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“Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

andrewchen.co

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Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#11

Post by a13n »

dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

> the market is probably big enough to fit multiple nearly identical products at the same time and still have them all profitable.

Agreed, but VCs don't need you to build a profitable company, they need you to build a billion dollar company, in order to return their fund.

This "How are you going to win your market?" is driven by venture capitalism. Most startups in the Bay Area are VC-backed.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#12

Post by jonny_eh »

alex-wallish wrote: post #2

"Airbnb for Gamers" according to the infographic isn't taken. Any potential there? Letting people rent out their physical gaming rigs to other people in the area, in their homes. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to set up. I could see it be kind of like gaming cafe's in Asia, except you'd be renting a rig in somebody's actual home. I don't know if there'd be any market for this, but it seems like it wouldn't take to mu…

Some local arcade/pinball operators will rent out their games, but there's no easy to use service for that. But I don't think high-cost/high-touch rentals like that lend themselves to cheap/scaleable apps.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#13

Post by cabaalis »

Do I have any of these "realms" wrong? It seems the best startup idea would be one that adds a new "realm" rather than rinses and repeats for another direct object.

Uber for = simplify a process that involves transporting or delivering something somewhere

Tinder for = rate/advertise/connect some product nearby

Birchbox for = periodically refill a perishable or consumable

Airbnb for = locate and book some experience or resource

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#14

Post by blfr »

dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

Maybe but here on the Internet there seems to be one search engine which rakes in most of the money, one social network where most people have accounts, one electronic toy maker which sits on top of a mountain on cash. Second prize is a set of steak knives.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#15

Post by WaxProlix »

arxpoetica wrote: post #10
alex-wallish wrote: post #2

"Airbnb for Gamers" according to the infographic isn't taken. Any potential there? Letting people rent out their physical gaming rigs to other people in the area, in their homes. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to set up. I could see it be kind of like gaming cafe's in Asia, except you'd be renting a rig in somebody's actual home. I don't know if there'd be any market for this, but it seems like it wouldn't take to mu…

Maybe not an opportunity for consoles per se (see cheeto comment), but maybe an opportunity for renting games from your neighbors. Heck, I could see this being extended online in quite a unique way. Cheaper renting some movie or game from someone who already owns it...

Except that nobody owns games or movies anymore. I suspect that letting someone log on to my Steam account would potentially be grounds for a banning, and losing whatever investment I have in the platform.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#16

Post by airstrike »

QuinnWilton wrote: post #8
alex-wallish wrote: post #2

"Airbnb for Gamers" according to the infographic isn't taken. Any potential there? Letting people rent out their physical gaming rigs to other people in the area, in their homes. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to set up. I could see it be kind of like gaming cafe's in Asia, except you'd be renting a rig in somebody's actual home. I don't know if there'd be any market for this, but it seems like it wouldn't take to mu…

I suspect that, at least in places with decent internet, something like ShadowPC negates the need for such a service. I rent a top of the line gaming PC for ~$25/month, and run my games in the cloud. With what I used to spend keeping a gaming rig upgraded, it doesn't even make sense not to rent something that's always going to be state of the art.

Can't really play FPS or RTS on the cloud, though

EDIT: I'll be damned, according to reddit you can even do CSGO on one of these beasts. I guess that solves what I'm buying myself for Christmas

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#17

Post by dheera »

a13n wrote: post #11
dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

> the market is probably big enough to fit multiple nearly identical products at the same time and still have them all profitable. Agreed, but VCs don't need you to build a profitable company, they need you to build a billion dollar company, in order to return their fund. This "How are you going to win your market?" is driven by venture capitalism. Most startups in the Bay Area are VC-backed.

Chevron, Shell, UPS, and FedEx are all billion dollar companies. They succeeded not because of differentiating product, but because the market is so big that it's hard for a single company to dominate it.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#18

Post by snegu »

One category that's missing on the left is "Parents." There's Tinder for parents (Peanut), Birchbox for parents (multiple subscription boxes). It would be interesting to think about what Uber or AirBnB for parents would be.

I couldn't read the article though because I got that absurd uncloseable newsletter subscription screen. That was one of the most user-hostile things I've seen on a website lately.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#19

Post by rootsudo »

alex-wallish wrote: post #2

"Airbnb for Gamers" according to the infographic isn't taken. Any potential there? Letting people rent out their physical gaming rigs to other people in the area, in their homes. Seems like it'd be pretty easy to set up. I could see it be kind of like gaming cafe's in Asia, except you'd be renting a rig in somebody's actual home. I don't know if there'd be any market for this, but it seems like it wouldn't take to mu…

Cloud gaming is coming, soon it'd be what's the point.

Re: “Is your startup idea taken?” and why we love X for Y startups

#20

Post by lacker »

dheera wrote: post #3

Besides the "X for Y" approach, I find it laughable that every time someone says they are doing just "X" that the usual Bay Area response is "How are you differentiating from your competitors?" Go ask how UPS differentiates themselves from FedEx. Or how Shell differentiates themselves from Chevron. In reality, while product differentiation is good, unless there already exists a monopoly that has eaten every inch of t…

I think that's a reasonable question to ask. Most startups do have some way to differentiate themselves from their competitors, and if you ask them what it is, that's often the fastest way of understanding what they value and what their company is like.

I am guessing that you find this question annoying because you have to answer it a gazillion times for Robby. ;-) https://robby.io/ But to me I am pretty interested to hear your answer, of how do you differentiate from all the other delivery robots out there. And if the answer really is "well there's several that are just like us but I think we can all be winners", that's an interesting answer too.

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