Simone Giertz talks about invention | Hacker News Reader

Simone Giertz talks about invention

spectrum.ieee.org

137 pointspseudolus45 comments

It seems quite normal for very popular Youtubers to branch out and not be dependant on one source of income, while simultaneously leveraging their marketing reach.

The daily goal tracker she developed is really neat, and I would love to own. The profit margin on it must be insane though at the price.

https://yetch-shop.fourthwall.com/en-nzd/products/every-day-...

I dunno about that profit margin. Don't underestimate how expensive developing products is as low scale. It would not surprise me if the margin is pretty normal.

Simone actually has a pretty good video that covers her costs to run the product business. TL;DW, not very much profit, especially at the beginning/low volumes.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=iEAShZ8TJCs

It actually sounded like she was running it at a loss. Or rather that if there was any profit, it was because she was taking pretty much no salary out of the company.

I really hope it succeeds but I think this is one case where someone with good marketing and sales skills could help her out a lot while she's able to focus on product.

I have a software version of this that was built for my own purposes. I plan on opening it up but let me tell you habit tracking works awesome.

Since a daily activity once checked presumably never become unchecked, this could be just a big sheet of hexagons you can color in when the activity is done. Yes, you need to print out a new one once a year, but that's pretty trivial cost and time wise compared to the calendar gadget. Granted, the calendar is a cool gadget.

Tried that and didn’t work for me. I do hope it works for others.

Sometimes we do need custom tools even for the most basic needs. Mine is built to track not only that I did it but it allows me to comment on it. I can then go back and read through different entries. It’s super useful.

One of the use cases is tracking medications. I then share the notes with my GP (they appreciate things being timestamped).

Btw, love your website!

I use it for multiple things like writing. I will just create an entry to track it and then just write away. I also track when I work on my projects. One button click and it records the time when I start working on my car for example. Then I can track how much I spend on it and calculate how much a given repair or modification might take to complete.

Yes, I love tracking things …

Oh wow! Did not expect you here, but it makes sense. You were the reason I started building my own ukuleles at the age of 14 or so. They became quite amazing after the third one ;-) Thanks a ton for your work and have an amazing day, Matthias!

I use a pocket sized notepad with graph paper that I use to track "streaks." Each row represents a day, and each column represents the activity that I want to track.

The day to day benefits are nice. It's easy to use, doesn't need batteries, and is always with me. What I didn't anticipate when I started doing it was how cool it is to look back on what I've tracked - it's like a weird little art piece I get to have as a reminder of the hard work.

Actually, she spoke about that recently in a video, she's still at a loss on that product, mentioned here https://youtu.be/iEAShZ8TJCs?t=269

It's just good business. It's never a great idea to have only one source of income (especially one as inherently risky as YouTube). That's a serious vulnerability.

Ideally, you not only have multiple sources but you choose the sources so that they have different economic dependencies. That way, conditions that adversely impact one of them don't adversely impact the others -- or, even better, so that conditions that adversely impacts one positively impacts another.

I wish Tesla produced her "truckla" instead of the cyber truck.

At least from an aesthetic point of view, I agree. Truckla was actually a good-looking result.

They didn't want the phrase "shitty robots" in their headline I guess? Too bad xD

Am I missing anything or was that an _extremely_ short interview. 3 questions? I kept looking for a "read more" link or something.

> What advice do you have for aspiring inventors?

> Giertz: Make things that you want.

Few things make me so cynical as a successful entertainer doling out "do what you love" advice. It's what the audience wants to hear, but your life isn't going to work out like that of your celebrity friend.

Isn't this roughly the same advice as Paul Graham? https://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html

I think there’s an appreciable gap between how applicable to the masses “if you have a niche but expensive problem, fix it, others may be excited to solve it with money” and “just sell $500 arduino advent calendars. when you’re famous you can raise half a million dollars on a 6 month waitlist for $200 wire coat hangers” is

I don't know about the advent calendar, but the coathangers are definitely solving a niche problem, seems reasonably applicable.

But annoyingly sometimes this is great advice. It's not that dissimilar to YC's make something people want, but it relies on you having taste/needs/wants that are an addressable market. Which is sometimes true.

Weird, it doesn't look like "do what you love" to me. It looks like "make things that you want." My read of it is such that the "make things other people want" part is implied.

The bar is much higher when you're making something you wouldn't personally use. It's certainly possible, and occasionally profitable, to do just that, but boy are things easier if you're solving a problem you happen to also have.

I agree that interpretation is weird.

It much closer to Hewlett's view (of Hewlett-Packard fame) that "if the engineer at the next bench liked it and thought it would make his job easier, then it was worth doing." (quoting https://hpmuseum.org/hp35.htm )

What is the alternative?

Acknowledge the difficulty and sacrifice needed to follow the path of self-oriented creativity, and that most people do not have the resources to pursue it.

However, that advice doesn't please the audience, so few entertainers will give it.

That was a totally different statement, unrelated to the question as far as I can tell.

I don't see how "build something you want" is different from basically how 99% of businesses start.

I mean, a successful business would produce items that other people want, rather than what the founder/employees want. Sure, if a founder would appreciate and use the item that they make, that's really a good indicator, but it's not your personal plaything, it's a profit-making business, so the primary objective should be making useful things that people will purchase, regardless of the tastes of the founders/employees, yes?

That being said, I've enjoyed Simone's wit and creativity for several years. I tuned in after one of my friends mentioned her, and she's been tenacious throughout her personal health journey and the vagaries of making ridiculous stuff on-camera. I feel like it's great that she's branching out to making stuff for other people to have.

Well sure, but you START at an idea about something you yourself want in the world.

I don't think it's meant as "do what you love". More like, the best way to come up with successful inventions is to invent things that you yourself need.

The rest of that quote very clearly demonstrates this isn’t “do what you love and money and fame will be yours” advice:

> A lot of people make things that they think that other people want, but the main target audience, at least for myself, is me. I trust that if I find something interesting, there are probably other people who do too.