Slam Dunk Startups? | Hacker News Reader

Slam Dunk Startups?

mikeindustries.com

6 pointsjoshwa12 comments

A startup idea is not just a one line description (like those much maligned hollywood pitches). The initial germ of an idea is followed by a series of ideas as the site is developed. Which of these end up being crucial to the success of the site is only obvious in hindsight. A similar thing happens when a mathematical conjecture turns out to have an elegantly simple proof. While the proof seems obvious in hindsight, and people are surprised that it wasn't proved earlier, the process of finding it is quite messy.

For example, I believe that the genius of youtube lay not so much in providing a site to upload and watch video, but instead in their decision to let people embed their videos freely on any other site. This led to explosive growth in their name recognition as users saw youtube videos pop up everywhere on the net. Think about it this way: they basically got to promote their website on almost every blog in existence. While this may seem like an obviously good idea in hindsight, this was not the conventional wisdom at that time as they were essentially giving up a lot of page views.

Damn, I was going to say hotornot, but you already did. There have been thousands of other startups though that have had first mover advantage work for them in a huge way.

i agree with the article -- first mover advantage only carries you once in a blue moon. The biggest successes today were nowhere near the first ones, they just did it better. Google came YEARS after yahoo, lycos, alta vista, and facebook came way after friendster. doing it better is more important than doing it first.

When an execution is as incredibly simple as hot or not -- that counts as part of the idea!!

hotmail is one startup people typically cite as an example of this. Sabeer & Jack themselves admit it.

from idea to $400MM acquisition by Microsoft in 18 months.

HoTMaiL = HTML

Even that example doesn't fly. The website ratemyface.com (terrible name...) launched first, and amihot.com launched second.

From what I can tell, those sites are totally different as far as first impressions. Plus, hotornot got the most brandable domain in the history of the internet.

edit: archive.org confirms it. You've got to be kidding me if you think those sites are remotely similar except for one tiny feature.

The main concept is the same, isn't it? The execution and branding vary widely, but that's exactly the point. Like Youtube vs. Google video, this example shows that, even here, first mover advantage doesn't count for too much.

You can't really call vastly different sites the same idea. This train wreck totally misses the "I would show this to my friends design" aspect of the idea:

http://web.archive.org/web/20010202080600/http://amihot.com/

And you've got to admit that the basic idea alone totally carried the hotornot site.

This is all semantics. What he's really talking about are companies that gain inertia because they were first to market and companies that were able to disrupt the market, which is altogether an entire different magnitude of success.

So yeah, sure if you can go to market with a great product, launch first, and gain market sure, good for you. If someone else comes by and usurp your position, well... that's just business.

ebay

Once they got traction, a tough space to crack for a decade. Sellers didn't want to go anywhere else because the buyers were there. Buyers didn't want to go anywhere else because the sellers were there. Hard to mess up without monumental screw-ups (but stand by, they are sure to come...)

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