Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

news.ycombinator.com

171–180 of 301 posts

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#171

Here's the recommendation I give to students when they ask me this question (it's a common one!): You come up with a brilliant idea, you obsess over it, you Google some info, and on your screen lies your idea, being done by someone else, for the last two years. You’re all too familiar with that sinking feeling in your stomach that follows. You abandon the idea almost immediately after all that excitement and ideation…

Great advice, so I am not going to repeat this because I 100% agree with it.

However additionally I would add that if you think that it is the software alone that will make or break the company, then it is obvious that this is your first time doing this and that you have never brought a product to market. There are a ton of examples where one product that was of less quality absolutely annihilated another excellent product where the difference was the rest of the "business" machinery (marketing, sales, support, operations, etc).

It is an unpopular opinion in HNs, but good software is not enough to win.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#172
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in development time and cost.

And the users care about this why? Delphi calls from 1998, it was even faster than Electron in development time and cost. Yet almost nobody uses it now. What killed it? Just one has economic bust and developer generation change perhaps? (And no, it was not networking, it had good capabilities the too. It wasn't web either.)

Ha! I still use Delphi (amongst other things)! It's great for producing Native Windows apps and is extremely performant (and still works with Win 10). I stuck with Delphi 7 (and thus avoided all the subsequent politics).

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#173
In my opinion...

It's quite established how to answer this question. More specifically, it's a classic strategy question (with a lot of marketing in it). You should look up what broad theory is applicable. My take (have an MBA or equivalent) is to look at differentiation, segmentation, resource based strategy, feedback loops and platform theory, Porter's five forces with critique, a static VS a dynamic perspective.

If you can find a viable (hopefully quite sustainable) strategy, go for it. If you can't, then don't.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#174
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except in development time and cost.

And the users care about this why? Delphi calls from 1998, it was even faster than Electron in development time and cost. Yet almost nobody uses it now. What killed it? Just one has economic bust and developer generation change perhaps? (And no, it was not networking, it had good capabilities the too. It wasn't web either.)

As a adjunct, apparently it is still really popular in Germany.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#175
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think this is a super helpful comparison. There is a net demand for Chinese food in the area, and there will definitely be such a thing as 'too much or little' supply (though obviously each offer i.e. supply is a little different) A single restaurant will only be able to meet so much demand, so if there's a niche in terms of region or menu, maybe there's a real opportunity. GitHub, Uber, FB - they all have ne…

Slack is centralized Irc clone with better UI.

'better UI' might be debatable... It is a bloated inefficient sack of kack that demands ~1GB RAM per channel! In fact, didn't the original developer label it thus and abandon the whole thing?

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#176
post #10

I’ve had this feeling since I used my first Zebra label printer back in ... 2003? It wasn’t until 2012 I was working on the backend programming of Zebra printers that I realized Macs had very little support for designing and printing labels. I created a one off (as in still at version 1.0) native Mac app that used a transparent window and printed whatever was behind it. It is called LabelScope. Fast forward 6 years a…

you should write a paid react native/flutter/xamarin library. corporate apps use label libraries a lot and they usually suck coz provided by manufacturers. lots of man hours could be saved

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#177

I voluntarily entered one of the most saturated markets that I'm aware of. It's literally a cliché to "do a photo startup." That rumbling dark cloud of well-funded, well-established competitors on the horizon, and (perhaps my mistaken) belief that I see gaps of sunshine where I can succeed, is one reason I get out of bed every morning and persevere. That, and my wife needs the product. https://blog.photostructure.com…

im in the Smartphone business, talk about saturated :D ! btw love your product, some of my customers have asked us about something similar perhaps we could collaborate.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#178
There's a large company (30000~ employees, market cap "north of $3 billion") called Rocket Internet [0], based mostly (solely?) on the business strategy of building something that already exists.

Seeing how successful they are, it seems the "uniqueness of a product/service idea" is not such an important factor as it's commonly considered. Perhaps it's more about the execution, how the idea is implemented - UX, marketing, etc.

[0] https://thehustle.co/rocket-internet-oliver-samwer

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#179
Everything exists by now. Every single idea that you might have has been tried already. Your next startup is not going to be the first doing what it does.

Believe me: it’s not the idea that makes a great project / company. It’s the execution. It’s the market fit. It’s providing the best solution possible. It’s delighting your customers. It’s giving them real value for their money.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#180
post #121

Here's the recommendation I give to students when they ask me this question (it's a common one!): You come up with a brilliant idea, you obsess over it, you Google some info, and on your screen lies your idea, being done by someone else, for the last two years. You’re all too familiar with that sinking feeling in your stomach that follows. You abandon the idea almost immediately after all that excitement and ideation…

Exactly. And while we are at Google. They were not the first search engine, but merely one of dozens if not hundreds. Facebook was not the first social network. Apple was not the first producer of computers for consumers. Amazon was not the first web store.

And Altavista and Yahoo were much larger than Google, at the time when it appeared.
Post reply on HN