I know there are some successful entrepreneurs here like Paul Graham, Gabriel Weinberg and Giacomo Guilizzoni. But they mainly talk about how to make even more money. I would like to think beyond that. How to change the trajectory as Derek Sivers once put it. (And even Sivers mainly talks about business. Looks like its damn hard to really change trajectory).
Any ideas?
The thing is, when you've become successful to some degree, inevitably, your perspective changes. The perspective of those who've achieved some success is very different from those who want to achieve success but haven't, yet.
I don't mean this in an elitist way-- there's nothing I'd like more than to share what I've learned with people who are in the position I was when I was starting out.
Unfortunately, Hacker News is not that place. When I've broached such subjects, the responses have not been of the "I'm interested in learning your perspective" variety, more of the "I'm going to tell you that you're wrong because authority X told me so."
I'm trying to come up with some examples that won't obviously and immediately offend people. But, for instance, talking about how you can invest yourself (one of the OP's topics) often is met with "you'd be better off buying index funds" responses. It doesn't matter that I've been investing myself and getting outsized returns, and found that it really isn't that hard, and I'd love to share the techniques-- the dominant perspective is that individuals cannot beat the market. Or, if you talk about tax mitigation, the response is often along the lines of "you shouldn't do that, you owe it to society". Or if you attempt to explaining what's going on in economic terms but your perspective disagrees with the popular mainstream one (which is keynesianism, or more accurately, krugmanism) you're met with often derisive responses. You know, if economics is a science, it should be able to predict things...and good economists predicted the housing bubble. Even Ron Paul was caught on video in 2001 predicting it.
Anyway, one of the big lessons of business that I've learned, is that economics is important. Perspective is important. Learning about business, and becoming successful really is about changing your perspective.
Unfortunately, due to the organization of this site (stories disappear quickly, detailed discussions are a bit difficult) and the culture, it is hard to share a perspective that disagrees with the majority one.
I once was told my company was not a real startup, but that it was a "lifestyle business".... this from someone that, near as I could tell, had never started a business. Hell, even if it is a lifestyle business... it gave me a fantastic lifestyle! I don't feel that people here on HN want to learn from those who have had success... and as much success as I have had, I really want to learn from those who have had MORE.
HN is the closest I've found, for all the seemingly negative things I'm saying about it.... I wish there were a way to change it so that we could share these things.
But if HN is too big of a ship, then I'd be keen to hang out in a private forum. Really, get just a dozen good people there- people who have started businesses and are not ashamed of being capitalists-- and you can have some great discussion.
[1] I was importing tools from china, and because I didn't know their quality, and the price was so low, I tended to buy 2 or 4 of everything figuring they might break. The quality was actually good, so I'd sell the extras, but then without realizing it I started buying more and more every order. I found that keeping four drills around was convenient, as I'd just keep different bits in each one and witch tools, but the next time I ordered, I ordered 4 more drills and then sold them, then ordered 8 extra drills and sold them as well. Same thing with bit sets, and other tools. I was making great markups on the tools, but when I realized what I was doing I stopped because it wasn't really scalable.
Mz volunteers to be guinea pig and listen to whatever you want to share. ;-)
Peace.
So, I don't mean to come off like a pompous ass. I'm also keen to learn from the people who don't have as much experience, but do have a different perspective....
I don't think it should be too difficult, all that's necessary is to make arguments over the differences, or ask questions... rather than try and beat people over the head with politics.
Anyway, as for your guinea pig offer, lets see if I can sum up the things I've had to learn the hard way in a very succinct manner, that isn't also highly repetitive of common advice--
- always have something original to sell
- investing is made extra easy when your competition thinks they can't win (e.g.: if they think the market is efficient they won't look for opportunities.)
- you can earn %25 a year with only 5 hours a year of time invested.
- If you're buying any long term investment, know what your return will be with calculable accuracy before you buy. (Timothy Vick's books on investing like Buffett are good here.)
- Everyone in the world think their country is special and unique.
- Get outside of the USA to see how different the world is from how it is portrayed within the USA
- Internationalize your products. It isn't that expensive and you'll get most of your sales abroad
- Read "Economics in One Lesson". Economics is really key. Understanding it will give you amazing powers of prediction.
- People are the same everywhere, but also different. Every new culture you live in, levels you up. You'll be surprised at what you learn. And going and living somewhere for 2 months is much better than the tourist thing. You can get work done while you do it too.
- Never be involved in a franchise unless you're the one selling franchises.
- "The Millionaire Fastlane" is a hokey books, and written for seemingly the lowest common denominator, but it contains great wisdom.
- Atlas Shrugged is the most important book I've ever read.
- All capitalism works by enriching the lives of your customers. The path to wealth is seemingly "altruistic" because it comes form improving other's lives. They're inextricably intertwined.
- If 4 out of 5 businesses fail, start 6 businesses.
- 1 out of 5 businesses fail in my experience, 2-3 break even, and 1 does rather well.
- This one from fight club: "Hitting bottom isn't a weekend retreat. It's not a goddamn seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!"
- And again: "Only after disaster can we be resurrected."
- The above two are very taoist / buddhist concepts. You have to let go of you and see what the market says. "hitting bottom" is getting to the point where you take in the response of the market to your product or your idea as the ultimate reality.... you have to let go of your idea that you have a clue what the market really wants. Only after a product launch disaster can you be resurrected as an entrepreneur. Or at least, it was something like that for me. Stop trying to control everything, because doing so keeps you from hearing what the market is telling you.
- Always be Closing. Ok, too many movie quotes, but they resonate with me.
