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Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

humbledmba.com

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Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#61
post #26

Gee, it must be fun to call entrepreneurs silly. My view is that the article is 99 44/100%, fresh, soft, still steaming, and actually destructive, BS. The whole post is based on what is apparently deliberately both an obscure and even ambiguous use of the word 'idea'. So, with such deliberate obscurity and ambiguity, all he has is a way to insult entrepreneurs so that all he has is that steaming pile. Details: So, at…

2.) Someone else has the exact same idea. Nonsense. Absolutely 100% total nonsense. I've published papers in the peer-reviewed research literature where the standard requirement is "new, correct, and significant". Note the "new". And I got a Ph.D. from a good research university, and there the main requirement was "an original contribution to knowledge worthy of publication". Note the "original". We're talking about…

They didn't grow to be successful businesses, but that they are too young is not the reason. One of the ideas and papers was, and remains, a candidate for a successful, new business, but it would take a little more cash than I have to get it going: There were interested customers. I gave a nice presentation at one. But the target customers would be only the high end server farms and networks, and developing and selling to them are expensive, even if the software from the core research is done, and it mostly is.

My current project is based on my original rsearch; we will see in coming months if I can build into a successful business. About three dozen VCs are eager to see a prototype. For good or bad, I didn't write a prototype and, instead, wrote production quality code. At this point, I need to develop only a few more simple Web pages and the VCs will be able to see it. And the original research is just crucial for the project and has high promise of a high technological barrier to entry.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#62
post #33

Gee, it must be fun to call entrepreneurs silly. My view is that the article is 99 44/100%, fresh, soft, still steaming, and actually destructive, BS. The whole post is based on what is apparently deliberately both an obscure and even ambiguous use of the word 'idea'. So, with such deliberate obscurity and ambiguity, all he has is a way to insult entrepreneurs so that all he has is that steaming pile. Details: So, at…

Totally unique ideas don't make it. You can't build a business on being ten years ahead of the market - you'll have a 0.0001% response rate. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be fifteen minutes ahead of the market - and that means that, yes, there are other people with ideas very, very close to yours who are working on it at the same time. (Edit as afterthought: sometimes you can be way ahead of people and…

[deleted]

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#63
post #33

Gee, it must be fun to call entrepreneurs silly. My view is that the article is 99 44/100%, fresh, soft, still steaming, and actually destructive, BS. The whole post is based on what is apparently deliberately both an obscure and even ambiguous use of the word 'idea'. So, with such deliberate obscurity and ambiguity, all he has is a way to insult entrepreneurs so that all he has is that steaming pile. Details: So, at…

Totally unique ideas don't make it. You can't build a business on being ten years ahead of the market - you'll have a 0.0001% response rate. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be fifteen minutes ahead of the market - and that means that, yes, there are other people with ideas very, very close to yours who are working on it at the same time. (Edit as afterthought: sometimes you can be way ahead of people and…

"Totally unique ideas don't make it." Sure they can and do. You didn't read what I wrote. E.g., the first Xerox photocopier is a great example. So is the Hughes Tool drill bit. So was penicillin along with other many other drugs.

You are just insisting on your own definition of 'idea' as close to a new 'market' as is clear from your "You can't build a business on being ten years ahead of the market". Just total nonsense: A totally new idea does not have to be with, ahead, or behind "the market". Your "ahead of the market" is nearly a meaningless concept.

The crucial core 'secret sauce' can be "totally unique" even if the problem, customers, and market are all old.

E.g., carbon fiber parts for airplanes -- lighter and stronger. So, you will refuse to fly on an airplane that has some carbon fiber parts? Why? You likely won't even know where the carbon fiber parts are. Titanium now for some auto parts -- recently titanium got much cheaper. A high bypass turbofan engine with special materials for higher compression ratio and better fuel economy -- you will refuse to fly on such an airplane? A car with fuel injection directly into the cylinder with extremely lean mixtures at low power level -- you'll refuse to drive such a car?

Generally if there is a big problem and have the only good solution, then will get a good reception, and your "ahead of the market" is just nonsense.

Again, by a "totally unique idea" you mean essentially just what the customer sees on the surface, likely for a new problem, where the customer has to do something really new and different, for a new market, etc.

You're just having fun laughing at new ideas.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#64

For three years I worked at Bug Labs (open source hardware company). We not only told everyone what we did, we posted the source code and the blueprints online. Nobody ever stole our ideas. Think about that, people won't even steal your ideas if you give them the plans . It would make a lot of sense for someone else to just come along and build our hardware and sell our software without paying for 15 people doing dev…

If the BugLabs product started selling then competitors would come out of the woodwork. If Apple open soured the iTouch do you think Chinese companies would

But by that point they are on to version 2, which is way better and which they can be somewhat more secretive about, if they so choose.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#65

The ideas I have for products right now are things I would use. Unscatter.com will be a unified search and social client portal. Fanatastic.com will be a sports community site encouraging users to share and discuss latest sports news. I have an idea for a service, rather than product review site I am kicking around with a friend. Lastly I want to make a site people can make books filled with their personal wisdom to…

In response to fanatastic: I stream a lot of soccer games, and whenever something big happens, my first instinct is to see what people are saying about it. Google+twitter give live updates, but it's not very conversational. Reddit is conversational, but the format isn't quite right: it's hard to follow where new conversations are happening. This is currently my go-to. Justin.tv has chat during a stream (almost ideal!…

That's pretty similar to what I was thinking for fanatastic. It's on hold right now, the site that's up is probably 2 years old now with no fresh data.. anyway the idea is users would be able to sign up and pick their favorite teams. They would then have a customized page of all the news, twitter and facebook streams for their teams.

