More Ridiculously Annoying Startup Memes
I read the tech press not for information, but for comic relief. In fact, they should use Comic Sans font on their blogs just to emphasize the point. The sheer inanity of it all led me to post last month the top ten most annoying memes in the startup scene, but I clearly could have gone on. Just in the past few weeks, we had Paul Graham going West Coast gangsta calling out the uppity NYC startup community, HP’s board channeling kindergarten, Groupon’s creative use of new math, more iPhone announcement guessing games, and people declaring the demise of Netflix and Facebook. You see, it is all very funny, in a nerd sort of way.
So without further ado, here are twelve MORE annoying startups memes. Something tells me I will probably have to do another list a month from now though…
- [INSERT_HERE] Is Dead – These articles only seem to proliferate in tech media circles. It is like we are taking our pent up StarCraft frustration out into the real world where the only thing that counts is body counts, lives left, and Fitocracy points earned. For those keeping score, the NYC Tech scene is the latest thing to be declared dead (thanks for the vote of confidence Alyson Shontell).
- Paul Graham Mythology – I get it, he is uber-successful and runs the Deathstar of startup incubators. While Paul is free to believe his own religion, that does not mean everyone else must also bow down at his throne. His formula for startup success is not a guarantee nor is it even proven by data (here is some real data). It is instructive to note that plenty of startups were quite successful before the advent of incubators, and many others will continue to thrive outside of the incubator ecosystem.
- Where Da Ladies At? – Every few months there is yet another “controversy” about the woeful lack of female founders and engineers with lots of weeping and gnashing of teeth. Yes, the ratio is troubling, but it is not going to be fixed now, or next year or the next several years. More women will jump over to tech in due time as recent programs start generating interest in the STEM fields, but for now, let’s recognize that there already are quite a few successful women entrepreneurs and leaders in tech.
- The {SUCCESSFUL_STARTUP] of [INDUSTRY] – Every startup pitch starts off with some line that describes what they do as similar to another modestly successful startup, but for some other industry or market. It might be convenient and catchy to go with the “it’s this for that” format, but it just obscures what most of these startups actually do. Instead of shoehorning startups into such a limiting formula, how about just figuring out what value these startups actually provide and using plainspeak to get the point across?
- Android Lame, iPhone Awesome – If you believed developers or TechCrunch, you would think that building Android apps is the equivalent of scaling Mount Everest without oxygen tanks. Frankly, developing for Android and iOS are simply different, and each carries its own eccentricities. How about we get off the Apple / iPhone bandwagon and realize that real people are buying Android phones and expect high-quality apps. Android is not only here to stay, but rapidly growing its marketshare.
- Hating On Facebook – Facebook is killing privacy. The new Facebook timeline is scary. Facebook doesn’t get real human interactions. It just goes on and on, yet guess what, you are all still on Facebook. You pay exactly nothing for the service, so do not be surprised that you get pushed around. You are not a customer; you are a user and Facebook is laughing all the way to the bank as you upload your photos and buy more games with Facebook currency.
- Bootstrapping Is Close to Godliness – People are always saying that entrepreneurs should not take outside funding if they do not need to. Not sure what dimension those folks live in, because pretty much every entrepreneur that I have ever met needed the money. The only people that do not need money are independently wealthy, serial entrepreneurs or trust funders. There is nothing noble in being dirt poor and eating ramen noodles. If an investor is offering money on good terms and is not a jackass, take the cash, because when your startup runs out of cash, it is game over.
- Marketing Is For Products That Suck – Fred Wilson gave life to this meme and the debate continues to this day. Let’s face it though; USV investing in your startup is pretty much a HUGE marketing coup. While the “build it and they will come” approach might work for Fred and company, it is rarely the winning recipe for startups. For every Facebook that got big without marketing, there are scores of others that got big using standard marketing techniques like SEO, Adwords, email lists, social media strategies, viral hooks, tradeshows and PR.
- Woe Is Me Vanity Posts – Every so often there is an article with some entrepreneur sob story of all the nice and wonderful things they sacrificed on their startup journey. Boo hoo, you cannot eat sushi every night and afford your fancy Gramercy apartment anymore. Here is a real story about overcoming insurmountable odds; a young boy persevered over his poor country farmer living, near death from a famine, and a lack of formal education to build a windmill from junk parts and provide his family electricity. Now which story is actually inspiring?
- Find a Co-Founder Events – Has anyone heard of a single, successful startup that emerged from these events. No, there has not been, and it is because such events invariably attract the lowest common denominator and feature a 20:1 ratio of business to technical folks. Entrepreneurs that actually accomplish things find co-founders, employees and opportunities because they hustle hard and find themselves in places where the real talent hangs out. If you are having trouble finding a co-founder, you might want to enroll yourself in Startup School instead.
- Check Out My Launchrock – I think you mean check out your Launch-not. If you cannot hack together a basic sign-up splash page, you have bigger problems than your lack of user sign-ups. Stop relying on these dipshit service companies and build something real. On a similar vein, the whole “share this” to get early beta access to your site is irritating. What incentive does anyone have to share your site or app with their friends until they actually validate that it is okay?
- Rise of the Infographic – Can we simply call them Infocrapics? While it was interesting at first, we are now inundated with more and more infographics based on increasingly suspect data sources with specious relevancy to the topic at hand. Even the infographic formats have become formulaic clichés. Instead of these vanity analytic exercises, how about we go back to bar charts, real data analysis and bar charts?
If there are any others that I am missing, PLEASE leave a comment and I will make sure you get the credit you deserve for outing these much derided memes. Only together we can clean up this wild and crazy startup scene.
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