I wouldn't call Loopt a failure. It didn't turn out like I wanted, for sure, but it was fun, I learned a lot, and I made enough money to start investing, which led me to my current job. I don't regret it at all.
~ Sam Altman
Check-ins are cool, but kind of a pain.
Many founders hire just because it seems like a cool thing to do, and people always ask how many employees you have.
Communication services need interoperability to succeed - and Loopt is the first such service since SMS that is available across all major U.S. wireless carriers.
There's this famous observation that I totally believe: Great startup ideas are the ones that lie in the intersection of the Venn diagram of 'is a good idea' and 'looks like a bad idea.' So you want most people to think it's a bad idea and thus not compete with you until you get giant. But for it to secretly be good.
Maybe I am a bit unusual here, but I am less stressed if I have my phone with me. Because I can spend like an hour in the morning taking care of everything instead of I sit there and wonder what I missed or wonder what's happening. So it's way less stressful for me to just answer my phone.
Intelligence is usually easy to tell in a 10-minute conversation. Determination is harder.
Making money is often more fun than spending it, though I personally have never regretted money I've spent on friends, new experiences, saving time, travel, and causes I believe in.
I think extreme secrecy is a bad sign in all startups. Very few startups die because they tell you exactly how their technology works. On the long list of startup killers, that's pretty far down. Though on the list of entrepreneur fears, it's pretty high.
