What If Google Does It? | Hacker News Reader

What If Google Does It?

whatifgoogledoesit.com

61 pointswigdi31 comments

I can't stop hitting reload on this thing!

pg's response to "what if google does it?" -

That's one of the canonical dumb investor questions. We try not to ask those. Google could blow most startups out of the water if they chose to focus on building exactly the same thing. What protects startups is that in practice big competitors can only focus on a limited number of things at once.

User indifference is a much, much greater danger for startups than competitors, big or small. So we advise startups to focus on that. What's going to kill you is the Back button, not Google.

> "Google could blow most startups out of the water if they chose to focus on building exactly the same thing."

I'm not sure that's even true - look at buzz and wave. For all the time money and effort they've spent on that area they seem to have little return.

That sort of app isn't something you can win by technology alone, you need to capture users in a way that the users feel comfortable with.

But there is some history here, if I remember right, kiko (YC funded calendar) decided to close and sell on ebay when Google released their own calendar.

Key word being "startups" I'd hardly call Twitter a startup when Buzz came out. And hardly call... the email industry? a startup when wave was launched.

I don't think that's the factor at all in that case. If buzz and twitter were launched at the same time, twitter would win. Buzz did too many things wrong - privacy, being integrated into gmail, not as open API etc, no arbitrary restriction on length to get hype, etc

Plus, being launched by Google, may actually be a curse. I doubt the xbox would be as successful if more people actually knew microsoft was behind it.

Startups have a great advantage in that they're assumed by users to be new/fresh/good guys/underdogs/etc etc

A somewhat tangential point, but does anyone else feel that if wave had been integrated into gmail and buzz hadn't, the two products would have had a much better chance at success?

Is Google "doing it" really on the list of concerns for most startups? They do web scale computation really, really well. They have a nifty email client. They're the world's best advertising firm. And, oh yeah, search. Outside of those competencies... their record of success is underwhelming.

I don’t think it’s a concern of most startups but it’s definitely one of most VCs. I think most VCs were either active as VCs or working in the industry back in the late 90s when Microsoft entering a market meant the death knell for any other company in that market. So that fear has carried over into today with Google taking Microsoft’s place as the dominant company in the industry.

The fact that Google hasn’t been near as successful at entering new markets doesn't seem to have entered the equation.

Its a concern for investors. They annoyingly ask this question quite often.

I'm sure that's what Streetmap and Multimap thought.

EDIT: and any web traffic analytics company you care to mention.

The analytics example at least is really flakey ... plenty of web analytics companies didn't close up shop after Google's transformation of Urchin, a few years later they're still running and new ones are still emerging.

Google fails at a lot more than they succeed at. Chances are very good if Google enters a market they'll suck at it, and if you excel at it maybe they'll buy you if they want to own that market.

All you even have to do to beat them is provide any way for people to reach you for support.

Part of this is also due to the fact that the analytics business is so multi-faceted and had many valuable niches. That fact, combined with the increasing volume and variety of data people need to understand, makes the industry even more viable as time goes by.

Absolutely, I'm doing it for games and with quite some success.

But I think there's more to it than just that analytics is a particularly versatile industry, most of the stuff Google does could be retooled to solve x (or a variation of x) for a different y - and has: redtube, 5mins etc - let alone the also viable same y but better solution.

If it's not one of their handful of monolithic and to date unbeatable successes then their presence in a market really doesn't do anything more than validate it.

Not really sure I agree with the analytics example. There see tons of analytics startups (including my own).

Another example is Skyhook. Google started doing wifi based location while driving street view and then forced them out by threatening to cut people who used them off from the official Google apps. Not only did "Google do it" but they also leveraged their position to destroy an open market for wifi location services.

Multimap sold out to MS for $50 million, so I'm not sure they cared too much about Google.

Omniture?

I'm sure if Google did it, it would refresh in less than 10 seconds. For a straightforward "pick a random quote" site, this is just plain appalling!

Site appears to be down, Google cache: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

The site presents random answers to the question "What if google does it" as asked during a VC pitch.

Here's a sample answer: 'Ah yes. We get that question so often we started a weekly seminar to help answer it. It's really an eye opener. You should attend it. It's called "Venture Capital - 101". There is also a companion seminar: "What happens when your balls fall off - 101"'

Google cache isn't much use for a site where the humour comes from the random response you get each time you reload :-)

I can't help thinking a single txt file with all the answers in would have been much more HN-proof.

In Italy, the 80% of Angels and VCs say: "We don't know if your idea is good. Wait until google does it, and maybe we could speak with you about your idea." Fortunately there are very good VC and Angel (very few..) that want help the new startups and don't scared about big companies.

I was asked the "What if Google does it?" question a few times at Seedcamp by some investors - I agree with the previous comment - the question is kinda dumb, but 'seems' reasonable when used with "Google". If I were building some new social network and was asked "but what if Nokia did it?" it would suddenly seem strange... even the (more accurate) question "How would you deal with competition" is still not very useful as having competition is something that should generally be expected and not used as a way to validate or invalidate a good startup idea/product.

In addition, there is an enoumous amount of products/applications that Google couldn't do because it would conflict with the way they make money, for example if Google started a super-market chain, they would be treading on a lot of their own customers feet - and e-commerce in general.

This was posted last night and delete for some reason.

Here are a few more comments - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1785923

I don't know if you should tell a VC this, but when someone asks me that question I usually laugh. Google launches about 3 products a day, then shuts them all down a year later. 99 out of 100 things they do suck and end up insignificant.

That's fine for them too, the other 1% more than recoup it, so it's a brilliant model. But I don't worry about them.

The real answer to this question is: If we get money from you, google "doing it" will mean buying us, which in turn means a big payout for you.

That is of course if you aren't in a position to just say: Who cares about what if's? The world is built on what is, not what might be...

Hilarious! I wish I could rank these sentences though (or save a list of favorites or something).

Agreed. Needs up voting and down voting on answers :)

EDIT: Also I just submitted an answer but I have no way of knowing if the submission was successful - the confirmation messaging is obscure.

And finally... please see http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1771607 because your Facebook/Twitter social sharing buttons are using non-async scripts.

Seems to already be filled with spam/entirely non-serious responses.

I believe that was the point. It is a silly question, thus, silly answers.

Cute. Can't imagine why it warranted a new domain name though...

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