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Comment by necovek | Hacker News Reader

I love this story, but for somewhat different reasons than most.

It highlights that the true business driver is that personal interconnectedness: author's friend had good relationships with both restaurant managers and drivers. This is what has allowed an MVP to be successful, not the kludgy "product".

Sure, this product still needed to be built for people to be willing to continue to work together, but businesses of the sort have survived for years on spreadsheets and similar "implementations".

Some of these constraints do not hold on the internet, but you still need to catch the attention of the right folk to get that word-of-mouth moving (which is why we see so many "Show HN" posts here: there're plenty of people here who can do that for others).

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Yeah, I did a double take when I saw this line in the story:

> It’s not about making friends with the right people

Because my takeaway was the opposite… if you have good connections, your actual product isn’t as important.

Same. It's not about making friends with the right people...except for the part where he had already done so.

It's a tremendous blind spot, where "the right people" are defined as people his friend would have to pay for some business thing, rather than the people who have the money to give him.

Coincidentally I'm helping someone in this way right now. She has a good business idea because she has the talent and potential clients already (as well as being a good people-person), but the fact that she has me to make a website for her and advise on her technological needs for free isn't the thing that makes it a good business idea. Don't get me wrong, it can be extremely valuable and thrifty to have someone who knows enough to know where and when to say "no," or YAGNI, but those are cashflow and time questions, not a fundamental viability one.

Same. I could build damn near any product, but I cannot even make 1 friend in the right place in the right industry.

It's always interesting to hear people talk about what made a successful project successful, especially if you were part of that project.

Everybody has theories, and none of them line up.

I figured it was a play on the "networking industry" rather than knowing people who know people bit. He was able to build trust with people he worked with every day. Not much different than getting a recommendation from someone who you worked closely with and landing a new contract.

I quite literally came to the comments to quote this:

> No, it’s about embracing the constraints. They proved to be his true allies

And say pretty much the same thing you did.

Constraints helped them ship by Monday (a seriously admirable feat) but the direct relationships with both the customer (restaurants) and infrastructure (couriers) was what made it a profitable endeavor.

I wouldn't call these 'good connections' in the traditional sense. Not the kind that recommends you for a job or can hook you up to seed investors.

What they've done is had a shortcut to finding their first customers and convincing them to use the product. Often the hardest part, no fiddling with a contact form or landing page

> It highlights that the true business driver is that personal interconnectedness: author's friend had good relationships with both restaurant managers and drivers. This is what has allowed an MVP to be successful, not the kludgy "product".

Exactly! It feels like the article draws exactly the wrong conclusion. They were able to succeed _in spite_ of having a crude application because the relationships trumped. Know your customer, have an audience, all that stuff that you hear all the time.

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