PG’s ‘Startup Ideas’ Post: One Missing Heuristic

Paul Graham has brought this up before, in How to be an Angel Investor[1]:

"There is an ongoing debate between investors which is more important, the people, or the idea—or more precisely, the market. [...] The three most prominent people I know who favor markets are Marc [Andreessen], Jawed Karim, and Joe Kraus. And all three of them, in their own startups, basically flew into a thermal: they hit a market growing so fast that it was all they could do to keep up with it."

Paul Graham goes on to say:

"Thermals happen, yes, but no one can predict them."

[1] - http://www.paulgraham.com/angelinvesting.html

I don't think he missed it. From his essay:

"Similarly, since the most successful startups generally ride some wave bigger than themselves, it could be a good trick to look for waves and ask how one could benefit from them. The prices of gene sequencing and 3D printing are both experiencing Moore's Law-like declines. What new things will we be able to do in the new world we'll have in a few years? What are we unconsciously ruling out as impossible that will soon be possible?"

It seems to me that that key piece of advice in pg's essay:

    "Live in the future, then build what's missing."

is just a more subtle way of expressing the "missing" heuristic described in this article:

    "Focus on enabling technologies and environmental factors."

and seems to me to be a bit of a distinction without a difference.

However, it is helpful to hear it expressed a different way, and reminds me of something I heard Gary Hoover (of Hoover online fame) say at a conference, which was that in the same way Tsunamis are the result of plate tectonic activity that happens months, weeks, or days in advance, there are things shifting within your industry that could result in "tsunamis" of change. What are they?

It seems like very obvious advice, but it is interesting to sit down and make a concentrated effort to think of what the shifts may be occurring in your industry. Sometimes they are easy to miss in that they are so obvious. (As in "fish were the last ones to discover water...").

Another way to think of it came to me from one of Tim O'Reilly's essays where he describes some key marketing advice he was given, which was to "find a parade and get out in front of it." (He attributes the success of O'Reilly media to getting behind the web and open source in its early days - http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121002122119-16...) From that perspective, I like to think of what "parades" are happening in my industry, (energy), such as conservationism and environmental responsibility. What happens if/when 75% of the cars on the road are electric vehicles, (and are driverless)? Maybe my car is charged via solar panels or a whisper gen, and drives itself to the store where someone loads it with the groceries I ordered online? What products/services will be needed to support that? What do things look like when homes are net-zero energy, as they are meant to be in California in 2020?

It can be an interesting exercise.

Edit: Typos

Also (not sure if covered) but related:

Look at stuff that has been tried and failed in the past, ask why it failed and see if anything has changed in the interim that might effect that.

Example is dropbox, they weren't the first with the idea of "have a space on your computer that is synced with the internet" but AFAIK they were the first to try it at a time when bandwidth for shifting files around was trivial.

I think he missed the point. It doesn't matter what new cool thing is possible if no one will pay money for it to happen.