> East Coast VCs are much more conservative, which is ultimately bad because it results in less moonshots succeeding.<p>This is really accurate, at least from my experience as someone of a similar age working on my first startup at the time.<p>With cold outreach to VCs in NYC I had zero responses, and only two meetings with BigCos curious about us; they seemed easier to get the attention of.<p>When I reached out to investors on the west coast it was entirely different. I still remember getting my first reply. It was a rejection, but a super-detailed one from Topher Conway of SV Angel that stuck with me. Despite it being a cold email, he offered up a lot of points that helped me adapt my strategy and address what investors may be concerned about.<p>I was a kid with anxiety and never replied back to that rejection email (pains me to this day), but I have so much appreciation for people like that, who are aplenty in the Bay Area.
I have a lot of thoughts about this. I'm glad he's seen some success! That's great for him! I just don't know that all or even much of what he's learned is transferable<p>> I was able to get a job in SF with a single cold email and zero connections<p>This seems like sheer dumb luck. For every one of him (or you, if you're reading this) there's a lot of people who thrash and struggle. I went through 80+ job applications before I got one offer last search, and that's less than I thought I would need<p>> You don't need experience to get started<p>This one seems situational. Best example I saw recently (and I can't find the twitter thread, I'm sorry) was weirdly shaped food startups. The large point was that there are stores for oddly shaped food, they're just ones rich people don't normally shop at (WinCo anybody?). And there are uses for damaged food, like juice. Sometimes you think you've found a niche, but you should still research it a bit<p>> Silicon Valley doesn't care about your background<p>Sure it cares less than other places. It still cares a lot. It's not everywhere people would support you that way. My silicon valley high school wouldn't have allowed folks to try and make scheduling software for them, not a chance.<p>> Failure is acceptable<p>This one, I somewhat like. Avoiding failure is definitely prioritized. I think maybe we should emphasize fallback plans maybe? Some people just can't afford to fail completely unless they have people who will support them through it
From my experience east cost VCs are mostly former wall st folks, lawyers or family offices who are playing VC. Very few of them have any operating experience, and if they do, it's at BigCo, not in or around startups. I don't think they are well tuned to what non-traditional success looks like, and as a result they have problems pattern matching.
It may be true that you don't need to have worked in a white shoe firm to be respected in SV, but I'm pretty sure there's certain characteristics that are advantageous:<p>- Got into a top university. Good grades are popular, unsurprisingly. A proxy for intelligence and hard work.<p>- Speaks English. How many YC folks don't? I'm sure there are a lot of smart people in the world who just didn't grow up with English and so are somewhat cut off from SV. Not insurmountable though.<p>- High EQ. Helps smooth interactions with just about everyone, including investors and employees.
> ...we realized we needed to build a services business more than a technology business and that's not what we set out to do...<p>Welcome to one of the cold, hard realities of forming a company and selling something. If you don't make something that someone wants to buy, you won't succeed. And that something needs to be more than just a shiny or useful object. (Those are commodities and can be replaced -- it's your service which'll set you apart and make you worth paying.)<p>Even if tech is your primary focus, that needs to be bundled up in some sort of package that makes it worth paying for.<p>Doubly (or more) so if you are going to have actual customers and aren't going through the startup process in the hopes that some other company buys you out.
> In school, the experts — teachers — always knew the right answer<p>Now I'm wondering what school they went to where they went to, since all the ones I have attended this hasn't been even close to being true…
> Silicon Valley doesn't care about your background<p>This is BS. You have a much higher chance of rasing money for the same idea if you worked in FAANG than if you worked in Accenture.<p>Same goes to someone who went to Harvard vs someone who went to University of Colorado.
