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Paul Graham

Paul Graham on What Startups Are Really Like

by Tim Berry on November 12, 2009

If you’re serious about starting a business, take a few minutes and read Paul Graham’s Web essay “What Startups Are Really Like.”

Graham’s essay collection site is a valuable resource. He tends to post essays–a lot longer, and usually a lot more thoughtful, than a standard blog post–about once a month or so. He has a large following for good reason.

The “What Startups Are Really Like” essay includes 19 points and a conclusion, so it’s more like a 10-minute than a two-minute read, but there’s a lot of real content there.

Not that I agree with everything he says there; hardly. But he sticks his neck out a lot, writes a lot of things that could sound wrong when quoted out of context, but even these–such as “don’t worry about competitors” or “investors are clueless”–make much more sense when you read through his explanation. And if it makes you and I think about it, it’s good stuff. There’s no clear, hard, fast truth in this subject area. Thought-provoking can be as valuable a trait as true.

There are also parts of this essay that are unmitigated pure gold. Read the section “Things Change as You Grow,” for example. Oh, and “Lots of Little Things,” and “Start with Something Minimal.” He really nails it.

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Startups Surprise Because They are More Than a Job

by Steve Lange on October 28, 2009

“Unconsciously, everyone expects a startup to be like a job,” says Paul Graham, programming language designer, author, and venture firm partner. “It explains why people [in startups] are surprised…and why the surprises are so extreme.”

Graham’s recent post, What Startups Are Really Like, talks about the surprises in startups. He sent an email to all the business founders who had been funded by his venture firm Y Combinator, asking what things had surprised them in their startup.

Over 100 responded and their lists were summarized into frequently recurring patterns, including:

2. Startups take over your life — “I didn’t realize I would spend almost every waking moment either working or thinking about our startup.”
4. It can be fun — “The best way to put it might be that starting a startup is fun the way a survivalist training course would be fun…”
6. Think long-term — “For the vast majority of startups that become successful, it’s going to be a really long journey, at least 3 years and probably 5+.”
12. It’s hard to get users — “I had no idea how much time and effort needed to go into attaining users. ”
13. Expect the worst with deals — “Deals fall through. That’s a constant of the startup world.”
19. Things change as you grow — “Your job description … is completely rewritten every 6-12 months.”

Says Graham, “These are supposed to be the surprises, the things I didn’t tell people. What do they all have in common? They’re all things I do tell people.”

The answer to the puzzle is that our prior experience in business is our jobs — working for someone else. Being a founder of a startup is orders of magnitude beyond our experience and ability to imagine. Despite our preparation, we can’t believe it is as intense as others tell us, hence we are surprised.

So, go to Paul Graham’s site and read this essay, What Startups Are Really Like, and think about what surprised these other founders. Print it out, and stick it up near your desk where you can re-read it often. Take the advice to heart.

My thanks to my co-editor Sara Prentice Manela for sending this essay my way.

Steve Lange
Palo Alto Software

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