I was about to post how this list makes me question leaving BigCo. I must be in the 20%, I don't think I have any of these qualities, and behold, my bank account tells me that none of my ventures have succeeded.
Some of PG's essays stress me out just by reading them. They usually involve the d-word (http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Apaulgraham.com+determi...). I did my thing (http://readwarp.com) for 8 months. But PG and others told me early on it didn't have commercial possibility. So was it determination or inflexibility that I kept at it? I eventually figured it out for myself, in some approximately systematic way, that it wasn't going anywhere. I've taken a job so I can save enough in a year to last me two years while I take stock. Is that lack of determination or flexibility? Would I be more determined if I was contracting instead? I still work on readwarp in the weekends; I find I can't stop even if I know it's not going anywhere. Is that inflexible? Taking a job has allowed me to change readwarp drastically, make it even more minimalist, something I just couldn't prioritize when it was something 'serious'. I still use it everyday. Am I being inflexible?
When the running back retreats is it flexibility or lack of determination? Can you really tell without knowing if he ended up downfield?
If you watched me work on any given day you'd think I have no determination or persistence at all. I give up at the first sign of trouble, go off to do something else, one of a dozen projects. But in the large I do seem to get things done. I circle back in a few hours or days on that problem I was stuck on, and I find a way to make progress. Is this flexibility? It seems a dynamic fundamentally at odds with being an entrepreneur. Funny thing is, I think PG works like this.
I'm not making excuses, just seeking my blind spot. Somehow the things I'm interested in don't seem to be of more general usefulness. I haven't accomplished anything that would stand out in a YC app. I don't know how to hack any realworld systems, except maybe job interviews and negotiations, but that's probably just another sign I'll give up and go back to a job. So I keep seeking my blind spot. What's missing? What works for others? Why am I on the outside looking in?
Perhaps you think I just shouldn't care what he has to say. But shouldn't I keep looking for feedback? Different phrasings suggest different answers.
I sense your frustration, that you feel like you're spinning your tires - and I've been there.
(1) do you have a non-negligible number of users? (have you done qualitative + quantitative research, customer development, etc)
(2) do you have a business model hypothesis, that you've sought to validate/invalidate?
(3) does getting into YC have to be a pre-requisite for your startup to succeed? (Can you try to succeed without it?)
Another quote came to mind as I read your comment; as they say in startup world, there's fine line between a visionary and a lunatic. I genuinely want to believe that you are a visionary. All startup founders want to be visionaries. But we know the dismal rate of startups.
We're techies, and we naturally like data. We know that while we founders are emotionally swayed, data is not. What does the data say? Is it looking good?
I feel you when you talk about finding your blind spot. Blind spots are by definition, well .. hard to find, which is why it's so frustrating (been there). There's a quote that I can't seem to recall now, but it's something to do with trying too hard. Counterintuitive, I know. But if you've been staring at something for too long, you might be too close to the problem to objectively assess it.
I don't have answers to your questions. The way I sometimes deal with ambiguity is to define processes, fail-safe checks, high/low-level watermarks, etc. More structure. If I were you, I would come up with a sign post. How do I know I've gone off the deep end? E.g. wait for someone to tell me, or specify mile-markers, or ..
"does getting into YC have to be a pre-requisite for your startup to succeed?"
The goal isn't getting into YC. Or even a successful startup. It's finding something I can do that is of use to others. Somebody boiled it down to four words somewhere..
Does that meet your criteria? May I ask what is it that you are looking for?
There's a problem with this whole category of apps. Reading solutions are like content - they're getting commoditized.
There's also lots of problems with this app itself. There's no overt personalization. It's good that the UI is simple, but bad that the layout is simplistic. There's none of the richness of a newspaper layout to stimulate the visual cortex.
If I could build something that truly engaged a few users I'd be happy for a while.
Let's chat more offline if you want.
Perhaps you need something to engage new users - to show them what it is and why they want it? I don't know if I like it because, after browsing for a few moments (like every other potential user of anything, I have a very short attention span when checking out random websites without any prior goals), I still don't know what it does.
Thought you'd like to know. Good luck.
To answer your question: it's a place to come for an infinite stream of stuff to read after you've exhausted your usual haunts and are still bored. When you vote up a story it's more likely to show you stuff from that site. When you vote down it's less likely. Basically a feedreader for people who don't understand feedreaders. There's smarts to show the full text, that works most of the time (try clicking the green arrow at the bottom of some stories). When you get to the bottom of the page it'll autoload more stories.
There isn't that much more to see if you register. We repeat users don't like the scrolling so it shows just one story at a time. There's keyboard shortcuts. That's about it. I pruned everything that didn't work. Thanks for checking it out.
I sometimes have the wrong kind of determination. I created a program for managing classified ads, a desktop database-backed app that integrated with Aldus (yes, that long ago) PageMaker. I did some stuff I'm proud of, including finagling my way into the booth with Aldus at MacWorld and posing for a picture with Guy Kawasaki (a hero of mine those days)...
And yes, I sold my software in Canada, the US, and even South America. But my pricing model was all wrong, I didn't grasp that the reason my competition charged 3-5x the amount that I charged (US$795) was that it cost so much to sell software at that time, the cost of ramen was irrelevant. It took me a while to figure this out. I think the turning point was when I looked out of my apartment window and realized that the bank had towed my car away.
Anyways, I had the persistence of a bull, but as the OP notes, a little flexibility would have gone a long way.
--edit by ventures, i mean senior roles in other people's ventures