Would like to know how he at 16/15 years of age got a fulltime job at teespring.<p><pre><code> 2014 - Moved from Boston to San Francisco to work as a
fulltime engineer at Teespring instead of doing my
junior year of high school.</code></pre>
> Silicon Valley doesn't care about your background<p>To an extent yes, but generally it still matters a lot. Look at any big tech company, and you'll find a significant number of Ivy League grads and Forbes top 25 grads.<p>Or look at YC itself. Anecdotally I'd say at least 50% of the YC founders have a degree from a Forbes top 25 school (it would be great if someone had the real stats).
> But I was able to get a job in SF with a single cold email and zero connections.<p>Care to share anything more about this, purely out of intrigue? My own experiences have shown me that folks aren't as quick to respond, especially when you have limited value (experience) to show, even if you're just looking for mentorship.
As someone who had some small success early in life I want to send a message directly to this kid that may be unpopular on Hacker News: Pace yourself, do NOT pin your happiness on the occurrence of great wealth or success early in your life, spend a large amount of time appreciating the great success you've already had, take things slowly and experience as much "normal" life as possible - get a girlfriend, try out a normal job with minimal responsibility but strong mentorship, and appreciate that the world is filled with vast knowledge that will not be gained instantaneously and MOST CERTAINLY is not contained in any mono-culture such as the tech-startup scene.<p>To everyone else, the mid-west front-end developer making 55k who thinks he's a failure because he hasn't had the same success as a 17 year old MIT student and YC alum... happiness is an internal force that comes from inside you and not from external luxuries. Its OK that you didn't go to MIT, its OK that your company didn't go through YC. Its OK that you don't post a 200k+ salary on levels.fyi. Many people who have had those accolades are currently MISERABLE or have faced many hard failures since. Those hard failures are rarely publicized. We all will face great hardships in life... its the human condition. Instead of worrying about these things focus on finding your own internal happiness and pride.
> In the East Coast experience and status are highly valued. Bill Gates created class scheduling software in high school, and I wanted to replicate that. I approached our school admin about doing the same when I was 16 and was promptly shut down because I was too young and "entire companies are required to create scheduling software." I wasn't even given the chance to fail.<p>I mean, when Bill Gates was in High School computers weren't really in general use, so they probably were still doing it on paper. Why say no? They wouldn't have to use it if he failed. Also, did he build it first, or ask for the business first?<p>Whereas it sounds like this person asked his school if they would convert to his scheduling tool before he had built it to try out? I can imagine a school administrator saying "we'll probably stick with our enterprise contract, thanks" in the 2010s, and it would be a reasonable answer.<p>I wouldn't personally recommend that one experience be the basis for your East Coast / West Coast judgments.
Silicon Valley cares very much about your background.<p>50% of VC's are Harvard/Stanford.<p>FB, Insta, MS, Snapchat, Amazon, Google etc. - Ivy League or Stanford.<p>(Ok, Amazon and MS are not 'Valley' but ...)<p>So the industry is more open to 'outsiders' of the cliques than say, banking - definitely, but it's still a clique, don't kid yourself.
> Experience is only loosely correlated with age<p>It’s very important to remember that just as youth is not necessarily a disadvantage, so too is being older than the average anything to worry about.
>we realized we needed to build a services business more than a technology business and that's not what we set out to do<p>Wouldn't surprise me if this applies to majority of applicants.
>> No one knows the right answer<p>Hmmmm. Be careful about this. Lots of people do know the right answer.<p>Youth energy and enthusiasm count for a lot, especially backin the earliest days of computing like when bill gates got started. That was because adults knew very little.<p>> Experience is only loosely correlated with age<p>These days age and experience count for a lot. Lots of older people have incredibly valuable answers to common challenges in competing and business.
What I learned from this article:<p>1. Privilege opens doors not available to others.<p>2. Those with privilege are often oblivious to the advantages they have.
I wish we could take comments from threads like these and turn them into a kind of compendium of HN, so that outsiders can know what to expect of this site.<p>Need to determine if it fits under the "Race Baiting" or the "Educating Adolescents on Privilege" category.