Want a succesful startup? Just stay away from these... | Hacker News Reader

Want a succesful startup? Just stay away from these...

paulgraham.com

17 pointsSam_Odio14 comments

How much damage does a 17, a "derivative idea" make? There are some me-too Web 2.0 websites which do not really have new ideas but execute pretty well, and attract quite a number of users. An example is flixster.com. I wonder what's the composition of execution and idea that lead to success.

The content of #17 doesn't really match the title in my opinion. I read the content more like "Solve a Problem You Have or Have Observed Yourself".

So many people want to start a company, any company, that they end up cloning someone else's solution with the idea that because they're so smart they can do it better. Sometimes this works, but it's a huge gamble because your product starts out 95% similar to someone else's and they're already way ahead of you.

Flixster is attacking an old tired monopoly (IMDB) that stopped innovating 10 years ago. Killing dinosaurs seems a pretty successful strategy -- worked for Google. Just don't try killing Flickr by cloning it and adding some oddball feature only techies care about.

A good product != a good company.

All the rest are about good companies, whereas 17 is about good products. That's why it doesn't fit the pattern.

We could make a whole separate list of schemas for creating good products too. But, as the grandparent observed, what's important isn't just knowing what the schema is but also knowing when it does and does not apply.

Pure luck, users happen to like the site, and go to it. Now it has a big user base. Sometimes we have to do thing like that. Just do it. If you have the passion for it, just do it. When facebook came, I thought they copied all the previous social networking site, but they manage to be on top now. Sometimes, JUST DO IT.

Yeah, and stay away from this site, and reddit, and for the love of god, stay away from justin.tv.

I see the biggest risks for our little startup are "Marginal Niche" and "Too Little Funding". I don't know that I'm really convinced that we suffer from the first--in fact, I consider being vertical as a virtue and don't believe we've crossed the line (although we could), and re: not enough money--well, we're working on it. :-)

I'm not convinced that living in the Bay Area (or a similar hotbed) is essential. However, I do agree with what I believe is the underlying premise--that living in an area of concentrated geekdom will expose you to other geeks in a good way. But that can occur in college, or at a great company, and many of those exist outside of the Bay Area, albeit with much less frequency . . . but to say that you couldn't find a great hacker in Chicago or New York or Houston if you hung out at the right schools and businesses is a little strong. Then again, if it's a numbers game, then by all means go to San Fran. But in some sense it reminds me of how many people hang out in Palm Beach hoping to fall in love with someone that just happens to be a millionaire. My suspicion is that geek cliques do form, and they often form in college. That to me is the bigger point than saying 'if you want to start a startup, you should put a flower in your hair and . . .'.

All the hackers I went to college with moved to san francisco. ..

Exactly my point. The hacker clique was born in college, and it will take something to break into it once it has been established and relocates to SF.

My point is this--I suspect that relocating yourself to San Francisco with an idea but without hacker friends that already live there (or ones that plan to) isn't going to get you very far. It would seem that everyone in the valley is very focused on their idea and bringing it to fruition and doesn't have any intention of letting you in on their venture just because you happen to also now live in the Bay Area.

Maybe I'm wrong, though; maybe there is a place where post-college hackers in the bay (PCHITB) freely mingle such that newcomers sans partners/friends can enter into their startup, which is otherwise a closed (intentionally so) society; maybe this is a part of the essence of things like Y-Combinator dinners, super happy dev house, etc. Just thinking outloud at this point. :-)

There are lots of super intelligent, but dissatisfied, hackers that work at 500+ employee companies in the bay. However, they have a different problem. Somehow you have to convince them to ditch the gold-plated handcuffs and take a big risk to do something with you. This is hard, but maybe not as hard as breaking into a 2 person venture....

True. But we're not encouraging anyone to go work at those companies just to meet dissatisfied hackers, are we? :-) Incidentally, that's how I met my co-founder--although that's not why I joined the company in the first place (that was because I was needed a job). :-)

Okie, I think the biggest issues are:

1) Aiming money only, in other words, money as a cause not a consequence

2) Not that will lead to a failure, but will make your life harder. Startups that deal with technology for technology, in other words, are trying to solve problems of the technology itself. You should create something that will bring a better life for the slashdot nerd reader and to the 3rd world 60th years old retired "guy"

Do something that will make people happy, to feel better to waste less time and you'll be starting something with more survival probability.

I don't agree with the derivative idea concept. Google is the worse example you could have used. Before google we had yahoo and a bunch of spider/bot search engines. Their idea wasn't original, they just did something better aiming to solve search problem helping people not to waste their time.

More than just to create a search engine they created a way to make your life easier.

regards

I think you're onto something here. What I truly believe is to make something customers want. A sin that I fall in at times is making something customers don't want and by and large letting supply get ahead of demand. Another thing I believe is that if your product is going to do something then it might as well make life easier for the regular Joe instead of the computer nerd. Why? well in my opinion the regular Joe is more likely to belong to a larger market segment.

The _real_ rules are:

1) Don't fail

2) Win

3) Don't not win

Also, see: http://thetravisty.com/Saturday_Night_Live/mov/Sexual_Harassment_and_You.htm

So far I've made mistakes 3 (marginal niche), 8 (slowness in launching), 10 (having no specific user in mind) and 17 (fights between founders). They were painful but instructive.

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