- Always have a marketing strategy. Have at least an idea of something that customers will stop and take notice of. Something outrageous could be good- the Virgin method of promotion might work for you. But you gotta be able to wake people up with just a handful of words that immediately resonate with them and make them go "damn, I've been having that problem! Sign me up!"
- If you value the education you receive from failure, you can't lose in business. That said, might as well go into it whole hog. When you can't lose, it is impressive how much fear you can eliminate.
- Never start a business that costs more than $4,000 to get going (for the essence of the business. ) Never put in real money... it should either make money on its own right away, or if it requires some investment in technology, it shouldn't require any real capital. People are great at shopping and it is easy to rationalize a lot of spending... don't.
- Options, if properly used, greatly reduce investment risk, while also boosting returns. Stock options (calls and puts) are the least understood investment vehicle among the mainstream.
- I never spent money on a book, including a $90 "Due Diligence" book that I barely ever read, that didn't pay for itself many times over, on topics such as investing, business and marketing. Even the bad ones were worth many times the cover price.
I'm sure a lot of that is obvious... maybe I'd be better talking about specific topics or sharing specific experiences.
If you start a private forum, this has the disadvantage that it would put up a barrier to people could make use of the valuable information. A public forum would need to be carefully curated to avoid having it drowned out by the clueless majority. Both would need to attract an audience.
HN has the audience and is close to what you want, but the problem is that thoughtful discussion is drowned out by the sea of clueless groupthink. Someone who wants to contribute to the thoughtful discussion has to read, evaluate, and deliberately not respond to the "you're so wrong" comments.
But suppose I could highlight the thoughtful responses, and share that with anyone who wanted to see the thread through that filter. Now anyone can see just the posting and the thoughtful responses, if they want to. And it's a lot less work for them to join in a thoughtful discussion, because they don't have to plow through the clueless majority opinions.
Next, imagine you could create a group, such as "successful entrepreneurs" which would be able to share responsibility for maintaining your filter (instead of just one person having to do it). You would be in charge of membership of a group you created. Now anyone in your group could mark a post or comment as being thoughtful (or interesting or useful) from a "successful entrepreneur" perspective. And if I was interested in that perspective, I could choose to view HN through that lens.
This would also solve the problem of good content quickly falling off the front page. Everything that had been selected by your successful entrepreneur group would remain available in the lens archive.
I also don't think there'd be any way to authenticate or filter the people who joined, other than an initial mutual agreement of the creators about what they want (probably a good first topic of discussion.)
Possibly the name of the group could work as a filter, though. I'd choose the name "Unashamed Capitalists". Every startup person should be a capitalist right? And shouldn't be ashamed, right? This is a bit broader so that people who are not yet "successful" would be welcome (newbies and pros are what I'm interested in, though the OP wanted a forum for successful people... my perspective is that the problem isn't newbies but the culture. I could be wrong.)
Given the way voting has happened in places like here (where a comment of mine that simply states two objectively verifiable facts has a negative score because those facts are inconvenient) and reddit and dig makes me wary of it.... however, it might work as a form of ad hoc curration. Some set of people deemed "successful" or "clued in" could do the voting, and maybe there'd only be an up vote.
Anyway, just my thoughts. I think the person who actually finds some software and sets something up will have the most influence... but I'm much more interested in a private forum with reasonable open admission policies than I am a public forum...
Are there any other places you've found that come close to what you're looking for?
Maybe something like Ning?
I would like to invest in startups, but I have no idea how to find them.
Living out of a backpack - would love to hear where you are traveling! Isnt it lonely to travel fulltime?
I do invest in the markets, I tend to do very aggressive options strategies. I like to take something fundamentally sound or strong, and then use options to increase returns while reducing risk. Specifically I use spreads. Options are a very rich area of exploration, and I'm always working on seeking out that perfect arbitrage or no-risk strategy, but mostly I just buy LEAP spreads in "sure things".
We started traveling around the USA, just to make sure we could get work done while doing it, and to make sure we could live out of our backpacks. It was a bear getting rid of all of our stuff before leaving- that was probably the hardest thing we've done. Since then we have been traveling in the european area. It isn't lonely because I'm not alone.
But, if you are single, and you start traveling seriously, and do the hostel thing where you find yourself with other travelers regularly, it usually isn't that hard to find compatible fellow travelers, especially if your itinerary is totally flexible. I took some time off in the past and did this, and found that after awhile on the road I started hanging out with people for segments of travel... it was easy for me, and I'm normally not someone who is social at all.
Why not?
I think a better approach would be to join forums related to specific interests which aren't dependent upon "I have made it as an entrepreneur." An expensive hobby would likely surround you with other people in similar circumstances in terms of financial success, though they may not have made it as entrepreneurs.
A lot of people work because they like to work, whether they admit it to themselves or not.
Or because they are wired in a way that they dont know what else to do. I would feel like i have been fallen into a trap if I was to spend my next 10 years trying to build the next company. I want to broaden my horizon.
"It took me a long time to realize I could go on vacation for a month at a time and not worry. I kept thinking 'Shouldn't I be working? Isn't there something I need to do?'"
One thing to focus on, would be to manually verify all members before granting access.
Unfortunately, it would have to be made by someone who has the connections to make it happen. Because otherwise it won't it'll be dead.
Although, if you've made it, you got the cash to pay for advice from experts. Instead of asking a bunch random people about tax law...you can just hire a good accountant...instead of asking which vacation spot to go to, you can find a good travel agent. etc etc
What, no more Web 2.0? Back to the old one-on-one consultations?
+ it goes down to opportunity cost...sure you could become an expert after spending hundreds of hours...or you can pay the fee and go back to enjoying your retirement.
Then get back to work!
I also have similarly great things to say about COMO Shambala in Ubud, Bali.
