Our Incredible Journey

Not my article, but this satirizes well the various things that can go wrong during a startup, such as

- not once thinking about the customer but only the technology (technology is a means to the end of generating revenue, not the end itself)

- wasting time rewriting if it's not critical to the customer (sure, it will be 1.2x faster each time but that doesn't matter if no one uses your product)

- overengineering in the beginning with microservices etc and only talking to developers, again, not customers

- focusing too much on hiring and not enough on what they were actually hiring for

- spending 10 hour days with no weekends

- thinking launching is only a one-time thing while even YC says to consider launching again and again [0]

- thinking marketing consists solely of launching whereas marketing encompasses a much wider range, with cold calls, cold emails, SEO, content marketing, etc being critical parts of getting customers

- writing a big v2 that no one uses, again

- shutting down the startup with an Our Incredible Journey post [1]

- and of course, not learning the lessons of failure. This comment by SwellJoe on HN is truly one of the best I've read on here regarding this [2]

It is truly astounding to look at the ratio of things wrong to word count this article satirizes, it seems straight out of a Mike Judge / Silicon Valley show playbook. Given the current VC funding and economic climate however, I doubt many future startups will continue to operate this way,…

What a cruel joke! That was a really great product.

I've completely given up hope of anything I love in technology lasting unless it's a paid product from a company that doesn't rely on advertising for revenue. Even then it's not perfect, but fuck if this isn't CLASSIC GOOGLE BULLSHIT.

Sometimes it's killing a perfectly good product (ala Reader) after getting everyone to emotionally invest in it, and then there's the equally frustrating aquihire. Sell the lie that the beloved product will continue and that the team is so excited for the Incredible Journey[1] ahead and then bam, bullet to the head. Product killed.

I still have scars from Reader, Sparrow, and Songza. And Mailbox! Looks like I switched to Fastmail just in time to avoid another heartbreak. Not too fancy but reliable AF and not going anywhere. Money well spent.

Between this and Apple's post-Steve product decisions I'm becoming a curmudgeon in this current world of technology, wishing we could turn the clock back the clock nine years to when things made more sense.

But honestly, in my fantasy world you know what I'd love to see? Some sort of statement that went along with an app detailing what their future plan is for cashing out or shutting down. Like, "If we don't survive as a business we will open source our product and provide an avenue for you to continue using it". Or, "We're building a sustainable lifestyle business and are not interested in being swallowed up by Google and being shut down" Or "We're…

It gives me hope for the future to see commenters on HN, a forum made by a VC company to talk about VC funding, dunk on companies for taking VC funding. Any tech enthusiast who has been around long enough has seen VCs and acquisitions eventually destroy everything they've ever loved. Our incredible journey, indeed: https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

The question is, can we organize around alternatives to the VC model, and build communities with control over their own destiny, instead of having the rug pulled out from under them repeatedly due to the whims of capital (and founders securing the bag)?

The concept of "exit to community" appeals to me, but unfortunately I see crypto grifters / DAOs trying to take over any "decentralization" narrative. Unless the crypto crash wipes those scammers out, I fear the community may flee from VC scammers into the arms of crypto scammers, new boss same as the old boss.

I hope that we can build some sort of cooperative movement that can avoid the "world domination or acquisition" pressure from VCs, while also avoiding weird technocratic "fixes" like DAOs. There's no replacement for organizing and community, tech cannot replace that difficult and necessary work of marshalling people to pull together in the same direction, accept no substitutes or "shortcuts."

first of all, how do you evaluate what is going to be around in 3 years given this data? haven't you seen ANY of the recent acquisition/shutdowns by google, yahoo, facebook, etc? you're fooling yourself into thinking anything has any longevity based on who just bought who, or invested in whom. quite frankly this line of thinking is naive.

and ultimately no, they do not have the 'right' to know who owns your business, they can use their best judgment based on availability of data, or no data. you think corporations have rights? are you sure your thinking is internally consistent with the rest of your beliefs about corporations/companies?

they could force you to divulge, or not sign a contract, just like a business partner or a bank. that's as far as the rights should extend... the extent of their leverage in negotiating.

forcing individuals/sole proprietorships/partnerships/LLCs to reveal how much revenues and who owns them they have is not good, in my opinion. you can feel free to disagree. you've probably never bootstrapped a company or sold anything for a living so i get why you feel that way.

http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

>"We're thrilled with the match, and we're excited to be working on security that affects everyone we know."

https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

Argh, yet another for the list. Certain cycles in the tech world are both extremely predictable and regrettable, yet for most of them the sting seems to fade a bit as the decades go by. But the acquisition-for-the-talent/IP-now-great-product-is-toast one somehow never, ever manages to lose its capability to be depressing. On the contrary new ones just make me think back on previous dearly departed that never got an equivalent replacement. It's part of what's made me particularly suspicious about new non-OSS "free" offerings, because that's generally just not sustainable. And the better it is the more I beg them to have some sort of decent paid tier. I guess some though just plain are aiming for a buyout from the start and that is in fact their planned profit/exit strategy, and fair enough but still ouch each time.

I feel like at this point there should just be a form letter for Google retiring services.

Dear users,

[ ]MAJOR
[ ] MINOR

Google service which you

[ ] DEPENDED ON TO DO YOUR JOB
[ ] BUILT MAJOR PARTS OF YOUR WORKFLOW ON
[ ] LIKED A LOT
[ ] HAD BEEN MEANING TO TRY OUT, DAMMIT
[ ] HAVE NEVER EVEN HEARD OF

will be discontinued

[ ] LITERALLY TOMORROW
[ ] IN SIX MONTHS, AND YOU CAN EXPORT YOUR DATA BUT IT'S IN SOME COMBINATION JSON+XML FORMAT WHICH THE DEVELOPERS THINK IS TOTALLY HIP BUT PROBABLY YOU SHOULD JUST WAIT FOR SOMEONE HIPPER THAN YOU TO WRITE A LIBRARY TO PARSE IT
[ ] AND AUTO-MIGRATED TO A SERVICE YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO USE

Thanks for your support. Please try out

NEW PRODUCT THAT WE ARE INTRODUCING TOMORROW AND SUNSETTING

[ ] WHO KNOWS HAHAHAHA

See you at http://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ !

Love, Google.