I'd then allow digg style voting up of stories in order to bubble things up to the top page of the site. The social aspect comes in when the news stories are tagged by teams. I'm a big NFL guy and a Redskins fans, well a story about a Redskins/Cowboys game would show up on both Cowboys and Redskins fans pages. That could spark entertaining dialogue, if for example you've ever tailgated at a game and seen how things go there.

The challenges are the news gathering initially, once it matures users may feed the site news themselves. Also moderation will be a big issue. It will probably be the factor that causes the site to succeed or fail.

Marketing would have to be a bit more old fashioned. I'd go after people at the games, they're the ones who spend so much money to see their teams live, get them hooked and the others will follow. Big signs, free t-shirts/hats, even a free stand passing out water bottles to people walking towards the stadium would be great in a lot of cities.

Out of all my ideas I think this is the one I think would be the most fun to work on, from development to marketing. But I'm a big sports fan.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#66
post #33

Gee, it must be fun to call entrepreneurs silly. My view is that the article is 99 44/100%, fresh, soft, still steaming, and actually destructive, BS. The whole post is based on what is apparently deliberately both an obscure and even ambiguous use of the word 'idea'. So, with such deliberate obscurity and ambiguity, all he has is a way to insult entrepreneurs so that all he has is that steaming pile. Details: So, at…

Totally unique ideas don't make it. You can't build a business on being ten years ahead of the market - you'll have a 0.0001% response rate. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be fifteen minutes ahead of the market - and that means that, yes, there are other people with ideas very, very close to yours who are working on it at the same time. (Edit as afterthought: sometimes you can be way ahead of people and…

Your "ten years ahead of the market" is not very well defined or meaningful. If a business idea is poor, then there have to be better objections than that. If that's the only objection, then it is not very serious.

There can be many reasons a business can fail; being "ten years ahead of the market" is not a meaningful description of any of them.

Again, for an extreme scenario, if you see how to make a pill so that that one pill taken once will safely cure any cancer, then you will have a very successful business. And, with irony, at this point one might guess that the pill was "50 years ahead" of the state of the art, the rest of medical science, or something or other, maybe your "market", and all that will matter not at all. Instead you will literally have to hire guards to keep the desperate customers from knocking down your door.

"Ahead of the market" is just next to irrelevant.

The challenge in the one pill is just understanding how to make it. That challenge is similar for many products that would obviously be very valuable to have. The reason we don't have the products is that no one has the understanding to know how to make the product. As soon as someone does understand how to make the product, then they will have a successful business and 'behind, equal, or ahead of the market' will be irrelevant.

For your first paragraph, I addressed essentially exactly your content in my:

"3.) Totally unique ideas generally don't make it

Nonsense. What he means is, say, a new product, of a very different kind in all respects, e.g., one that requires customers to do something quite new, for a new need for new customers in a new market generally doesn't make it. Right.

But a one pill cure for cancer, which would be 'totally unique', would have to fight customers off with rings of guards, literally."

That a product is "totally unique" is not by itself a handicap. Business history is awash in very successful products that were "totally unique". Home lighting? People used candles made from 'tallow', that is, fat. Next came burning whale oil, then gas lights burning a crude natural gas made from coal, then kerosene made from newly discovered crude oil, then incandescent electric lights, then fluorescent electric lights, and now light emitting diodes. From the first candle to the present, that each advance was "totally unique" was not a handicap. Instead, each advance was better and, thus, warmly welcomed.

Electric power for a house? Suppose in 1900 you had a really nice house but without electric power. Now what? It will be a PAIN to run the wires. If the wires are all behind the walls, then there is a lot of carpentry to do. If the wires are, say, in tubes or some such but visible, then you have just made a mess out of possibly some gorgeous construction. Home electric power was "totally unique", but people eagerly did it.

In 1950, people who traveled across the Atlantic used steamships. By 1970, there were nearly no such steamships. Why? Boeing made the 707 that was fast, smooth, and quiet and got people across in a few hours instead of a few days. The 707 was "totally unique" and accepted right away. So was the Concorde, for those who could pay for it.

The first telegraphs? Definitely "totally unique", and was a rapidly growing business right away.

TV? Definitely "totally unique", and soon nearly everyone had to have one, and moderately wealthy people had several. Early on the programming was suckage; the electronics was unreliable; and the signal quality was awful; still people bought them.

