Ask HN: How common is it for founders to have no idea what they're doing? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How common is it for founders to have no idea what they're doing?

31 pointsvcwelfare13 comments

For obvious reasons, I made a throwaway account for this post.

I work at a startup that's been running on VC life support for several years, with no real revenue, no working product, and no proven customer base. The company has "pivoted" several times to no great success. We have several big-name funders who seem to have invested on the strength of our founder's reputation (he was semi-successful in a related space a decade ago).

The founder has neither a technical background nor a traditional business background. Management decisions are based largely on his mood (which he takes out on his underlings when it's bad), his ego (easily inflated and easily bruised), or wishful thinking (rampant). He is an inveterate micromanager of nontechnical tasks and simultaneously exhibits 1) limited understanding of technical topics and 2) lack of faith in the abilities of technical staff.

I guess what I want to know is how common this all is, and how bad it really is. The idea at the core of our business is not stupid, and I believe it has some chance of success if executed correctly. Our founder is difficult, but I hear stories about difficult/crazy founders of successful companies all the time. I am probably on my way out, but I am interested to hear whether this kind of situation is very common.

It's extremely common across all segments of society. Someone who isn't really that good at anything gets randomly successful, develops a strong case of narcissism fueled by confirmation and survivorship bias, and then proceeds to set fire to massive amounts of money as they fail in subsequent ventures. Analogs exist in politics and military leadership too.

It boils down to a few things: (1) humans (even very savvy ones) are absolute suckers for charisma, (2) it's very hard to tell who is "for real" unless you invest a ton of time looking under the hood and have enough domain expertise to judge yourself, and (3) success itself is determined by so many factors that investment is perilously close to gambling anyway.

I guess that one of the only ways of learning to be a founder is to found a company, and if it’s the founders first startup that would, by definition, make him inexperienced.

People react differently to the pressures that come along with being a founder. From what I’ve seen the ego and lack of faith in employees could stem from the founder’s insecurity. Some people handle insecurity by asking for help, others handle it by charging ahead. Insecurity can make it hard for founders to ask for help or accept input from employees.

All in all, I’d say that what you’re experiencing is extremely common.

The only thing I can provide is that I once talked to a girl at a party who had been working at a startup for about half a year. When I asked what the startup was doing she could not tell me. She said that she didn't have the slightest clue, but as long as she kept the job she was playing along.

That was in 2002. I Just checked and that company still exists, albeit as a branch of another company. They must have pivoted about 10 times in the past, and their current website is littered with bullshit marketing buzz ("Cognitive Enablement" being one of them).

And sorry, I have no idea how this business model works.

I've worked in 4 startups - depending on how one counts - and as you describe it was in a nutshell how it worked.

Needless to say this influenced my own work style a lot. Sometimes it's good, I guess I'm able to be very pragmatic even if everyone around me might be completely clueless, something of what I'm proud of. On the other hand I guess my ability to team play decreased a lot.

Not sure if you experienced that as well, but for me team play was pretended but the exact opposite happened. Same goes for rationality.

Pretty darn common, at least in my limited experience. Sad thing about your situation is that it sounds like the founder is both clueless AND a tyrant. Might be about time to hop over to a clueless-but-nice startup.

Absolutely universal, every last one feels this way, it is in no way a warning sign that your business is built on sand if you get that sensation.

Wait, are we talking about Meredith Perry or Theranos? If so, obviously they should have gotten the warning signs earlier when it didn't feel like they knew what they were doing.

Anyone else thinking money laundering? Or at least tax... um... planning?

I’ve been involved in two startups that were funded as pet projects by billionaires that I swear were designed to fail. I’ve read about tax dodge record labels from the 70s. It really looked like this was the goal in both situations. Hemmoraging cash, pivots seemingly designed to avoid success, strong focus on the appearance of work and numbers on the butts in chairs. I can’t prove anything and left both operations after 8 months per. I just focused on using the dental insurance and improving my personal skill set, so neither was a loss for me.

sounds like a clueless narcissist would be an ideal founder at such a startup

How would that work though?

You'd have to funnel a lot of money straight through the company that didn't get eaten by real costs.... a startup with huge B2B costs or something would be kinda obvious and the money would have to sort of come out on the other end somehow back to the folks laundering it through another entity or something.... seems like an odd choice, or at least one where the real cost of running a real start up would be prohibitive.

When this is the case they're referred to as 'foundlings'.

is that a subset or superset of 'flounders'?

I believe it's a subset of 'flounderinglings'.

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