Ask YC: Paul Graham's 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups: Which are no longer an issue when developing Facebook apps? | Hacker News Reader

Ask YC: Paul Graham's 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups: Which are no longer an issue when developing Facebook apps?

7 pointsamichail29 comments

Which of these mistakes (if any) are no longer an issue when developing Facebook apps?

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

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Personally, I don't think "Single Founder" is an issue for facebook apps -- pg's argument of "It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him" is only valid if you're trying to talk your friends into joining you. (In my case, even though I'm not doing a facebook app, I've turned down offers with a "uhh, thanks... but I really don't need any help right now".) Different startups require different amounts of manpower, just like different startups require different amounts of capital -- I think most facebook applications easily fall into the "one person is enough" category.

As for the rest... I'd say they're all relevant to varying degrees. Probably "Bad Location" is less relevant, since it's partly about finding angels and VC (which are less important since facebook apps generally need less capital); while "Hiring Bad Programmers" is probably more relevant (if you're hiring anyone at all, at least), since most greybeards are old enough to have not drunk the facebook kool-aid.

I never drank the Single Founder kool-aid either.

Completely off-topic, cperciva, but regarding your startup, why are you giving away your strongest asset (secure backup implementation and code) in order to make money on an increasingly commoditized product (the storage itself)? I would think it would be in your interest to do the opposite. Am I missing something?

I'm not giving away the tarsnap code. I'll make the source code available for people to inspect (and compile for themselves) so that they don't have to blindly trust the binaries I provide; but it will be under a "you can use this only as part of the tarsnap backup service" license.

I see. At any rate, you may want to consider divorcing your product from any particular storage scheme. Corporate customers, who usually honor licenses, have tons of unused storage (on every desktop). You might want to consider a distributed scheme where, from a common management tool, an operator could have a virtual encrypted backup across an enterprise.

In any event, good luck and godspeed.

you may want to consider divorcing your product from any particular storage scheme

I've considered that, and might do that at some point in the future. That said, I'm aiming more at the home user / small business market -- large corporations have other options (e.g., backup appliances from EMC and suchlike).

I figure that I'll build the version of tarsnap that I want to use, and if/when that becomes popular I'll decide where to go next based on demand.

If you wanted to go really nuts you could distribute a "one click" version of HDFS that people could run at home, letting their existing network take care of redundancy.

He has a point.

Developing a Facebook app is mistake 19.

Actually I'm pretty sure that developing facebook apps falls under mistake 7 - Choosing the wrong platform.

EDIT: Whoever downmodded this comment, can you please explain to me why facebook is a good platform choice? What advantages does it have over developing a plain old website in your platform of choice? Not trying to start a flame war just trying to understand what I am missing here.

Facebook has a large captive audience and an inherent viral spread mechanism to take advantage of that. Stupid apps that turn people into zombies get trillions of users and couldn't via email. Gift apps, super pokes, etc, can do the same.

More impressive still are apps like Texas Hold'em, which is essentially a mediocre card room for play money. It would never get 10k users as a standalone, but has 300k on Facebook.

I got the fact that it helps you get liquidity quickly but what do you do with that liquidity? Ad-revenue sharing is not really a very stable business plan.

What can you do if facebook decides to shutdown 3rd party advertising or bans your app, or develops a clone and pushes it aggressively.

I saw some of the stats on socialmedia and I wonder how much revenue of the top earning apps is spent back into the ads on facebook apps to keep the machine working and what is their ROI.

I still think a facebook app can be a great idea but not as a sole product. Instead it should be the booster rocket behind your own website, helping you launch it and spread it.

Intellectually I'd be inclined to agree with you, but it seems most of the top apps either have little or no website to which they drive traffic. They generate revenue directly.

The business model is simple and effective. Make people do stuff to get something virtual. Refer friends on a poker app, get 1,000 chips. Fill out a survey (which generates income) get 3,000. Sign up for a credit card, get 5,000. It's like those free ipod sites on steroids.

Say that to the people making $500/day++ with their app.

Sometimes you can make a lot of money even if you make a mistake. Sometimes even if you make quite a few mistakes. There are quite a few startups that had the wrong platform and survived, quite a few that had only one founder and survived and so on.

The fact that something is a mistake doesn't mean its a fatal one. And that fact alone doesn't mean it is not a mistake.

The question you should ask yourself is whether your startup be better off if you hadn't made that choice.

Alright, so 180k a year. Definitely a pretty good paying job. But, honestly, how many people do you think that is at this point, considering that most of the installs are controlled by the top 10 or so developers.

What's the revenue model on a Facebook app? You're getting a tiny piece of advertising pie? Sorry, but building a company based off of what amounts to a plugin for someone else's software just doesn't seem like a good idea to me...

... that said, I guess it was done with PhotoShop a bunch of times. But people had to pay up front for that software.