A large fraction of all the materials now used in small commercial building construction was not even on the market 30 years ago. But each time a good, new "totally unique" product came out, it made good progress. So, want some long floor joists? Want to look for a 20 foot long 2 x 12? F'get about. Instead you will likely have to use a fake wooden I-beam where the interior is plywood and the top and bottom are glued from thin strips of wood. For exterior sheathing? Used to use diagonal 1 x 6 or some such. Then used plywood. Now use 'oriented strand particle board' glued up from wood scraps.

Insulation? Now commonly polyurethane foam installed with a special spray gun when the outer sheathing is on but the inner walls are not. "Totally unique" product.

A microwave oven? "Totally unique" and caught on right away.

FedEx overnight small package delivery? When it came out, it was "totally unique" but caught on quickly.

The US does a census each 10 years. By about 1880 or so, it was taking longer than 10 years to process the census data. So the Census Bureau worked with Herman Hollerith who, roughly, borrowed from Jacquard's special loom ("totally unique") and made his "totally unique" punched card equipment; it was used in the next census and was much faster. That the solution was "totally unique" didn't bother the 19th century census people at all.

During WWII, the main means of numerical calculations was just mechanical calculators. Looking for something better, von Neumann and others built some "totally unique" electronic digital computers. Caught on right away.

Daisy wheel printers? "Totally unique" and caught on right away. I still have one connected to a serial port at 1200 bps with XON/XOFF and use it for typing addresses on envelopes.

The dot matrix printer, the laser printer, the ink jet printer? "Totally unique" and caught on right away.

In the late 1940s, Bell Labs finally was successful on what they had wanted before WWII -- a solid state electronic amplifier to replace hot, unreliable vacuum tubes. It was called the 'transistor' and was "totally unique" and was very welcome right away.

Just what is it you find so difficult to accept about a good, new solution for a serious problem? Somehow you believe that being new is a serious obstacle? You believe that can take some average of what is in the market and then conclude that anything much different has a handicap?

Again, the reasons for failure are much more solid than some comparison with some chronology of some average of 'the market', which really is essentially irrelevant.

One of the major opportunities for entrepreneurs is just to find such good solutions. For business success, it is in some ways easier if the target customers already know that they want the problem solved.

Still sometimes entrepreneurs also find very successful products to solve problems people didn't even realize they had or wanted solved: Apparently examples include iPhone, Twitter, and Facebook.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#67
post #2

I can't keep count of the number of people who I talk to on a daily basis online or in person, at networking events, etc... that acts as if their idea is so revolutionary that they must keep it to themselves. This is utter bullshit. In all the time I've been an entrepreneur (over a decade), I've built many successful businesses, sold my companies, etc.. I've never had the problem of anyone stealing my idea except on…

"I can't keep count of the number of people who I talk to on a daily basis online or in person, at networking events, etc... that acts as if their idea is so revolutionary that they must keep it to themselves. This is utter bullshit."

Not always!

It can depend heavily on what is meant by "an idea".

Here is an extreme example: 'Idea' (A) is a pill, taken once, and safe, that will cure any cancer right away. 'Idea' (B) is actually how to make such a pill.

For (A), there's little or no reason to keep it secret. For (B) there are some tens of billions of rectangular green reasons to keep it quite secret until some good lawyers have done good things with patents.

Idea (A) is just a broad concept of a new product. Right: Mostly there is no good reason to keep one of those secret.

But idea (B) is much different.

I confess: I never thought of anything like (A) as an 'idea' at all.

An idea like (A) is some first cut description of what to do and commonly easy to think of. An idea like (B) is how to do (A). If (A) would be valuable but is difficult to do and if (B) does it, then (B) has the main importance.

In my career, I've only considered cases of (B) to be an 'idea'. Such ideas do need to be kept secret, say, as in Top Secret in the US DoD, secret before have protection from the USPTO, or trade secret.

If it is obvious and easy to do (A), then I would conclude that there was no technological advantage, no technological barrier to entry, and would would have to look for a special reason to try.

I'm interested only in an (A) when no one else knows how to do it very well and I figured out (B) that does do it well along with the other usual criteria -- many people are eager for the solution and ready to pay; can deliver the solution for much less than can get paid for it; etc.

I confess I'm shocked that people here on HN neglect the role of (B).

I was even more shocked when KP's J. Doerr stated "Ideas are easy; execution is everything" and "ideas are plentiful". True for (A), definitely NOT for (B). If have (B) for that cancer pill, I can assure Doerr that the idea was everything and execution will be entirely routine.

Re: Startups in stealth mode need one piece of advice.

#68
post #43
post #30

I work for a 'stealth' startup. The idea is just a very small part of the reason why we are in stealth. There are some other serious reasons why we don't want to go public right now. Unfortunately I can only talk about the stuff related to the idea itself. Our idea is boring and not revolutionary. We already have some competitors in the vertical and while there is no point in trying to hide the actual idea, there are…

Re: "What if someone with double the money we have can execute in half the time?" See Henry Ford working, by himself, after work, late into the night, for years and years, on his prototype car, while others with more money were doing the same thing. His quote on the subject, "no amount of finance will cure mismanagement". His friends at General Electric said he was wasting his time on the gas combustion engine becaus…

I guess im a fan of the underdog ....always have been ...rooted for the mets growing up in ny ......love these stories
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