Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you are a manufacturer. You are producing a product from raw materials with the goal of turning a profit. The issue with this model, when applied to digital products, is that the tolerance for execution is diminutive. A good idea for a game with great art and music can easily turn into a failure if some of the game mechanics are off (See no man's land). Video games are one of the hardest products to produce. It's…
And for games, becoming a middleman like Steam is where the profit is. They have less risk since they are just facilitating connecting game "manufacturers" to consumers. They aren't heavily invested in one game. If it's a flop there are others.
How to Decide What to Build
171–179 of 179 posts
Re: How to Decide What to Build
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
Eh. No defence of the way Kalanick or some of his minions acted in certain situations, but... Uber was entering an incredibly difficult space, given the power and entrenchment of the existing taxi business/lobby, and the generally anti-innovation and protectionist approach of many local politicians. Without their 'hustle' and willingness to take steps which were risky, relatively antisocial, and often illegal (e.g. e…
>>Without their 'hustle' and willingness to take steps which were risky, relatively antisocial, and often illegal (e.g. entering cities illegally first and asking for permission later, organising pretty challenging pressure campaigns against local politicians, authorities, etc.) they'd not have made it past a year, let alone revolutionised an industry. Are you kidding? If SpaceX was able to break ULA’s monopoly on la…
SpaceX had essentially one body to convince - NASA. And given NASA's dependence on ULA to get things into space, and ULA's reliance on Russian rocket engines (aside from NASA's traditional conservatism and reluctance to support a brash new young Silicon Valley upstart company not doing things the NASA way) they quietly welcomed SpaceX with open arms, and paid SpaceX huge amounts for their development. Also, I'm not aware that ULA was a 'monopoly' in the usual sense of the word - they've not taken measures to suppress potential competition in the past, have they? (There's no launch provider badge system!). They were just the only US company that could offer orbital services at that time.
tl;dr, NASA had major incentives to support SpaceX, and ULA wasn't a true monopoly.
In contrast, Uber faced hundreds of different NASAs - each one the local government of any and every major city they wanted to enter. In each case, the challenge and the hurdles in their way would have been different. In each case, there were multiple long-established alternatives (the incumbent taxi firms). And in many cases, the lobbying power of the incumbent taxi firms on the local decision makers would have been considerable (via overt lobbying, relationships, threat of strikes, maybe even bribery). All of this would have made making the case for Uber in theory to unenlightened local politicians almost a non-starter. What worked for Uber was getting their service up and running (sometimes illegally), users seeing that it was a dramatically better option than the incumbent uninnovative taxi firms offered, and then leveraging that support, together with other forms of pressure, to be allowed to continue business.
tl;dr, local governments generally had disincentives to support Uber, and Uber faced multiple entrenched competitors, sometimes in a monopoly position.
Re: How to Decide What to Build
#173One of the points the author makes is that you should track the problems you have, and the ones that reoccur will be good signals to solve them. Does anyone else feel pretty content with what they have? Because this strategy I think Paul Graham has talked about in one of his essays for ideas. And to be honest, I do genuinely feel like I don't have much if anything to complain about, and so I can't really think of sta…
I don't normally talk about this, but here is what you are missing: Businesses that make (real) money revolve around one of two ideas: - They sell shovels - They are middlemen (middlepeople?) They sell shovels. This is stolen from the old saying that during the American gold rush the people who made the money were the ones selling shovels. Or facilitating others to go and do what they wanted (in this case, chase a wi…
You day this about uber > It lets people make money from their car.
I think the implicit assumption above is that cars don't make money traditionally.
Same can be said amazon: "It let's you make (more) money from the things you're already selling"
Uber is also a middle man between ride-hailer(user) and driver, the same way Amazon is a middle man between buyer and seller.