Or are we returning to the dot com days where revenue doesn't matter -- it's all about pageviews?

That was the point I was trying to make. Perhaps you get easier access to liquidity and can gather users a tad faster but in the end you have very little control. You don't own the liquidity you are borrowing it, you don't even have a TOS contract (at least that one that I could find) with facebook, they can shut you down without any warning.

Even if you can make a very profitable app, imagine trying to IPO a facebook app... How do you think investors would evaluate the risk.

I can understand developing a facebook app as a part of a more comprehensive strategy as a complimentary tool to your website. That might be a very powerful tactic but as a standalone product, I just don't get it.

Again if anyone understands this differently I'd love to finally see what I am missing here...

Agreed. I was reading the latest Entrepreneur magazine where they had an interview with Guy Kawasaki about truemors.com. He mentioned something to the effect of the majority of their traffic came via. the facebook app -- but the traffic wouldn't matter if there's no way to convert that to dollars.

No doubt on the IPO/TOS front. Imagine if someone develops some facebook app that leads to massive litigation. I'm sure facebook would share in the liability as they are the delivery mechanism. All of a sudden, facebook decides to limit access to only a chosen few developers.

Or better yet, facebook has a soft quarter and decides that developers now need to license the platform for some exorbitant rate.

I don't live in a place where VC funding is likely and I don't have a partner. I'm also not good at web design nor do I have good contacts among top web 2.0 bloggers.

And from my startup prototypes so far, I have learned that most users have very little patience, understand little, and generally don't contribute much.

For these reasons, toy Facebook apps seem to be my best bet. I also like the idea of playing with people's minds, easily tweaking things here and there to see what sort of psychological/sociological impact they will have, etc.

1) If VC funding isn't likely how about angel funding, they are significantly less geographically centered and can be found almost everywhere.

2) Web design can be outsourced very easily and relatively cheaply offshore - ping me if you need some contacts or places to look.

3) Look for partners in your wider circle of friends you might be surprised by what you find. Failing that, go to your local college and try to recruit one.

4) Prototypes are actually great tools to test ideas and to improve your technical skills and biz intuition but in the end you need to promote something to a real product status and then facebook is less relevant as far as I can understand the platform.

Good luck

Okay, so you're talking about developing a hobby, not a business. Unless you've come up with a new way to convert "psychological/sociological impact" into dollars.

I think some Facebook apps make quite a lot of money in advertising -- at least enough income for the few developers involved.

I think that's the majority of the reason. If you're getting a couple million views a day on some silly facebook app, that can be a big deal for a smaller company.

I read iLike added 3 million users in two weeks with their Facebook app (http://mashable.com/2007/06/11/ilike-facebook-app-success/). That's pretty significant.

I don't see any mistake that is obviously eliminated for Facebook apps, and problem #7 (choosing the wrong platform) is a significant risk.

However, it's not clear that single Facebook apps qualify as startups in Paul's sense. At least today, FB apps are more like content that plug into an existing distribution network, like movies + distributors or blogs + AdSense.

If you wanted to found a business that made FB apps, many per year, that's a different story. Then you'd be more like a game studio.

I think it really depends. Most of the applications that currently exist on Facebook are defined by Facebook itself. That is to say, the applications add to the features of Facebook, rather than Facebook adding to the application. I think that soon, we will start seeing sites rely on Facebook's API to drive the social infrastructure of their site. In this way, the site would be self-sufficient, but could take advantage of Facebook's platform to add value to their own offering.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that the applications that receive grants from the fbFund will be of this ilk rather than a SuperMegaUltraPoke or Vampires and Pirate Ninjas application. At least, I hope so. If not, Facebook apps will never mature, and will be the flash in the pan that many think they will.

single founder comment is complete rubbish. If someone has the drive and ability then why shouldn't do it. Saying that just because they couldn't talk any of their friends into joining them is so small minded. I have lots of friends but none of them are techie and or interested in startups so does that mean I shouldn't have started my business because none of them are into it? I know Paul has a cult following around here but he really does seem to think everyone doing tech startups are collage grads.

I have lots of friends but none of them are techie

I have friends who are techies. I've sent out feelers just to get an idea of what their business drive/competence might be. Answer: Not good. Obviously, I don't live near Stanford, but most people don't either...and it would be insane to pair up with people for the sake of pairing.

I agree some projects are great fits for single founders but you should be able to convince at least one rational person this is a good idea and is worth investing the time, energy, money into.

It doesn't matter if that person is your spouse, a co-founder, an angel - but make sure at least one person whose opinion you respect and has something to lose if you fail/waste your time thinks this is a good idea.

totally, people can give you feedback on ideas. If its too big for you at that time store it until you have made some contacts that can help you do it or have the money to hire the skills needed. I work this way.

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