I think that post of mine is important but it is (obviously) not attempting to be a full post-mortem. We did a ton of things wrong at MetaMed, and I did a ton of things wrong, and this focuses mostly on one (very important) particular thing—the business idea itself. The business idea was quite bad. I never did write the full post-mortem for various reasons. One of those was that by the end I was so emotionally worn down that I couldn’t bear to think about things enough to write the damn thing, another was that I didn’t want to cause any more drama.
What drives me nuts is that people look at MetaMed and say, well, rationalists are bad at doing start-ups or doing business or forming companies. They say, ‘we had our chance and we failed.’ And this is insane. It is completely f***ing nuts. Most start-ups fail. Failing at a start-up doesn’t even mean that you, personally are bad at start-ups. If anything the SV-style wisdom is that it means you have experience and showed you will give it your all, and should try again! You don’t blow your credibility by taking investor money, having a team that gives it their all for several years, and coming up short.
It certainly does not mean that the entire community you associate with is now not credible and should never be given another chance, or doesn’t deserve one, or would just fail.
Would I do a lot differently? Oh my, yes. And I’m quite happy with my current job and have no plans to try again any time soon. I can advise, nothing more. But if anything, I was impressed by our attempt in many ways, despite all the things we did wrong, and I think we absolutely should try again if people want to do that. With a better business idea nowhere near the medical system.
“Most startups fail” is important to keep in mind here, and I now realize my previous comment implied more focus on why MetaMed specifically failed than is warranted. I still stand by the “build a rocket” analogy, but it should be applied broadly, and not just to the highest-profile projects (and not just to projects that actually materialized enough to fail).
Is there some sort of list of Craft-and-Community-relevant projects that have been attempted since 2009, besides just the meetup groups? If not, should there be one?
Here’s my postmortem on MetaMed: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HzZd3jsG9YMU4DqHc62mMqKWtRer_KqFpiaeN-Q1rlI/edit?usp=sharing
Here’s Zvi’s, which is quite different: https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2015/06/30/the-thing-and-the-symbolic-representation-of-the-thing/
I think that post of mine is important but it is (obviously) not attempting to be a full post-mortem. We did a ton of things wrong at MetaMed, and I did a ton of things wrong, and this focuses mostly on one (very important) particular thing—the business idea itself. The business idea was quite bad. I never did write the full post-mortem for various reasons. One of those was that by the end I was so emotionally worn down that I couldn’t bear to think about things enough to write the damn thing, another was that I didn’t want to cause any more drama.
What drives me nuts is that people look at MetaMed and say, well, rationalists are bad at doing start-ups or doing business or forming companies. They say, ‘we had our chance and we failed.’ And this is insane. It is completely f***ing nuts. Most start-ups fail. Failing at a start-up doesn’t even mean that you, personally are bad at start-ups. If anything the SV-style wisdom is that it means you have experience and showed you will give it your all, and should try again! You don’t blow your credibility by taking investor money, having a team that gives it their all for several years, and coming up short.
It certainly does not mean that the entire community you associate with is now not credible and should never be given another chance, or doesn’t deserve one, or would just fail.
Would I do a lot differently? Oh my, yes. And I’m quite happy with my current job and have no plans to try again any time soon. I can advise, nothing more. But if anything, I was impressed by our attempt in many ways, despite all the things we did wrong, and I think we absolutely should try again if people want to do that. With a better business idea nowhere near the medical system.
Yep! Startup failure is the default. I think anybody who attacks the entire community because we founded a failed startup is just being spiteful.
“Most startups fail” is important to keep in mind here, and I now realize my previous comment implied more focus on why MetaMed specifically failed than is warranted. I still stand by the “build a rocket” analogy, but it should be applied broadly, and not just to the highest-profile projects (and not just to projects that actually materialized enough to fail).
Is there some sort of list of Craft-and-Community-relevant projects that have been attempted since 2009, besides just the meetup groups? If not, should there be one?
Why yes, there should be such a list; I don’t know of any existing one.
There is now a map and a preregistration database.