Eats but after their last redesign there is no paging. So you just cannot browse to a certain point in time and then continue from there.
I don't think you are missing anything, but it's interesting how different people have different ways of using the web.
I don't think I've ever wanted a web page to be split into pages, and I've always presumed it's done only to have more spaces for ad placement. I always go out of my way to submit links to a single page version, and although I've sometimes worried this might be depriving the destination site of revenue, I've never really considered that readers might prefer a paginated version.
If I wanted to continue reading something after a pause, I'd leave the page open in a tab (or more commonly, separate window), keeping it scrolled to the position I stopped reading. If I had to reopen it again, I'd scroll quickly through with the trackpad or space bar until I saw something unfamiliar, much in the way that I would visually scan to find my place in a magazine article.
How do you use the pagination to help you continue? By remembering the page number and clicking on it, by bookmarking the link to a specific page, or something else?
Edit to clarify: I agree with 'zipperg' below, and I'm not suggesting that infinite scroll is anything other than a usability nightmare. Instead, I'm expressing my strong preference for true-single page articles such as this one over both pagination and automated loading. Unless I'm the one missing something and this page is autoloading the main content so well that I'm not bothered by it? (I'm less dogmatic about user comments --- hiding them can often be a good thing)
I hate it when individual articles are broken into pages for no good reason, but I like pagination for main/index pages.
The biggest problem I've had with this kind of scrolling is when something happens that makes the next "page" fail to load for whatever reason. Usually the only thing that can be done in that case is to reload the whole thing, and then tediously scroll back to where you were. It's gotten better in recent implementations, but it still happens from time to time.
It's also annoying when I need to catch up after a long time away (or if it's a site I haven't read before). Depending on the site and what else I have going on at the time, I might read a given site over the course of days or weeks. I do usually leave the tab or window open, but sometimes it gets closed or reloaded for one reason or another. And again, as you say, you can scroll to the first unfamiliar thing, but when it's the equivalent of 10 or 20 pages back, that's a pain. And it's even worse when the "it won't load anymore" problem happens.
It's a usability tradeoff, but I have had many more frustrating experiences with infinite scrolling over the past few years than I ever had with paginated indices in the 20+ years I've been using the web.
I met Tyson a few weeks ago at Arrogant Swine after the Brooklyn iOS Meetup.
I have to say, from what I saw that night at his restaurant I'm fairly certain he's stumbled upon a formula that is going to work quite well. The place was jam packed, food was delicious and I'm still telling people about the meal and ambiance.
Drove back from Brooklyn last night after celebrating my friend's 40th at Arrogant Swine, and then I wake up to see this on hacker news. Crazy.
This restuarant appears out of nowhere in Bushwick/warehouse district. Being a North Carolina native I was a huge skeptic walking in. Mr. Ho has an NC (and SC) flag on the wall, usually not a symbol of pride outside the state (even for me), but in the case of BBQ it's respectable and makes a statement to anyone who know's anything about pulled-pork BBQ.
If you're ever in Brooklyn, definitely check it out. There's something to be said about eating, drinking, and enjoying the vision of an entrepreneur. Impossible to do with your stereotypcial start-up.
I do miss the NC BBQ. I used to eat at Cooper's in downtown Raleigh -- which is in the process of moving to a new location I hear. A developer bought the block and is putting up a tall building -- no room for a business started in the 1930s there.
The best hushpuppies I ever had though, were at Bubba's in Charlotte. Ralph would make his dough in batches, and if you caught it at the end of the batch, the onions had had time to steep in the batter, and they were so good.
It kills me that restaurants add all the value to the area but lose almost all of it to rent.
I wish I could design a town or something. Big tax break to landlords who house good restaurante long-term or or otherwise allow the restaurant to be profitable. Or maybe the town owns the town center or something.
You can't just wave away economics like that. The problem with restaurants is that they are in a highly crowded and competitive business. If you give them a tax break, they would simply pass the savings onto the consumer.
Yeah. I think the issue is that the landlord is incentivized to extract maximum cash for the spot, which may be better for some other kind of venture (eg bank branch or whatever) which makes the restaurant's existence close to untenable in some locations. Public good or local quality or whatever does not factor in in any way.
There are probably better ways to do this than what I suggested.
Even if the landlords charged no rent, I would not expect to see profits increase significantly, rather I would expect prices to lower (and additional restaurants to open). Of course, if only a small(ish) number of restaurants get free rent, their profits would go up.
Typically NY situation is, up-and-coming restaurateur opens in a crappy underutilized space, takes a long-term e.g. 7-year lease. Lease is up, every established restaurateur and dilettante thinks they can make a fortune there, rent rises to where nobody can make much of a buck, often new restaurant closes shortly after.
I don't know why there are so many freaking banks, New Yorkers refuse to walk and are worth money to banks. But a restaurant is a huge pain in the ass to a landlord compared to a bank.
I wonder what the effects would be of cities requiring a long term lease to get a restaurant permit? Would landlords just not go along and we'd see fewer restaurants? Maybe, but it could be an interesting experiment to find out.
I really enjoy reading about the trials of entrepreneurs outside The Bubble on HN and this was a great piece of writing. The vignette about the dirt-loving sniper sucked me in.
There's a reason why big accomplishments always come with effusive thanks to family and friends. It's not just about giving thanks—it's about publicly apologizing to the people who've sacrificed so much so you can realize a dream.