The Young Man's Business Model

The motorcycle screw reminds me of a similar problem solving lesson I have learned from experience, which may resonate more with those less mechanically inclined.

When moving a large object (especially a couch), remove everything you can (that is intented to be removable) from the object (legs, pillows) and the path (doors come off hinges easily). The set up and tear down (in testing terms; in practical terms, it is reverse order) steps seem like potential wasted effort, but taken as a mandatory step are constant time. Iterating through the things that need to be removed to achieve the goal is linear, with potentially exponential cost (you get tired). Like what everyone is saying about burn rates in a recession: in hindsight, few regret trimming too early and plenty regret trimming too late. Few complain about a move made too easy.

In theory, this is a straightforward argument that any sufficiently intelligent person could read and practice. In practice, it is not until at least your third move that you pause during the move to question why the plan is "let's just try it first" and "it is not too heavy". But you never see a professional piano mover iterate. This is not a comment trying to propose a solution. I just liked the article for its clean way of expressing how experience matters in your approach.

I like the idea that your business should be about helping other people make money. At least two ideas I submitted in my application to ycombinator actually build on that scheme.

I don't think this trend of criticizing the ad-supported business model is fair. Whether you like it or not, having eyeballs is "valuable" and brands will always pay to be seen. It doesn't matter how old you are or how much "value" your app is bringing to the table, if the economy is up and you have eyeballs, you can sell ads and make money. If the economy is down, ad spending is cut and the ad-supported model struggles. The ad-supported model isn't dead merely because the economy is down lately. It will be back.

More comments from the last time this was submitted to YCN: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=163083

I used to fix my dirt bike when I was younger and know exactly the type of screw he was talking about. The way the old-man went about solving the problem made me instantly think of a phrase we tend to forget in the start-up world: "Thinking in multiple perspectives".

We need to take a moment from our 25/8 schedules and think about what we're working on/trying change from another viewpoint.

That's especially critical in times of market downturn. If your product isn't making (or saving) a company a sizable amount of $, it's going to be hard for them to justify a purchase.

3 lame stories and 1269 words to get to the rather obvious and well beaten to death Internet cliche of ...

1. Have Idea, launch Site 2. Get Lots of Traffic. 3. ?? 4. Profit.

I got it Paul, save your wrists.