Are the examples incorrect because they're way too similar (platform plays) or is my understanding incorrect (that they're very similar)? I'll be happy if somebody could take a few minutes to explain
Re: How to Decide What to Build
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is efficiency/automation what company wants? I am in the process of selling a inventory SAAS for medium size retail companies that helps them reduce a lot of labor everyday but I have trouble selling it. The companies don't see the value, they already have people doing this labor and I have seen that they are much more interesting in selling more that efficiency in the process. This at least for medium size companies…
The corporation I work for is in business process automation (specialized in healthcare and insurance, but not exclusively that). All companies want business process automation, but none of them want to pay enough for it, or have their shit together enough to work with us, usually. We still manage to get enough business to make money, but we've had lots of clients that absolutely needed something done by a certain da…
Re: How to Decide What to Build
#175One of the points the author makes is that you should track the problems you have, and the ones that reoccur will be good signals to solve them. Does anyone else feel pretty content with what they have? Because this strategy I think Paul Graham has talked about in one of his essays for ideas. And to be honest, I do genuinely feel like I don't have much if anything to complain about, and so I can't really think of sta…
Re: How to Decide What to Build
#176Earlier quoted context omitted.
The corporation I work for is in business process automation (specialized in healthcare and insurance, but not exclusively that). All companies want business process automation, but none of them want to pay enough for it, or have their shit together enough to work with us, usually. We still manage to get enough business to make money, but we've had lots of clients that absolutely needed something done by a certain da…
Wow! In your starting paragraphs you portrayed your billion dollar company as if it was a struggling business just scraping by
Our particular building has had a lot of bad luck since we were a smaller company that was purchased and absorbed into the big corporation, and a lot has happened since that has resulted in us becoming a lot, lot smaller than we used to be (There's even talk that the corporate overlords might close down our office building to save money and force relocation soon).
If I didn't have so much going on in my personal life right now I probably would have left already, like many others already have. If they do close and force relocation, then I will finally leave the company at that point. I just bought a house, I'm not going anywhere for awhile.
The clients that I'm referring to that dragged their feet signing contracts, couldn't get their own data in place, or broke/backed out of existing contracts suddenly and without any issues of performance on our parts were major, major companies as well. I'm sure you've heard of each of them.
Re: How to Decide What to Build
#177To quote from the text: "Focus on the repeat offenders. The ideas that you keep coming back to. When I think of a new idea, I get deeply infected with it. It takes over my mind. It’s all I can think about. Over time, most of the ideas fade. But a choice few keep on coming back. Pay attention to those. You know you’ve got something good when you’re thinking about it in the shower. Tell your friends what you’re doing.…
I'm not so sure. Being able to solve hard mathematical problems probably is a niche problem but that doesn't mean you're the only one experiencing it.
Fortunately, it's not limited locally but can easily be tackled at a global scale, i.e. by addressing potential customers around the world.
I'm pretty sure there are plenty of people interested in pondering deep mathematical questions and quite a few might be willing to pay a monthly fee for having access to a community that helps them with doing so.
There are all sorts of online communities for all sorts of weird and extraordinary stuff. Why not one dedicated to solving hard mathematical problems?
Re: How to Decide What to Build
#178One of the points the author makes is that you should track the problems you have, and the ones that reoccur will be good signals to solve them. Does anyone else feel pretty content with what they have? Because this strategy I think Paul Graham has talked about in one of his essays for ideas. And to be honest, I do genuinely feel like I don't have much if anything to complain about, and so I can't really think of sta…
Your identified problem was - Don't like cooking and don't want to eat outside.
The solution you had was - crowdsource cooking.
But how about looking it in another way? What do you disliked more - cooking or unhealthy outside food?
I dislike cooking. One of the issues with cooking is that prep, measurement and deciding menu takes time. Lot of times I am stuck with - what to cook today?
So, how do we solve this problem? Meal Kits.
I know they still don't take away from the fact that you need to cook. But it is similar to getting food from outside, even if they are your neighbor.
So, it is not only the problem but solution that matters as well.
Re: How to Decide What to Build
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, you are a manufacturer. You are producing a product from raw materials with the goal of turning a profit. The issue with this model, when applied to digital products, is that the tolerance for execution is diminutive. A good idea for a game with great art and music can easily turn into a failure if some of the game mechanics are off (See no man's land). Video games are one of the hardest products to produce. It's…
And for games, becoming a middleman like Steam is where the profit is. They have less risk since they are just facilitating connecting game "manufacturers" to consumers. They aren't heavily invested in one game. If it's a flop there are others.