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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

#131

Post by paggle »

dheera wrote: post #76
nostrademons wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn't want to invest in a sandwich shop, and the reason is precisely why investors ask about differentiation.

Knowing Subway's market cap now, would you invest in them as an angel investor? You'd be a billionaire right now. They didn't become big by differentiating product. Their sandwiches aren't that special. They became big by coming into existence where people wanted sandwiches.

No, Subway's biggest differentiator was and continues to be the low cost of building one, compared to a McDonalds. You can build out a Subway for $200,000 in some cases compared to $1-2 million for a McDonalds. That's why they're the most popular franchise restaurant.

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

#132

Post by winrid »

robomartin wrote: post #56

Very often engineering types can only think of differentiation in technical terms. I think I can say that, in practice, at least in mature markets, differentiation is more about positioning and marketing rather than almost anything else. Easy examples: - Cars - Bottled water - Computer monitors The vast majority of automobiles produced today have reached a level of design and manufacturing maturity that makes them pr…

Porsche and BMW make completely different types of cars compared to Toyota. They are better in different ways with tradeoffs.

Reliability wise? Sure they are not far off.

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

#133

Post by autoexec »

PowerfulWizard wrote: post #123
robomartin wrote: post #56

Very often engineering types can only think of differentiation in technical terms. I think I can say that, in practice, at least in mature markets, differentiation is more about positioning and marketing rather than almost anything else. Easy examples: - Cars - Bottled water - Computer monitors The vast majority of automobiles produced today have reached a level of design and manufacturing maturity that makes them pr…

I think the marketing differentiation works best when it is driven by factors that are hard to measure and control, but that are perceived as high value, like flavour and style. When buying bottled water, the water is free, you're buying the bottle, the refrigeration, then real-estate & inventory space, and you can compare it on those dimensions, but if you are sensitive to the taste that can override the other facto…

> but if you are sensitive to the taste that can override the other factors.

I can taste the difference between certain bottled water brands and that really is the number one concern for me. The differences are much less apparent to me with spring water than in the filtered tap water brands like Dasani and Aquafina (who often add salt and other minerals). For spring water brands I try to buy ones that aren't owned by Nestlé but that's not because of the product itself.

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

#134

Post by im3w1l »

robomartin wrote: post #56

Very often engineering types can only think of differentiation in technical terms. I think I can say that, in practice, at least in mature markets, differentiation is more about positioning and marketing rather than almost anything else. Easy examples: - Cars - Bottled water - Computer monitors The vast majority of automobiles produced today have reached a level of design and manufacturing maturity that makes them pr…

> Cars

I'm far from an enthusiast, but even for me there are cars on the market with engines so weak that I don't like it.

Apart from the engine, there are some nice technological features on modern cars, like parking cameras or even automatic parking.

Then there are hybrid and electrical cars.

> Bottle water

Do you include sparkling water in that? Because they can taste very different.

> Computer monitor

Size. Resolution. Refresh rate. G-sync. Reflective vs matte.

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

#135

Post by robomartin »

vba wrote: post #111
robomartin wrote: post #56

Very often engineering types can only think of differentiation in technical terms. I think I can say that, in practice, at least in mature markets, differentiation is more about positioning and marketing rather than almost anything else. Easy examples: - Cars - Bottled water - Computer monitors The vast majority of automobiles produced today have reached a level of design and manufacturing maturity that makes them pr…

Care to share the book names?

Classics:

https://www.amazon.com/Positioning-Battle-Your-Al-Ries/dp/00...

https://www.amazon.com/22-Immutable-Laws-Marketing-Violate/d...

Seth Godin is another author well worth reading:

https://www.amazon.com/Seth-Godin/e/B000AP9EH0

And a few others:

https://www.amazon.com/Crossing-Chasm-3rd-Disruptive-Mainstr...

https://www.amazon.com/Kellogg-Branding-Marketing-Faculty-Ma...

https://www.amazon.com/Differentiate-Die-Survival-Killer-Com...

https://www.amazon.com/Confessions-Advertising-Man-David-Ogi...

And, of course:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=vaynerchuk

There are no magic pills though. The best thing is to read and learn from a lot of perspectives and then start to navigate the waters you happen to be sailing. No two markets or products are going to be the same. In fact, the same product will require a different based on where it is in the adoption/maturity cycle.

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

#136

Post by Jun8 »

I think the reason this sort of thinking works is that it's an effective way to perform exhaustive search in idea space where metrics may be hard to define, based on combinatorics. A very early example of such an approach was Ramon Llull's Ars Magna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramon_Llull#Llull's_Art_(Ars_M...).

