I’m all for getting excited and making stuff happen. Maybe it really is that there have not yet been any LW startups because we all just failed to coordinate on it and in hindsight we’ll all say “why the hell did we all wait for so long”. That said, let’s not forget a few key things here.
Most startups fail
even when the principals are smart and motivated
even when the idea is really good
even when [x] is [y]
And, as I already said, for some reason we haven’t already had a bunch of successful LW startups. It’s certainly not for lack of smart people, entrepreneurs, or technical skills.
If a LW startup is going to succeed, I think we would benefit from understanding first why we don’t already have successful LW startups (not even one).
Just to toss in my own strongest suspicion. Among LWers under 25, they probably see themselves as young and still learning and not yet brave enough to throw themselves all in to something. For those over 25, they (myself included) probably see themselves as already busy doing something and would need some pretty strong motivation to do something else, even if it does align with core values.
Thanks for voicing this. A lot of people said similar things to me privately before I posted the article. Apparently a lot of people have tried similar attempts to this article and had them massively down voted and go nowhere. I’m very thankful that these people shared their concerns with me, because if I hadn’t gotten that feedback, I would not have put nearly as much effort into editing and honing, and almost certainly would have bombed as well.
I have a lot of thoughts on this—I’m currently just finishing a course by the Rejuvenate people that teaches coaches and holistic practitioners how to create successful businesses. I’ve been inspired both by the workshop and the comments in this article to switch niches from working with people who are depressed, to creating a program that combines what I’m learning with Rejuvenate and my knowledge of Less Wrong types and futurists in general. (what they teach totally worked for me—I took their program “Double Your Practice in 90 Days” and quadrupled my (small) income in a month, after coaching for years) Working on this problem of helping people in the community implement their ideas successfully is so much higher leverage than anything else I can think of that I could do.
Also worth noting—there have been many start-ups in the Less Wrong and extended community already, some of which are very successful, such as Quixey. it just seems like from what I’ve seen talent wise in the community, there should be a lot more start ups than there are, and a relatively high percentage of those should be extremely profitable compared to the average start-up.
Quixey is incredibly successful. Also, LessWrong is still young. Give it time! There may be a bunch of startups out there we haven’t heard of yet. For example, I’m doing a startup with 3 other LWers, but we need a little longer before we’re successful ;-)
I don’t feel LessWrong young. OB 2006 posts are extremely past to me, even if a different site.
But If we consider LW a internet startup, the site is doing pretty fine, since the failure rate is 25% for US. For the first three year, the rate of sucess is 65%, 51% for 5 years. Besides having a core content written in a unusual language.
Occam’s Razor says that no one on Less Wrong has ever suggested making a start up before now, ergo, it hasn’t happened. Granted, Shannon’s a Productivity manager and brings that slant to us as a post, and a lot of us crazy kids are willing to cut loose and bring stuff to the table, but as for why it hasn’t happened before now… I dunno.
Let me just toss out some caution here.
I’m all for getting excited and making stuff happen. Maybe it really is that there have not yet been any LW startups because we all just failed to coordinate on it and in hindsight we’ll all say “why the hell did we all wait for so long”. That said, let’s not forget a few key things here.
Most startups fail
even when the principals are smart and motivated
even when the idea is really good
even when [x] is [y]
And, as I already said, for some reason we haven’t already had a bunch of successful LW startups. It’s certainly not for lack of smart people, entrepreneurs, or technical skills.
If a LW startup is going to succeed, I think we would benefit from understanding first why we don’t already have successful LW startups (not even one).
Just to toss in my own strongest suspicion. Among LWers under 25, they probably see themselves as young and still learning and not yet brave enough to throw themselves all in to something. For those over 25, they (myself included) probably see themselves as already busy doing something and would need some pretty strong motivation to do something else, even if it does align with core values.
Thanks for voicing this. A lot of people said similar things to me privately before I posted the article. Apparently a lot of people have tried similar attempts to this article and had them massively down voted and go nowhere. I’m very thankful that these people shared their concerns with me, because if I hadn’t gotten that feedback, I would not have put nearly as much effort into editing and honing, and almost certainly would have bombed as well.
I have a lot of thoughts on this—I’m currently just finishing a course by the Rejuvenate people that teaches coaches and holistic practitioners how to create successful businesses. I’ve been inspired both by the workshop and the comments in this article to switch niches from working with people who are depressed, to creating a program that combines what I’m learning with Rejuvenate and my knowledge of Less Wrong types and futurists in general. (what they teach totally worked for me—I took their program “Double Your Practice in 90 Days” and quadrupled my (small) income in a month, after coaching for years) Working on this problem of helping people in the community implement their ideas successfully is so much higher leverage than anything else I can think of that I could do.
Also worth noting—there have been many start-ups in the Less Wrong and extended community already, some of which are very successful, such as Quixey. it just seems like from what I’ve seen talent wise in the community, there should be a lot more start ups than there are, and a relatively high percentage of those should be extremely profitable compared to the average start-up.
Quixey is incredibly successful. Also, LessWrong is still young. Give it time! There may be a bunch of startups out there we haven’t heard of yet. For example, I’m doing a startup with 3 other LWers, but we need a little longer before we’re successful ;-)
This comment didn’t age well
I don’t feel LessWrong young. OB 2006 posts are extremely past to me, even if a different site.
But If we consider LW a internet startup, the site is doing pretty fine, since the failure rate is 25% for US. For the first three year, the rate of sucess is 65%, 51% for 5 years. Besides having a core content written in a unusual language.
Occam’s Razor says that no one on Less Wrong has ever suggested making a start up before now, ergo, it hasn’t happened. Granted, Shannon’s a Productivity manager and brings that slant to us as a post, and a lot of us crazy kids are willing to cut loose and bring stuff to the table, but as for why it hasn’t happened before now… I dunno.
EDIT: ^