TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving?
zachboerger.com
zachboerger.com
>> You need to be a painkiller, not a vitamin.
If you read that article, he actually says "very few are (painkillers)" ... being a vitamin isn't bad, it's just easier to market a painkiller ...
>> I feel like an asshole for saying all this, because I never want to talk badly about fellow entrepreneurs.
The fact that you have to add this to your post is a good clue that it may have been unwarranted or poorly worded.
Look, my startups don't cure cancer but I like to think they solve problems for people. If people ask me for honest advice about their startup or pitch, I will definitely give it. But I don't go to conferences and then publicly rip the participants (or most of them).
Edit: I want to add that everyone loves to repeat all the smart things they read on other blogs on their own blogs in some vain attempt to seem wise but how many people actually get it or even follow their own advice? Saying something isn't the same as doing it.
I see a clear business model. If you have thousands of people that want to know about upcoming movies and games you have a valuable asset for film and game studios.
Q) Who owns Reddit? Q) Who owns the Gawker<->Jezebel<->"to infinity and beyond" series of sites
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And so on. Then add the 6 major players, and the actual Corporations who have entire multi-million dollar departments of people doing this stuff, and handing it off to other major companies. You know, those old school "Mad Men" type establishments. Then the other tiers of viral media, advertising and so on. Then the "cool" players who get free stuff before the market to generate desire.
The OP needs some serious perspective. In the eyes of everyone looking at your site, you're not an entrepreneur, you've just told everyone you know 0% about how the market works.
>Painful. This shit flies with HN? Interesting.
There are tons of examples of companies that started as toys, and ultimately became businesses. In hindsight you can always come up a description of the problem they were solving at the time, even if nobody knew the problem existed. You could do this for Twitter today: they solved the problem of (exercise to the reader).
That's how you create enough demand to properly charge for your product versus offering it for free and it being considered just a really cool idea.
That being said, there's quite a few "startups" launching every week that are really just neat projects or ideas, but aren't proper startups/products/businesses. That doesn't make them bad, just not in the same category as something that charges money. They're essentially trying to solve a problem they created themselves...said another way, they're a solution in search of a problem.
But we're wrong. We're just saying this because in our eyes, these "problems" aren't worth solving. We're not interested in them.
matchist (matchist.com), my current venture, wants to help freelance developers cut out all the bad things about freelancing. We want to save you time, money, and headaches.
I love this problem. It NEEDS to be solved.
But you might think it's the stupidest problem around.
Listen, solving a problem is what we need more of in this world. It's hard, its rewarding, and the idea of it is sexy though the problem itself may not be. That said, solving some problem is not the only way to succeed or be relevant. Some things can be cool and sexy and total non-needs and still be a huge hit. Some things that are just fun and entertainment are not just successful but important in our lives! Yes, important! Like Zynga. I fucking hate them but they make freaking games and they're doing damn well (their downward spiral is irrelevant and unrelated to my point). How about the cheeseburger network (you know, Lolcats, I can has cheeseburger and all that?). Useless, entertaining, non-problem-solving ideas that are big hits.
I honestly say fuck solving problems. You know whats really important when it comes to starting a startup no matter if it solves a problem or not? It's this question:
Can I get people to give me money for this?
If the answer is yes then it's a good idea. Solving problems is awesome and if you think of something that solves a problem that you'll get money from that's even more awesome. But all this talk of solving problems seems more about people trying to make themselves feel superior or trick themselves into thinking they're changing the world rather than anything having to do with business.
Gaming is a huge industry. Tell me what problems this whole industry solves, vitamin or painkiller? I would argue that it is a huge waste for the society. Same goes with alcohol. Do they acutally "create" more problems?
The truth is that people want to spend money to buy vitamins and many useless things. If you provide them and people buy, you have a business.
The notion of a startup having to solve a problem and the argument of vitamin or painkiller are stupid and amateur.
For OP, indeed, you are trying to solve a problem. But you create a new problem for me - I have to remember to go to your site to learn whatever I want to know, on top of many things I do everyday - cnn, wsj, techcrunch, gmail, YC news, facebook, twitter. I already get more information than what I can digest. I cannot remember to go to your site and will not have incentive to do it. Until you provide something unique that I need, I won't visit your site again. (I visited yesterday.)