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Why Toys?

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: Why Toys?

#101

Post by HumanDrivenDev »

nikanj wrote: post #61
loorinm wrote: post #39

Cute title but this is actually just an extension of “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer”. Facebook had TIME to be a toy because Mark Zuckerberg had a rich family, and plenty of skills to get a job if it didn’t work out. “Making a toy” is only possible with the resources of money and time. People who need to make money need to focus earlier on making money, which stunts growth in the long run. This is true…

Remember being kids and going to the amusement park with your friends? They had those booths where you could win a cool price, if you successfully hit the bullseye. The middle-class kids had the pocket money to try a few times, usually in the games which seemed the best match for their skills. The rich kids went around and picked the booth with the coolest prices, then simply tried again until they won the price they…

> Things haven't changed much as we've grown up. If you come from a wealthy background, you can keep on trying seed ideas until you find traction. With a more middle-class background, you can put in a small number of attempts, spread between long stretches of saving more money. If you're poor, you'll never have the ability to even try.

This is pretty much correct (though I don't think lower than middle class = poor, but I digress). Some people have better opportunities growing up. Some people can stay in mummy and daddys comfortable house for free while they try and make it big with a startup.

Are you implying that the rest of us shouldn't even bother trying? I really don't want to use "not growing up as rich as mark zuckerburg" as an excuse.

Re: Why Toys?

#102

Post by aithoughts-io »

While interesting, I felt the essay didn't make a distinction on end users who eventually decides if the toy product would succeed or not. In an enterprise world, the end users are not looking for fun and often they want solutions to boring problems solved in a boring way (any fun way to solve might come across as being not serious). I can see in a consumer play where the end users are looking for fun, such toy projects could become a viable business when you acquire lot of customers (Facebook for example).

Even so, toy projects are a great negative test (does anyone care?). Even when built for fun, if there are no takers, it's time to quit.

Re: Why Toys?

#103

Post by nathan_long »

loorinm wrote: post #39

Cute title but this is actually just an extension of “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer”. Facebook had TIME to be a toy because Mark Zuckerberg had a rich family, and plenty of skills to get a job if it didn’t work out. “Making a toy” is only possible with the resources of money and time. People who need to make money need to focus earlier on making money, which stunts growth in the long run. This is true…

> It often feels like 99% of “startup wisdom” comes down to “have a rich family that supported you emotionally and then paid for your college, and then let you start a company at their house for free”

Or perhaps more to the point, "the best ideas to try are the ones you need investment to try, and oh hey that's what we do here. Don't go building a business that's profitable from the start, where YC can't own part of it. All that internal pressure to make money early on isn't good for you; what you want is external pressure to make LOTS of money later on, assuming your social network for pigs didn't fail."

Re: Why Toys?

#104

Post by TeMPOraL »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #99
TeMPOraL wrote: post #77

Interesting; I'm surprised to see this comparison made, even though in retrospect (thanks to 'ujeezy for pointing it out), I recognize the PG quote about things "described as a toy". The funny thing is; they've drawn a mostly different comparison using the same dichotomy ("toy" vs "serious") that I use for occasional rants on this site. I say mostly different, because here's the intersection: If you give people a too…

This brings me back to a recent conversation on advertising not being informational. If the makers of $tool also said what their greatest deficiencies were then buyers would be much more able to decide. Instead they're motivated to hide their flaws and make the sale, hoping -- if it's profitable to do so -- to fix those errors/flaws/shortcomings later. In a slightly related note it grieved me to see the presenters/pr…

RE SpaceX, I agree. You could clearly see that the presenters got the info that the center core landing failed, and they were just about to tell so. I understand the rationale behind that decision - the 'media gloss' is still important to the success of their core goal - but it left a pretty bad taste in my mouth.

Re: Why Toys?

#105

Post by Dangeranger »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #77

Interesting; I'm surprised to see this comparison made, even though in retrospect (thanks to 'ujeezy for pointing it out), I recognize the PG quote about things "described as a toy". The funny thing is; they've drawn a mostly different comparison using the same dichotomy ("toy" vs "serious") that I use for occasional rants on this site. I say mostly different, because here's the intersection: If you give people a too…

For me one example of a toy that became a tool after a few design/development iterations is Postman. It started out as a basic browser extension that let a person make HTTP requests to an API endpoint and displayed the JSON/XML output for you in a pretty formatted result section.

Then after a few iterations it has become a very useful and capable tool for API exploration, testing, and design.

They key for me is to have a tool which hides its advanced features behind a sliding door, where you can reach for the complex feature when needed, but not be bothered by it when you don’t.

