Chris Dixon

  • April 12, 2011
Showing up

Mark Twain famously quipped that “80 percent of life is showing up.” Running a startup, I’d say it’s more like 90 percent. For example, I frequently hear from founders how it’s hard to recruit programmers. It is indeed hard. But great programmers are out there, and can be found in places where other people simply aren’t showing up.

Back in 2005 when I was starting SiteAdvisor with Tom Pinckney (one of my cofounders at my last two startups and non-graduate of high school) we were trying to recruit great programmers. At the time, startups were certainly not the hot thing, especially on the East Coast. We were based in Boston so decided to spend time at MIT where we figured there must be smart programmers. We went to places like the Media Lab and basically just sat ourselves down at lunch counters and awkwardly introduced ourselves: “Hi, my name is Chris Dixon and this is Tom Pinckney and we are starting a company and would love to talk to you about it.” Most students ignored us or thought we were annoying. I remember one student staring at us quizzically saying “startups still exist?” Most of our trips were fruitless. At one point after a failed trip we were on the Redline back to our office in downtown Boston and joked, depressingly, that we felt so out of place that people looked at us like time travelers from the dot-com bubble.

Our first breakthough came after a series of trips when a particularly talented programmer/designer named Hugo Liu re-approached us and said something like “hey, actually I thought about it and your idea doesn’t suck.” Then his friend David Gatenby talked to about joining us. We eventually recruited Hugo and David along with a brilliant undergraduate Matt Gattis. We had finally broken through. Matt and Hugo now work with us at Hunch along with some of their friends from MIT they brought along.

People who say recruiting is easy are probably recruiting bad people. People who say recruiting is hard are right. People who say it is impossible just aren’t showing up enough.

  • http://twitter.com/aortenzi Anthony Ortenzi

    I think it’s fair to say that we judge ourselves on the things we think make us special, and we like to think that it’s what makes us unique that makes us special… not something anyone could do.

  • http://muneeb.org Muneeb

    Agreed, but there is a right and a wrong way of showing up. Picking up emails from a CS department’s website and then emailing all students with a vague “business opportunity”, is spam (happens a lot). Another wrong way is when people come up to you in person and lump together a couple of “buzz words” to sound technical when it’s clear that they are not (it’s OK to be non-technical, just be honest about it). However, building up long term relationships with the local talent pool and/or showing up in person at relevant events (e.g., hackathons, business competitions, etc.) makes complete sense, and agreed that founders usually don’t go that extra mile.

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      very true. that’s why you need to show up in person and be authentic and
      talk to people about what you are doing.

  • http://twitter.com/SergeyNazarov Sergey

    Chris, this is a great post and the distinction you make here is very valid indeed. Thanks for writing it.

    How many trips and conversations did you have before Hugo came up and expressed interest?

    When Hugo did come up and express interest, why do you think that was? Is it that he wanted to work in a startup that was pursuing your opportunity or that he had a good feeling about working with you and your partner? In other words, when you do show up, do you feel that prospective developers are more attracted to the opportunity/pain point you are solving or to the team that they will be working with?

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      maybe 3 trips? can’t remember. I think it was the combination of people
      showing up and thereby showing their commitment and also us getting the
      message across about the idea. The main point is that if we hadn’t just
      kept showing up “irrationally” it wouldn’t have worked.

  • Anonymous

    I think that’s a Woody Allen quote, not MT.

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      yeah could be. been googling to figure it out but it’s ambiguous. i
      thought i saw that in pudding head wilson or some other MT book but maybe
      I’m wrong.

  • http://blog.calbucci.com/ Marcelo Calbucci

    Chris, this is a great post, and there is a second message you might not even realize it: show up where everyone else is not going!

    I think startups tend to just look for what other startups are doing and copy them, which leads to herd mentality and a lot of noise at the same places. The best entrepreneurs figure out where the desert beaches full of diamonds are and no one has noticed it yet.

    Marketing and PR is very similar to recruiting. You have to figure out how to distance yourself from “just another website”.

  • http://www.vinaysahni.com Vinay Sahni

    Top talent does have a way to hide in the bushes! .. A few years ago, while on the hunt for a strong developer, we did our typical rounds of the recruiting firms and had reached out over a university mailing list — although we were looking for a diamond in a pile of CS students, we ended up recruiting an astro-physicist from the mailing list.

    Coincidently, I’ve since encountered quite a few physicist-turned-developers who are above grade. Now I’ve almost started to look out for them ;)

  • http://www.johnwedgwood.com John Wedgwood

    Great post, and great topic.

    For recruiting on campuses, showing up, being genuine, and being willing to talk to anyone is a huge advantage. Years ago at another company we would do almost anything to get access to students – sponsor an event, rent a room and serve a free lunch, non-recruiting talks for students on industry topics. Heck we offered free resume feedback (we seriously spent 30+ minutes reviewing and preparing feedback for students). Hustle does pay off.

    Your first hire from a pool of people is your biggest advocate for your next hire, and it cascades. If you find someone great, be tenacious and be generous, and then make the experience as good as you promised. Stuff will fall into place from there. But never stop working.

    • http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

      totally agree. thanks for your excellent comment.

      • http://www.facebook.com/magarshak Gregory Magarshak

        Chris, I started reading your blog, and I have to chime in with this link. I personally think it’s awesome for any kind of leadership to turn into success:

        http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fW8amMCVAJQ

  • Anonymous

    Great post. Showing up where others just aren’t, sounds familiar. Another one – persistence. I can tell a very personal story on persistence, and how it shaped some successes. Good read, indeed…thank you!

  • Anonymous

    Not just hiring, this is applicable to so many things. Showing up is key. Keep doing something long enough and something good is bound to happen,

  • Anonymous

    hackathons. speaking as a student who frequents hackathons, hackathons are the best. it’s a great opportunity for api evangelists to work with me, answer my questions, help me build, and give me an idea of what working for the company will be like (it’s also a sneaky way for reps to make hacks powered by their apis win). actually, ben gleitz from hunch was the paradigmatic example of what a representative engineer at a hackathon should be like. without him, i surely wouldn’t have taken third at hackNY.

  • http://twitter.com/vkroz Vladimir Kroz

    I’m curious – is there any positive practical experience in using offshore development teams in startups? What are pro and cons. What are lessons learned?

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  • http://justessay.com/ writing essay

    Nice post. Thanks for it.

  • http://twitter.com/EthanDParker Ethan Parker

    Great post, thank you, Chris. @abrams on Namesake said your blog was good so now it’s in my favorites bar. Can I get a favicon? Hugo’s got one. :)

  • http://twitter.com/mattamyers Matthew A Myers

    Recently posted a quote that’s aligned with showing up; http://mattamyers.tumblr.com/post/4449158204/nothing-in-the-world-can-take-the-place-of

    The main idea of it is ‘Press on.’ I’ve been using it as my motivation as of late. It’s a goodie.

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  • http://technbiz.blogspot.com paramendra

    Time travelers, ha!

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  • Anonymous

    I really appreciate your post and you explain each and every point very well.Thanks for sharing this information.And I’ll love to read your next post too.
    Regards:
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