Living in a Startup Bubble (opens in new tab)

Hate be negative, but based on the title, I was expecting something different, and since its HN, something with depth.

It was a lovely post, but what I got from it was "startups are risky, need belief, and it's tricky as a family and here's a link to my blog".

Edit: (I wonder if Medium is going to tackle the issue of people start treat it mainly as "medium" of promoting their own blogs or companies)

Medium blog posts are basically roulette when it comes to quality. This particular one is trash. It uses the keyword startup a lot, talks about how they're risky, and gives some paltry relationship advice. It's not written well and basically compiles the most general facts known about startup culture, consolidating all of them into a vague article that's all over the place.

This post reads like one of those keyword articles that only exists to collect hits for a website. It is utterly devoid of any depth, and lacks the substance to really portray any meaning to startup life.

In fact, reading this it's almost as though she wrote this as a book report. It's badly written and conveys nothing about "startup life" despite the fact she repeats that phrase over and over.

Here's a few sentences that should clue you into this:

1. "Add to this our four young children (6, 4, 2 and newborn), and you’ll understand our startup life is pretty full on."

No, I don't understand. What does having children have to do with your husband and you having a "full on" startup life? If anything, that would make it more difficult for you to commit yourselves to startups. If you tried to convey that you must be uber-committed to startups because you're doing it despite having children, it didn't work.

2. "Startup life is so part of our life that it is far more than just our work, it is our life."

Badly written. And I don't mean this in a pretentious, grammatical way, I mean the word "life" is repeated enough times that this sentence doesn't capture any of the passion you're trying to portray. It's empty.

3. "The more I’ve tried to explain things to friends and family, the more I’ve realised that startup life is a bubble and really not like other ways of living and working."

You didn't explore the bubble bit, which is arguable and by no means widely accepted. You also didn't justify a connection between a bubble and being different; there's no inherent correlation.

4. "It often feels like the startup is everything and far more important than our relationship. There have been so many times when I’ve felt like a startup widow. I think we are getting better at making sure that doesn’t happen. Changing some of the ways we work for a start. And having great communication is key to relationships and family life working together with a startup."

You lost track of your central point here. Are you talking about startups or your relationship? You began this blog by talking about how different startup life is, yet you have not defined it at all. You just keep reiterating the effect without tying in a relevant cause.

Furthermore, communication is important in any relationship. That's just another platitude; this is full of them. Again, meaningless.

5. "Startup life takes a huge amount of belief in what you are doing and belief that you have what it takes to make it happen, or the skills/sense to hire the right people to make it happen."

The next three paragraphs go on and on, repeating the same idea: startups are hard, you need to be committed. Got it, but we all know that already. It's self-evident.

6. "Startup is a process"

I don't even know what this is supposed to mean, and the consequent paragraphs in this section fail to give me any clues.

I can go on and on with these. Literally every other sentence is written like an ezine article. It's crap, and doesn't stimulate meaningful discussion.