Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? One Year Later

Is this what it’s supposed to feel like? One Year Later(blog.42floors.com)

62 points by jaf12duke 12 years ago | 18 comments

Funny, I've always enjoyed the mountain climbing analogy.

You look at the peak from afar and you get excited. As you get closer to the base, you start to get a little scared. Half an hour after you start, your legs are already burning and you're thinking "wtf am I doing here, I could be having a pint on the patio I passed by earlier!" But you keep on eyes on the path and keep grinding, step by step, one foot in front of the other. Your mind goes blank and you get used to the discomfort. Occasionally you stop to rest and then you see "wow, I'm actually making progress, this is pretty neat. And the view! This is way better than some random patio.". You keep going and going for years.

Few climbers make it. Mostly you give up and walk back down (ie fail). Sometimes, someone likes your climb and sends a mule to help you on the way back (acquihire) and sometimes they even send a helicoper (product acquisition). And if you make it (IPO), you find out it's a fractal game - you always keep climbing, otherwise someone will come from behind and push you over the cliff. :)

noname123 12 years ago | |

What if you climb up on the mountain and it gets too dark and you can't find your way back down because you don't have a flashlight to see the trail markers. And the bears are coming to roam the woods...

Yes, I want to push myself to make the world's best next-gen GUI for a payroll or real estate database. I may be able to go to as many VC pitch meetings, strategy meetings, client sales meetings to make my GUI the best and deliver maximum shareholder value and live to write a blog post about it (with max. karma duh).

But I can't live on the top of the self-ingratiating peak forever. The higher the peak, the lower the oxygen level, alas I wish I could live on top of that mountain blasting inspirational posts to all my Twitter followers for all time.

I have to come down eventually and go home, eat, take a shit and go to sleep. Even if I make it down safely evading the bears, I wonder can I go to sleep peacefully, or would I dare "not go gentle into that good night"?

quickpost 12 years ago | |

Don't forget all the false summits along the way. Right when you think success and the summit are within reach, you crest it only to realize, you have a long way to climb to reach the finish line (liquidity!).

Great analogy - thanks for sharing.

onedev 12 years ago | | |

There is great danger in believing that there is a finish line.

hglaser 12 years ago |

Best advice in the post:

"Easy. I stopped reading Techcrunch."

42Floors is a magnitude bigger than my company (http://periscope.io) and has always seemed like one of those runaway startup successes that we aspire to and occasionally despair of. Reading something this is incredibly motivating. Thank you for writing.

jaf12duke 12 years ago | |

Man, I wish it was a runaway success. Absolutely nothing has come easy. But we're getting there.

One of the reasons I wrote that post a year ago was that I had to own up to the fact that we looked better than we actually were.

jordo37 12 years ago | | |

This is why I am always so impressed by your writing Jason. Thanks for 1) taking to the time to write these articles and the more advice-style ones, they have always been useful to me as a founder and 2) being honest and open (to the extent appropriate) in these articles. Being a founder is an exercise in self-doubt above everything else, and its important to talk about.

mattdawson 12 years ago | | |

"One of the reasons I wrote that post a year ago was that I had to own up to the fact that we looked better than we actually were."

How very un-Internet-y of you. :)

Ecto5 12 years ago | |

You've got a nice website there! Though it is impossible to read without zooming out on a non-widescreen monitor. The page overflows to the left and right.

cocoflunchy 12 years ago |

Great article, thanks for sharing.

Couldn't help but notice one thing on your home page: the price is given in $/sqft/year. Did you A/B test with other representations? It doesn't feel intuitive at all to me. I would expect people to have an idea of the total budget they have (/month or /year).

Also I'm sure it's in your backlog already, but a lot of your listing prices are way off (http://42floors.com/?page=1&order%5Blistings_rate_per_sqft_p...)

fluffywolf24 12 years ago | |

Actually $/sqft/year is a pretty standard measurement in the commercial real estate business. I used to work in another CRE based startup, and while normal users (non-CRE) liked to have monthly numbers, brokers and such preferred the traditional measurements.

darrennix 12 years ago | |

The reason why most brokers, landlords, and veteran office searchers prefer $/sqft rather than $total is that $/sqft allows for easier comparison of price efficiency between spaces of different sizes. Using $/sqft is also preferable when the total size is fungible e.g., when a space can be subdivided or combined.

Several of our A/B tests have used total size but it doesn't have a big enough effect on conversion to be measurable.

secabeen 12 years ago | | |

$/sqft is used by most experienced people on the residential side as well.

mikekij 12 years ago |

Someone told me that entrepreneurship is the art of blurring what is true today and what will be true shortly. 42floors has done a great job projecting success through your web presence, which certainly has at least a small part to do with why you're actually experiencing success today. I'm looking forward to reading your post about employee 100 next year. Keep up the good work!

n72 12 years ago |

"Most people walk on paved roads in the valley below"

I know it's not the author who said this, but oh piss off with that self-congratulatory crap. How on earth do you know what most people do? Let's see, according to http://www.statisticbrain.com/world-poverty-statistics/ 50% of the world lives on less than $1.50/day. If you're lucky enough to be in the U.S. with the means and opportunity to become an entrepreneur, maybe put in a second's thought before you go off and say how uberman you are.

jusben1369 12 years ago | |

I don't think he's referring to 3rd world poverty. He's talking to the hundreds of thousands of people who work at Google or Facebook or PayPal vs the handful of people who try and build the next great thing.

n72 12 years ago | | |

Regardless, it's still an incredibly arrogant thing to say. The implication is that there this class of entrepreneurs who are better than the 9-5ers. Honestly, get over yourself. (And I say this as an entrepreneur who can't stand to work a 9-5.)

And next great thing? Seriously? Next great thing is curing cancer not a real estate site.

carrotleads 12 years ago |

Been influenced by your earlier blog about A/B testing and am using your experiences to guide me to a large extent.

your designs assumes ( correctly I believe) that whoever comes on to 42floors already know what they are looking for. So no need for a video or marketing spiel.

Having thought about it even a new user should get it but have you checked it out, like asked a random to go to your site and track their experience. Or would you term such randoms to most likely not be your customers.