Abstraction makes us stupid at business | Hacker News Reader

Abstraction makes us stupid at business

thestartuptoolkit.com

63 pointsminecraftman16 comments

+10000. This is a trap that I've seen way too many hackers and entrepreneurs fall into.

Get out of the room. Talk to actual people. Find out about their processes. Understand their pain points.

Then, build, iterate, and build some more.

Agreed entirely. Though lately, I've heard a lot of people invoke what I'll call the "Steve Jobs Defense" in response to the author's point. Roughly speaking, the logic goes that Steve Jobs never asked customers what they wanted; he didn't believe they knew what they wanted until he made it for them.

This is dangerous thinking, first and foremost, because it's somewhat untrue. Steve Jobs may have shunned focus groups, but he didn't ignore market research altogether. He didn't leap blindly into new markets; in fact, the vast majority of his company's "inventions" were simply brilliant iterations on existing pieces of technology. Apple certainly made markets, but it didn't invent those markets out of whole cloth. Steve couldn't have launched the iPod and iTunes without understanding how people consumed music -- even if he planned to change how they did so. Likewise, he couldn't have launched the iPhone without a thorough understanding of the dynamics of the carrier and customer sides of the mobile business. And so on, and so forth.

>Steve Jobs may have shunned focus groups, but he didn't ignore market research altogether.

Right. Steve Jobs was brilliant because he let his competitors do his market research for him. There's a good reason that Apple is never the first into any market. The first entrant into the market makes a lot of mistakes. Apple sits back, observes the initial entrants, and only enters the market once the initial entrants have demonstrated that the market is viable and technically feasible to enter.

I politely disagree. Apple may not be the company to dream up the abstract idea of what the market might be, but it has a longstanding history of being the first to capitalize on it, which could be read as "first to market".

Tablets were around before the ipad. But they sucked. Portable mp3 players were around before the ipod, but they sucked. smartphones, laptops (that were hyper portable), and personal computers were around before Apple got into any of these markets. Apple's strength lies in tapping into the abstract idea of what a market could be and fully realizing it's potential. Of ushering these large complex machines and ideas into reality where non-technical people can not just interact with them but see the beauty in them too, just as any engineer would. They serve the ultimate market--the general, non-technical public.

I would say that's first to market, because early adopters aren't the market necessarily--for many things they're an experimental group that you use to figure out what to bring to everyone else.

Apple has its share of faults, but being a "me too" company sure ain't one of em.

Oh, I wasn't trying to imply that at all. I was saying that Apple lets its competitors do the technical and feasibility research for them by releasing half-baked products that are rejected by the market for various reasons. In the meantime they're iterating behind closed doors. End result: they launch right as the competition gives up on the market.

I agree with you Jonathan.

The Steve Jobs defence has some validity to it. However, everyone isn't Steve Jobs..

Additionally, having a track record of creating things that people wanted helps immensely in justifiably invoking the Jobs clause.

But most people aren't Steve Jobs. They aren't on their second, or third, or fifth great product.

Even then, Steve Jobs had the deep enough pockets to have some spectacular failures (Cube mac, etc) on the way to getting it right.

Do startups have the deep pockets to spectacularly fail, or believe in their own legends a little too much?

I'm not so sure, but look forward to reading the thoughts here.

Down voter(s); mind typing what you disagreed with, or what rule of HN this violated? Still learning, thanks.

Steve Jobs was wrong a lot too. He just had the resources to carry through thanks to early successes.

This is especially true in the ed-tech startup world. Many entrepreneurs are creating applications for teachers without ever speaking to a teacher or school administrator. They have experience with receiving education and self-education, but they don't know how teachers use technology.

Teachers and administrators have to manage multiple learning styles in a classroom of ~20 kids, and what works for the kid who will grow up to be an entrepreneur doesn't always work for the kid who will grow up to be a historian or accountant. As such, the initial abstraction of projecting our own educational experiences onto entire classrooms generally ends up flopping.

Very true.

I don't think you need to be an expert glassmaker before you go and find out if there's a market for "glass services"(if that's what you are interested in). It's enough to go out and talk to glass owners and find out if they have a need for an expert to maintain or restore their glass and if they do, what they will pay. If they do, find an expert glass maker and hire him or her. Also your interviews might help with what kind of "expert glassmaker" you need.

I disagree. There is not a one-size-fits all way to start a business. Some businesses need big customers such as the cathedral example. But other businesses -- the ones Paul Graham likes to write about -- productize their service, and the product is an investment. If no one wants the product, the investment was lost, but if you did it right, the cost was minimal. And usually you can re-use what you built and pivot into something else.

The great thing about this industry is that so much is virtual. You can now work from anywhere, at different times, and still get things done, if your tools are good: Skype, Google Docs, Mercurial, Redmine, what have you.

Things can get prototyped quickly on a small budget. You can launch your MVP and iterate until you achieve decent growth through viral channels. You can get advertising to offset your hosting costs, or do something more interesting like freemium. You may license your tech or sell it to bigger players. This is the essence of the free model.

Nothing wrong with this. It's just a bigger risk and bigger reward.

Not to mention that you can now sell on app stores, and make $$$ for your company.

The author isn't saying that you need a big customer, just that you need a customer. Once you identify a possible customer, the boot strap approach should be used to get your product up and running. Just make sure that the customer for your product is more than just you.

The internet also provides a false sense of security, due to the large level of feedback. You may incorrectly associate users with customers, developing a product that meets their demands, but does not meet the demands of the people who actually purchase.

Well, I don't mean to oversubscribe to the whole 'revenue is a feature' spiel by Twitter executives a few years ago, but honestly, if you are OK with taking VC funding, then getting a lot of users who love your product and engage with it on a regular basis is the most important thing. Because if you have millions of dollars to spend and millions of users using your site, you are probably not going to run out of money, and you can try things until you become profitable. At any point, you personally will have shares worth a lot.

David Heisenmeier Hanson (did I spell that right) proposed the opposite -- build your business with a revenue model right from the start, like a brick-and-mortar shop, and there's a lot to that as well. But there is not just One True Way. You can select from winning business strategies from both the free and paid camps.

Actually my personal advice would be to make a simple venture that doesn't fail as your first business, and give away as much equity as you need to investors to make sure your company has the best chance of succeeding. Even if you wind up walking away with 10% of the company in 2 years, plus a few million in cash, you'll have connections, a track record, a reputation, and MONEY. And you will be able to own 100% of your next projects if you so want to. Remember, this isn't your last idea.

Having said that, even though this is my advice, I have not followed it myself. I seem to be executing this big vision for the last couple years, and it's all coming together. I seem to be more along the lines of Steve Jobs in that I am trying to create something of lasting value for the entire world... and the little things just get in the way.

Have any good ideas you don't have the time/energy/desire to capitalize on? :-)

Yes, there are tons! :)

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