The big thing about startups is that it’s very easy to be either too optimistic or too pessimistic about how likely your idea is to succeed, since you’re so emotionally invested and since there is so much genuine uncertainty. To combat this, watch for when your estimate of your success prospects change based on limited or no evidence (for example, may be an uninformed friend seems pessimistic) and remind yourself to work based on the moving average of your estimates of how successful you will be (average together how optimistic you were on each of the past three Mondays when deciding how hard to work, assuming you haven’t acquired any genuine new and important information in that time).
I think a good general algorithm for startups might go something like this: Write out a description of how you’re going to make money, figure out what the biggest uncertainty or pain point is, and then figure out the quickest and cheapest way to learn more about that uncertainty or pain point. Then adapt your plan based on what you’ve learned and move on to the second biggest uncertainty or pain point.
I’d suggest emphasizing how frequently people are overconfident, and browsing less wrong by tag to find more relevant posts. I see rationality as more of a set of attitudes than a set of skills (I don’t know that much, some of my thought processes may be defective, etc.)
Many of the blog posts on this blog are good:
http://www.rolfnelson.com/
The big thing about startups is that it’s very easy to be either too optimistic or too pessimistic about how likely your idea is to succeed, since you’re so emotionally invested and since there is so much genuine uncertainty. To combat this, watch for when your estimate of your success prospects change based on limited or no evidence (for example, may be an uninformed friend seems pessimistic) and remind yourself to work based on the moving average of your estimates of how successful you will be (average together how optimistic you were on each of the past three Mondays when deciding how hard to work, assuming you haven’t acquired any genuine new and important information in that time).
I think a good general algorithm for startups might go something like this: Write out a description of how you’re going to make money, figure out what the biggest uncertainty or pain point is, and then figure out the quickest and cheapest way to learn more about that uncertainty or pain point. Then adapt your plan based on what you’ve learned and move on to the second biggest uncertainty or pain point.
In case you didn’t see this Paul Graham post:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/9ik/a_word_to_the_resourceful/
More stuff:
http://lesswrong.com/lw/2p5/humans_are_not_automatically_strategic/
http://lesswrong.com/lw/fc/you_are_a_brain/
I’d suggest emphasizing how frequently people are overconfident, and browsing less wrong by tag to find more relevant posts. I see rationality as more of a set of attitudes than a set of skills (I don’t know that much, some of my thought processes may be defective, etc.)