The 2005 email that spawned Picnik, Google's latest buy | Hacker News Reader

The 2005 email that spawned Picnik, Google's latest buy

techflash.com

105 pointscwan13 comments

My favorite quote, given the recent debates over Flash vs Canvas:

We’re at the intersection of demand (mass use of online photos) and capability (Flash 8 supports the first level of functionality we need). Flash 8.5/9 will take us to the next level. If Canvas becomes widespread and is hardware accelerated we can move to that. If WPF becomes widespread we can move to that and boost our functionality/performance even further.

That was 5 years ago. Not trying to start a flamewar, but I just want to point out the enabling capability that Flash brought (and still provides 5 years later).

It's important to note that the product was not important. It could have been Flash or HTML5 or Fooware. What the founders saw was an intersection between demand and capability, and built a business to exploit that availability gap.

I'd argue with this assertion. I think what you meant to say was that the technology choice wasn't important. The product was obviously important, since without the product there is no company, nothing for anyone to acquire etc.

But I agree in an extremely hypothetical way that the technology choice is unimportant, assuming you can make the same competitive product with a number of technologies. In this case though, especially back in 2005, you simply can't argue that they could have made that product with anything else (apart from desktop software, which is a totally different product space). They were clearly aware of their technology choices, were keeping tracking of the latest and greatest, and chose the only one that was technically feasible for the product they wanted to create.

I don't think illumin8 is trying to argue that it could have been done with anything else at that exact point in time, just that they identified an opportunity and the technology that could make that happen. That the technology was flash, is in this instance mere coincidence.

That said, I agree that flash has been an enabler for many advances on the web. Unfortunately, the flash plugins just seem to be bogged down more and more, and don't seem to evolve very effectively.

Sorry, product was a poor choice of words. I meant technology choice, as you pointed out.

6. add features and customers forever and rake in the dough

Even though they eventually sold to Google, the initial plan including raking in the dough. I think that's an excellent lesson here: Hope for a massive buyout, but plan to make money.

Would love to hear pg's thoughts on how well the contents of this email would do as a YC application

I would love to see posts like this from other companies, since I'm very interested in how people decide on what to build for their startups.

Do a "Ask HN: Where did your startup come from". I bet there'd be some cool answers.

It is here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1164338

Future Founder # 1: Yo dude, I've this totally cool idea.

Future Founder # 2: How about we name it CutePuppy.

Future Founder # 1: Check if CutePuppy.com is available

I can bet this conversation theme has started 80% of new web-two-point-oh startups.

Thanks for the really great link! Loved the way the gave the clear and concise approach beginning with "The Market"

Most important part that is often glossed over by entrepreneurs is "GETTING THERE"

Thank you!

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