Ask HN: Any advice on pivoting out of VC-backed tech?

I'm exploring moving away from work with VC-backed B2B SaaS startups and towards working with B2C businesses on Main Street.

For anyone else who's felt inclined to make a similar pivot - any advice? Particularly when it comes to remaining challenged, informed, and translating valuable hype-cycle concepts to people who don't care about hype.

While it's interesting to play with shiny toys, helping investors make money by creating products related to the hype-cycle de jour that get used by other B2B SaaS companies just feels soulless.

(My background is in GTM systems and data analytics mostly, but I think the question applies to anyone)

Having worked in both startups funded by VC's (or wishing to be), and for businesses not part of that, the primary difference is in the attitude towards boring technology. Main Street is not really any better at seeing through hype cycles than anyone else, but they are less up-to-date on what is currently hyped, and they also are more likely to think that they hired the programmer to make technical decisions, rather than wanting to make those technical decisions themselves. They have other (often equally technical) decisions to concentrate on, in different areas, so they are wanting you to just Make It Work.

The downside is they are unimpressed with refactoring, updating to new versions, and the like. The upside is they are ok with you using boring technology that works, even at times when a VC-backed tech company would insist on something new and overcomplicated.

Also, the pay is ok, but honestly it's not going to be as high as in VC-backed employers.

6 days agoby rossdavidh

companies outside the venture ecosystem need a lot more help. This is because they’re a lot harder to help. So, expect a Serenity Prayer situation. There is much less you can change. In return, you’re allowed to be older than 35. I would not say the work life balance is that different. bigger companies have deadlines and crises too. The crises are often worse because the management is looser.

6 days agoby dustingetz

> translating valuable hype-cycle concepts to people who don't care about hype

Consider that people who don't care about hype may already know/understand the hype-cycle concepts and just disagree that they are valuable.

Part of leaving the hype-cycle (particularly because you clocked that it was soulless) is realising that challenge and being informed are not the sole preserve of hype.

5 days agoby Peritract

My inclination is to look not at 'main street' but more niche things where people do care about the tech involved and care about it being an edge for the product or service, but it's all kind of not a big enough market for the stampeding VC herds to bother with.

I would love to know how to locate more businesses like that though; I haven't had much luck.

6 days agoby davidw

Boston is less frothy than SF or NY and there’s a ton of experienced professional grad students at a pivot point in their careers looking for a way to start a business, not just hook a VC with tech and try to growth hack from there. Loads of education, politics, healthcare and biotech folks. You could try hanging out there?

6 days agoby clickety_clack

Ignore hype cycles. Let the hype die down, and use tech when it has proven itself. Your run-of-the-mill business doesn't try to stay on the leading edge. When not working in the "startup" world, it becomes a good guideline that if you need to be challenged and informed and parse the hype in order to use a new tech... then you probably should not use it. Boring tech is stable tech.

6 days agoby codingdave

I made a halfway step away from B2B SaaS by getting involved with launching a game on Steam. This is still B2B in many ways, but also exposes you to the advantages of a B2C arrangement.

Going direct to customers without any kind of intermediary is where I start to get really nervous.

5 days agoby bob1029

How are you defining “B2C businesses on Main Street.”

The reason I’m wondering is because it’s striking how much more financially challenged my Main Street is compared to Vc texh.

I see so much opportunity for a small medium business consultation in the analytics and process space but these companies are like really strapped for money and largely set in their ways in my experience.

In my experience, people are open to solving their problems. It’s just the money is hard making it financially viable so it’s just the big money is just like an order of magnitude smaller.

Another thing I’ve noticed is that I think the general level of sort of like process thinking and data driven decision making in tech is at just like a higher baseline than on Main Street

A lot of my discussions are challenging how to sort of like present the problem in a way that somebody that doesn’t have decades of experience and operations understands.

Another challenge that I face regularly with Main Street companies is just people seem to be happy like they’re not trying to continuously optimize like I’m used to doing coming for a big tech. Even when it’s easy to present like positive ROI opportunities there’s just like a comfort with the way things are done and a lot of people seem just happy governed by their scaling factors in exchange for that that comfort.

TLDR; challenges are financial and mentality.

6 days agoby dm03514

I quit my job. Its forced me out of the cycle of 'just a bit more' and made change the only option. Is it the smartest move, likely not, but so far I stand by it.

6 days agoby Prcmaker

Don't become dependent on it in the first place.

You are usually forced to come to this conclusion, if you hadn't already, after your experience with a rug-pull or two.

6 days agoby heavyset_go

Forget all of the tech hype cycles and notions of what is outdated, cutting edge frameworks, new exciting languages, what will be replaced by AI, etc.

All that matters now is 1) if your software is straightforward enough to understand and 2) helps drive value for your potential business customers. That’s it. Everything else is just functionally irrelevant.

5 days agoby keiferski

I once worked for VC backed start-up, I've not been VC backed myself, but I worked for Australia's science and technology research agency, so let's somewhat consider what I worked on was funded, cutting-edge development. Normally too early for VC, and often very shiny thing, or polishing things expected to be shiny in the future.

I've only once worked on main street when I was managing the app for a pizza chain.

One day, sitting in a quarterly planning meeting for the pizza company, they were discussing changes they could make to the app and the comment that stood out in my head was "we forecast this change could help us sell x% more garlic bread".

In my head I thought, "I don't care how much garlic bread we sell...this is not why I'm on the planet".

I know not every mains st. business is selling pizza, and lots of B2B companies, VC backed or not, would not excite me.

You're right, helping investors make money isn't very compelling, and I think B2B, has that kind of focus, but many ventures aren't B2B SaaS.

There is lots going on in health, energy, space, etc. right now. I do expect many of these bubbles will pop, but is there something there that interests you?

I didn't see a contact in your profile, but I'm the founder off https://affectablesleep.com, we're not hiring a GTM person, but I'm currently reaching out to a few people for advice. Drop me a line if you're interested in chatting, and maybe I can help you find your next thing too.

6 days agoby pedalpete

Ask around on Hackernews. Post on the "Who wants to be hired?" thread at the top of each month. See what the local job scene is like in a city whose major industries are not "tech". Use Craigslist, Indeed, etc. as guides.You will find that they need software and automation in all sorts of industries and many would love to hire someone who'd proven themself in the SV world.

Oh, and uh, get used to boredom. Java and .NET, maybe some Python if you're lucky. If you love Rust, get comfortable loving it on your own time. Most of the world out there runs on time-honored technology that's been proven to work, and what you'll find is... that's not really a bad thing. Knowing you have a stable foundation on which to build lets you focus on the things that matter to your business.

6 days agoby bitwize

Why not try and work at a actual unicorn startup? One that will probably IPO instead of get acquired where you get jack shit.

90% of startups are shit, but there are some actually good companies out there. I worked at such a company, made a lot of money too when we IPO'd.

Find some that are at series B or so, doing something interesting or new to you, with a good track record beyond just unicorn valuation. Bonus points if the CEO is actually passionate and comes from whatever field they're solving for. AKA not some 23 year old fuck boi.

If they're successful, and the company IPOs at like 10-30x you'll make a good amount of money even if you're employee 500. Enough money to not work for a decade, and you'll be making a lot off interest by then so hopefully you can live a upper-middle class to lower-upper class lifestyle if you do nothing else.

Working outside VC tech is like boomer central critical mass of mediocrity. It is a whole new set of issues (mostly dealing with mid-low tier workers who just cannot work independently or without drama, who will drive you insane if you're an Exceeds Expectations type of person), with little financial upside.

2 days agoby moomoo11