What parts felt too stretched? Or just as a composition would you have preferred I narrow it down? I thought it was fun that it goes a little overboard. To me it felt like doing so captured just how much these journeys can change over time.
I tried to focus on 3 main bits:
Early exploration, problems between people, and then how much is ultimately in or out of your control
Hey hacker news! I wrote this and I’m glad it connected with folks.
To answer a few of your comments:
Writing is all mine but I had Claude proofread it, in addition to some close friends. Honestly it pointed out some great weaknesses in the original draft.
The art is all nano-banana through a tool called flora ai. I’d love to work with a human illustrator for something like this. I can draw, but I can’t paint and there’s an aesthetic here I think it handles better than I would have.
Man, it’s amazing that I can get something out there that expresses a vision all by myself. If this were a revenue generating project like an actual children’s book or something I’d love to work with someone that could bring it to life a bit more.
The metaphor is broken. The snowball grows passively over time naturally, but being a founder requires you to actively create value in your startup. Snow doesn't choose to stick to your ball based on PMF, and the entire piece romanticizes grinding without once mentioning customers, revenue, or whether you're solving a real problem people will pay for.
I think it's dangerous sentiment to say if you create a snowball (startup) and just keep pushing it forever it is guaranteed to grow to something large. Some might say "duh, of course", but I still think a lot of people don't understand this.
Seeing a borderline hustle culture article illustrated with AI slop in the style of Bill Watterson, who famously opposed commercial exploitation of his work, is deeply saddening.
Great story, thanks for sharing. Besides the part where it says "Other people will see its glory and join their smaller snowballs into it.", it sounds a bit like marriage too.
Pushing snowballs is a cute sentiment, albeit an incomplete metaphor, but it is also quite romanticized as depicted here.
I get that it is about cooperation, "pushing" and growing the size and impact of organizations, but applied to the wider world it quickly becomes complicated; the snowballs interact.
Everyone is pushing multiple snowballs over complex terrain. For many their snowballs are melting as they roll them, sometimes actively counteracted by institutions or higher powers.
And don't forget that huge snowball we all roll around on, called earth, because it's losing snow...
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 33.8 ms ] threadI tried to focus on 3 main bits:
Early exploration, problems between people, and then how much is ultimately in or out of your control
To answer a few of your comments:
Writing is all mine but I had Claude proofread it, in addition to some close friends. Honestly it pointed out some great weaknesses in the original draft.
The art is all nano-banana through a tool called flora ai. I’d love to work with a human illustrator for something like this. I can draw, but I can’t paint and there’s an aesthetic here I think it handles better than I would have.
Man, it’s amazing that I can get something out there that expresses a vision all by myself. If this were a revenue generating project like an actual children’s book or something I’d love to work with someone that could bring it to life a bit more.
I think it's dangerous sentiment to say if you create a snowball (startup) and just keep pushing it forever it is guaranteed to grow to something large. Some might say "duh, of course", but I still think a lot of people don't understand this.
That being said, this is definitely one that's particularly optimistic, particularly low-ego, centered around a curiosity one has with the world.
That I like quite a bit.
I get that it is about cooperation, "pushing" and growing the size and impact of organizations, but applied to the wider world it quickly becomes complicated; the snowballs interact.
Everyone is pushing multiple snowballs over complex terrain. For many their snowballs are melting as they roll them, sometimes actively counteracted by institutions or higher powers.
And don't forget that huge snowball we all roll around on, called earth, because it's losing snow...