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My Experience Running Development at a Startup
Posts from the old antjanus.com blog (2012–2020), rebuilt from the Wayback Machine.
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Uber's Failure in Japan
Uber’s disastrous failure in Japan was not caused by local competition, but by a uniquely American strategy that simply could not work in Japan. You see, Uber represents a new kind of startup. The very thing that makes them so successful in America dooms them to failure in Japan.
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Building a business, not just an app
This past week has not been the first outbreak of independent developer angst over the app store, but it feels like it has been one of the more intense. The pump was primed by the news that Kim Kar…
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Asana
I’m delighted to finally be investing in Asana, which I’ve wanted to do for a long time. One of the things I’ve learned about companies is that 1) clear tasks and goals, 2) clearly communicated,...
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Tips for selling your side project
All I did was put together a trivial web app to scratch my own itch, and it keeps scratching it, while I drink my free beer.
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uBeam's insider story by ex employee?
Today is the 6 month anniversary of my resignation from uBeam, a startup I'd spent the previous two and a half years working on. I had...
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How Generalised Problems Kill Startups
It’s crazy how often I hear founders say ‘I think the problem we’re really solving is X’. Hang on a second… You ‘think’? The surprising…
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The Hard Raise
In the summer of 2003, Brad Burnham and I set out to raise a $100mm early stage venture capital fund. We had both been successful VCs in other firms and we had a thesis that the second wave of the Internet was upon us and that large networks were going to get built in this […]
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Solving the cash problems from self-funding rapid growth
“If you grow too fast it can kill the business.” After spending years fighting for even a tiny bit of growth, ConvertKit was now facing a totally different kind of problem: more growth than we could support. In October, November, and December we were averaging growing 40% per month. Recurring revenue went from $25,000…
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Ideas for Startups (2005)
October 2005 (This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005 Startup School. ) How do you get good ideas for startups ? That's probably the number one question people ask me. I'd like to reply with another question: why do people think it's hard to come up with ideas for startups? That might seem a stupid thing to ask…
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Sam Altman's Bubble Talk Bet Is 1 Year Old
I’m tired of reading about investors and journalists claiming there’s a bubble in tech. I understand that it’s fun to do and easy press, but it’s boring reading. I also understand that it might...
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The meeting that showed me the truth about VCs
I had a meeting with a well-known startup investor yesterday. The talk somehow pivoted from my seed-seeking startup into talking about the…
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Talking to users
Get expert tech help, plus the latest in PC and console gaming. Boost your setup, fix issues, and level up your play—start now!
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Automattic Purchases .blog TLD for $19M
It’s now public that Automattic is the company behind Knock Knock Whois There LLC, the registry for the new .blog TLD. (And a great pun.) We wanted to stay stealth while in the bidding process and …
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How to ace a YC interview
Spring has sprung, and the smell of fresh YC applications is in the air. It’s that special time that happens twice a year where thousands…
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Who really gets hurt when startups blow up, and what to do about it
Yesterday, Theranos announced that it would void two years of diagnostic test results from its Edison blood-testing device. Pulitzer…
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A Letter to the Berlin Startup Scene
Dear Berlin Startup Scene,
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