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

#137

Post by robomartin »

winrid wrote: post #132
robomartin wrote: post #56

Very often engineering types can only think of differentiation in technical terms. I think I can say that, in practice, at least in mature markets, differentiation is more about positioning and marketing rather than almost anything else. Easy examples: - Cars - Bottled water - Computer monitors The vast majority of automobiles produced today have reached a level of design and manufacturing maturity that makes them pr…

Porsche and BMW make completely different types of cars compared to Toyota. They are better in different ways with tradeoffs. Reliability wise? Sure they are not far off.

Not really, not if you are looking at averages; which is what I said in my post. A US $250K fire-breathing Porsche is in a category of it's own.

Interestingly enough, one of my cars is a Toyota GT-86. I actually chose it over a Porsche 911. I could have bought the 911. In fact I visited the dealer and was ready to commit. On my way back home I drove by the Toyota dealership and decided to go take a look. I left with the Gt-86.

Why?

The car was fun to drive. It handles very well (I've taken it to the track). And, here's the clincher: I don't have to worry about it one bit. Cost was not an issue. Yet, when you have an expensive car in a place like Los Angeles, well, one could make an argument it isn't the best idea. I was after a fun-to-drive sports car, not a daily commuter. The GT-86 filled that role just fine at a fraction of the cost. If I trash it at the race track I can buy three more before I spend what the 911 would have cost.

Not a perfect comparison but perhaps an interesting perspective.

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

#138

Post by nostrademons »

dkarl wrote: post #129
nostrademons wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So Tinder for parents is a terrible idea. (Full disclosure: my wife's a Peanut member. She's been meaning to uninstall it for a while.) Think about the key observations that made Tinder take over the dating space: people are basically superficial and judge who to go out with based on looks alone; people have spare time to flip through photos; people want to be casual and not invest too much in a date before getting t…

I found the best thing about Tinder when I used it was that by stripping down information and interaction to the bare minimum, it gets people face-to-face quickly with few established expectations, which is the best way to get to know anybody. There is so much about a person you can't learn through a web site or an app, and conventional dating sites worked very hard at getting you to invest a lot of time and work int…

It doesn't work with the reality of being a parent. There's no such thing as low-stress, low-commitment way of meeting people when you have an infant or toddler. At the very least, you need to arrange for a spouse to take the kid or deal with their retinue (car seat, stroller or baby carrier, snacks, water, milk, bib, baby wipes, and diaper). At worst, you need to arrange for a sitter, schedule everything, communicate all the baby's needs to the sitter, and be available in case anything goes wrong.

The closest to a low-stress outing for parents is "I'm going to be at this playground in this park for an hour on Saturday morning, and whoever wants to join me is welcome to come." You're at a playground anyway, so if nobody shows up it's an ordinary Saturday morning with the kid. It's time-boxed so you can often get away without the snack/milk/diaper/mealtime accouterments. Scheduling is what you'd have to do anyway, and similar to what other parents have to do. This is how my wife actually meets and hangs out with most of her mom friends. They're usually organized over Facebook though; there's no need for a separate app for it.

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

#139

Post by im3w1l »

holler wrote: post #102
noonespecial wrote: post #9

By "taken" do they maybe mean "validated"? Ideas are executed not "owned". The proof is in the doing.

this. While it's an interesting article and thought experiment, I don't think anyone should be discouraged from trying to build the next ride-hailing, dating, or couch-surfing platform simply because others have already found success in it. Competition makes the world spin, and in the grand scheme of things, we're only just beginning.

I think when you make the world's first couch-surfing app you can plausibly tell your self that you are changing the world. The world goes from not having couch-surfing apps to having one.

Creating a second couch-surfing app with the idea of out-marketing the first doesn't inspire the same sense of purpose.

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

#140

Post by smilekzs »

im3w1l wrote: post #134
robomartin wrote: post #56

Very often engineering types can only think of differentiation in technical terms. I think I can say that, in practice, at least in mature markets, differentiation is more about positioning and marketing rather than almost anything else. Easy examples: - Cars - Bottled water - Computer monitors The vast majority of automobiles produced today have reached a level of design and manufacturing maturity that makes them pr…

> Cars I'm far from an enthusiast, but even for me there are cars on the market with engines so weak that I don't like it. Apart from the engine, there are some nice technological features on modern cars, like parking cameras or even automatic parking. Then there are hybrid and electrical cars. > Bottle water Do you include sparkling water in that? Because they can taste very different. > Computer monitor Size. Resol…

wrt. Cars, there's a whole can of worms which IMHO matters to every car shopper (whether they think they care about it or not): Ergonomics. Every driver may have their own preferences on where important controls (pedals, steering, AC temperature, volume, etc.) should be; every passenger (including the driver) may have preferences on the hip point, seating position, interior material, etc.. In reality these are (rightfully) widely differentiated across models and makes.
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