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Ask HN: What ways have you seen founders unconsciously sabotage their startup?

2 points by adrianmsmith ↗ HN
I am a software developer and have worked at multiple startups. I met many founders who dreamt of starting their own successful startup for years. They are used to that dream. After they create the startup, I think some unconsciously prefer to prevent it going to market, to be able to keep on dreaming about its success, as opposed to take the risk of potentially finding out it's a failure. And so they unconsciously sabotage their own startup.

I think we've all seen founders who, just before launch, suddenly announce there need to be lots more features before they can launch. Or that the whole product needs a visual re-design. Or even a complete change of programming language and thus a complete re-write. Anything to prevent the product getting into the hands of the users, and getting actual feedback.

What such sabotage attempts have you seen?

4 comments

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wayn3
Hiring inexperienced 19 year olds who happen to have "react native" on their resume over people with 25 years of experience who don't.

Like the kid is going to be stronger at something than a veteran is because he played with it for a week or two.

On the same note, forcing people to be at the company all day doing stupid shit like playing foosball. Do you really get more time out of someone working 12 hours of which 6 are spent kicking tires vs. establishing normal productive hours?

Slack, the fastest growing SaaS ever, hires the veterans and allows them to have a family. Go figure.

[dead] kjs3
Pretending 'security' is something they'll 'get to' down the road.

Thinking contracts don't matter.

Getting behind on taxes.

Nomentatus
A complete lack of willingness to sell, in any very serious way. Good product, but token efforts at sales only.

This was neurotic more than an ethical stance. It wasn't sabotage if that means trying to be unsuccessful, it was irrational and deep-seated antipathy to asking anybody for anything including a few seconds of their time.

If you're unreflective as an employee, some one will bump you out of it. If you're unreflective and a boss, nobody will.

Nomentatus
PS - I love (perversely) that this is a low-rated question. Read a good business history and you'll find that unconscious traits, prejudices, assumptions, etc are what kill; far more often than, say, "market conditions."

We live rather coddled lives in this corner of the world. Most of us don't, as young adults, know what it is to be serious about anything. Nothing truly bad has happened to us, or even threatened to happen, so how could we know what human beings who are deadly serious look like? Unconsciously, we expect someone to come along and wipe our nose for us. Which ain't business-like.