<story><title>Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>firefoxd</author><text>* Five co-founders are too many.&lt;p&gt;* If you are working on someone else&amp;#x27;s crappy idea, think about working on your own crappy idea.&lt;p&gt;* Call people you might need later when you don&amp;#x27;t need them. Or they tend to disappear when you do need them.&lt;p&gt;* Learn about the stock market and invest right away. You&amp;#x27;ll make money, lose money, then understand money.&lt;p&gt;* Build as many projects as time allows. It&amp;#x27;s nice to have the option to pick and choose.&lt;p&gt;* If you don&amp;#x27;t do the thing you want to do today, 5 years from now you&amp;#x27;ll remember and wonder how different your life would have been if you did.&lt;p&gt;* Don&amp;#x27;t ask people what they think about your idea. They&amp;#x27;ll either be supportive or mean to you. None of these are about your idea.&lt;p&gt;* Have a conversation with someone who doesn&amp;#x27;t speak your language. Make the effort to understand them. Mr Tereso, came out of nowhere and taught me life lessons that changed my life. He spoke no English, and i spoke Duolingo level Japanese.&lt;p&gt;* I&amp;#x27;ll end with this. If you are bored, create something. Make a clay pot, a drawing on paper, a JavaScript file, a wooden structure, a shoe rack, a sand castle, a matchstick home, a story. Make something you can look at the end result and you&amp;#x27;ll never get bored again...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>chiefalchemist</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;I&amp;#x27;ll end with this. If you are bored, create something. Make a clay pot, a drawing on paper, a JavaScript file, a wooden structure, a shoe rack, a sand castle, a matchstick home, a story. Make something you can look at the end result and you&amp;#x27;ll never get bored again...&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This might be the best single sentence I&amp;#x27;ve read on the internet so far this year. Kudos.&lt;p&gt;In short: Boredom is a function of creativity &amp;#x2F; creating.&lt;p&gt;Thanks again.</text></comment>
<story><title>Ask HN: What has the past 12 months taught you?</title></story><parent_chain><item><author>firefoxd</author><text>* Five co-founders are too many.&lt;p&gt;* If you are working on someone else&amp;#x27;s crappy idea, think about working on your own crappy idea.&lt;p&gt;* Call people you might need later when you don&amp;#x27;t need them. Or they tend to disappear when you do need them.&lt;p&gt;* Learn about the stock market and invest right away. You&amp;#x27;ll make money, lose money, then understand money.&lt;p&gt;* Build as many projects as time allows. It&amp;#x27;s nice to have the option to pick and choose.&lt;p&gt;* If you don&amp;#x27;t do the thing you want to do today, 5 years from now you&amp;#x27;ll remember and wonder how different your life would have been if you did.&lt;p&gt;* Don&amp;#x27;t ask people what they think about your idea. They&amp;#x27;ll either be supportive or mean to you. None of these are about your idea.&lt;p&gt;* Have a conversation with someone who doesn&amp;#x27;t speak your language. Make the effort to understand them. Mr Tereso, came out of nowhere and taught me life lessons that changed my life. He spoke no English, and i spoke Duolingo level Japanese.&lt;p&gt;* I&amp;#x27;ll end with this. If you are bored, create something. Make a clay pot, a drawing on paper, a JavaScript file, a wooden structure, a shoe rack, a sand castle, a matchstick home, a story. Make something you can look at the end result and you&amp;#x27;ll never get bored again...</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rntrg</author><text>&amp;gt; Don&amp;#x27;t ask people what they think about your idea. They&amp;#x27;ll either be supportive or mean to you. None of these are about your idea.&lt;p&gt;While I agree that some people will be blindly supportive or mean (or will lie as another comment pointed out), it sounds to me that you might be asking the wrong people or you might be allowing ego to taint your perception of their responses.&lt;p&gt;In my experience, there are plenty of thoughtful, analytical people out there who can help you explore aspects of your idea you might not have considered. Those people, however, will likely only give you their honest assessment if you already have a relationship with them. For me, having a small network of thoughtful individuals that I trust (friends, family, etc) is essential.&lt;p&gt;In addition, you have to be able to separate your ego from the idea so that you can view criticism of it in an objective way, rather than as simply “mean” (which it might be, but might also contain grains of truth).&lt;p&gt;This is, of course, no substitute for feedback from actual customers&amp;#x2F;users, though I would argue that, in the early stages of exploring an idea, it is equally necessary.</text></comment>