Re: Why Toys?

#106

Post by jharger »

fiatjaf wrote: post #62
jpwagner wrote: post #20

The best dichotomy I've heard for this is: Are you building [Ice Skates] or are you building [Ear muffs]? Ice skates allow you to do something new that you didn't even know you had a demand for. Ear muffs solve a problem that you were already solving poorly (with your hands). [Business vs toy] is an insanely counterproductive mental framework which will create a false sense of security in founders who are actually bu…

Good point. I believe you can only do that distinction (business vs toy) after the fact. So it offers no guidance at all. Was Dropbox a toy in the beggining? You can argue. Was Google a toy in the beggining? You can argue. Was Uber a toy in the beggining? You can argue. Was Airbnb a toy in the beggining? You can argue. Unless, of course, you're talking about the famous SOCIAL NETWORKS. In which case they were -- and…

> Unless, of course, you're talking about the famous SOCIAL NETWORKS. In which case they were -- and continue to be -- toys.

That's only from the perspective of the user. From the perspective of businesses using the data for marketing, the actual customers, social networks are definitely not toys.

Re: Why Toys?

#107

Post by TeMPOraL »

ryandrake wrote: post #95
diminish wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

while working on our startup [1] this is one of the top pg quotes I like. However while talking to our customers we regularly face the "toy" critic as opposed to "feature rich". however approaching it as a toy keeps it simple , though for saas it appears as too simplistic sometimes. [1] we offer games and puzzles as a service to serious marketing clients.

I think it’s about time we turn “feature rich” around and start considering it a criticism rather than a compliment. So many products I’ve loved as a consumer and worked on as a developer were eventually ruined by relentless feature cram and their never being declared “done”.

Interesting. I wanted to suggest an exact opposite.

I'd love to have seen those products of yours. In the alternate universe I live in, almost all the SaaS products I see are toys, never progressing beyond MVP phase.

Re: Why Toys?

#108

Post by cocktailpeanuts »

loorinm wrote: post #39

Cute title but this is actually just an extension of “the rich get richer while the poor get poorer”. Facebook had TIME to be a toy because Mark Zuckerberg had a rich family, and plenty of skills to get a job if it didn’t work out. “Making a toy” is only possible with the resources of money and time. People who need to make money need to focus earlier on making money, which stunts growth in the long run. This is true…

HN should ban the adjective "cute" from all posts. Does using this adjective make you feel superior?

Also, it's kinda amazing how this issue gets brought up so many times on HN and is proven to be false (there are tons of examples where extremely successful entrepreneurs came from poor upbringing, and in many cases the bad condition was what motivated them to push further) and yet you keep seeing the same argument over and over. For gods sake there are even people who used to serve in prison make a great business that you will never be able to create in your whole life if you keep thinking that way.

Sure, it would be great if the world was more fair. But it's not.

You can either bitch about it on HN like this like a sour social justice warrior, Or, you could go do something.

Re: Why Toys?

#109

Post by TeMPOraL »

Dangeranger wrote: post #105
TeMPOraL wrote: post #77

Interesting; I'm surprised to see this comparison made, even though in retrospect (thanks to 'ujeezy for pointing it out), I recognize the PG quote about things "described as a toy". The funny thing is; they've drawn a mostly different comparison using the same dichotomy ("toy" vs "serious") that I use for occasional rants on this site. I say mostly different, because here's the intersection: If you give people a too…

For me one example of a toy that became a tool after a few design/development iterations is Postman. It started out as a basic browser extension that let a person make HTTP requests to an API endpoint and displayed the JSON/XML output for you in a pretty formatted result section. Then after a few iterations it has become a very useful and capable tool for API exploration, testing, and design. They key for me is to ha…

That's the approach I like. Advanced features don't have to clutter the interface. They can be hidden; they just have to exist, and be discoverable.

Also, by "features" I don't even mean new things to do - ones improving ergonomics are also important. For instance, having every action in GUI also exposed as a discoverable keyboard shortcut goes a long way towards making life easier for people who have to do lots of work in an application. A trivial thing, but seemingly forgotten in the era of "web browser as a desktop".

Re: Why Toys?

#110

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

loorinm wrote: post #68
fiatjaf wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're saying is partly true, but what do you think YC should do?

To solve inequality?? I don’t think that’s the business YC is in. But we can do a lot. We can drastically reduce the potential financial rewards for extracting value from millions of people. We can set a max income of $300k per person and the rest goes to elevating the poor. It would pretty much destroy the VC industry though.

Let's rephrase that: it would destroy capitalism.

Somehow I don't think you'd have a problem with that.

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