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Idea Generation

blog.samaltman.com

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Re: Idea Generation

#131

Post by danjac »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #60
rl3 wrote: post #45

Ideas become better when refined. Sometimes over the course of years . You can assemble a larger composite idea under the umbrella of a single vision, comprised of many smaller ideas. There's of course a balance to be struck depending on the idea's scope and urgency. Both may change with refinement. Idea generation is both a learned skill and intrinsic to a person's circumstance and psychology. Ample unstructured tim…

> Ideas become better when refined. Agreed.This is why execution is more important than idea. Why? Because most ideas aren't born great. They evolve and progress. That's part of execution. The process of taking a good idea and make it great.

It's interesting that some successful ideas were born out of tangential side projects - wasn't Slack originally just a chat room inside a game? But executing on the original idea surfaced a more profitable idea - kind of like mining for gold but finding instead a copper seam that makes you rich anyway.

Re: Idea Generation

#132

Post by danjac »

dharma1 wrote: post #127
danjac wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's interesting - I live right next to a K-Market and I'm not in a risk demographic so not had the need, but when I moved from the UK to Finland some 10 years ago one thing I missed was that the UK supermarkets at the time had excellent online delivery systems (they're buckling under the strain of the current crisis due to surge in demand, but back then they worked well enough). Finland didn't seem to have anythin…

Supermarket delivery in the UK has been fantastic, much better than Finland. I think you are right about the population density, and also the amount of competition between 8 large supermarket chains in the UK, vs the near cartel like situation in Finland.

Another example would be automated checkouts - that came much later in Finland compared to the UK. I think there's a good point there that the duopoly stifles innovation, plus there's just a much smaller market and less pressure to scale up.

Re: Idea Generation

#133

Post by codingdave »

> the world changes so fast that the big incumbents usually get beaten by fast-moving and focused startups.

I'm not sure this is as true as founders hope. Yes, startups take the lead when change occurs. But then they also take on all the risk, fight it out with similar startups, and a few years later often get purchased by one of the old incumbents. And in those purchases, some specific founders get rich, but many others fail, and many devs work quite hard and don't end up where they thought they would.

At the same time, the big incumbents get to just sit back and let other people fight it out, then re-buy their market share in the future.

Re: Idea Generation

#134

Post by sillycube »

axegon_ wrote: post #17

I touched this subject in another discussion a few days ago briefly. Here is what I've learned over the years: People keep repeating that you should work on ideas that solve problems that you have yourself. Now given some time on your own, it's natural to start looking at your problems and seeing how to solve them for yourself and potentially others and make a profit along the way. If you want a sinister spin on this…

I think you omit many details in contract works like pre-sales, project management, account management, etc. You only look at the final deliverables and assume it's an easy work.

Before you take 3M euros project, you need to be invited to join the RFP / tendor, which is not available for everyone. It may take years to build up a reputation.

After you are invited, how long it takes to prepare the project proposal? It may take months or a year for pre-sales process. If you fail, your months of work are wasted. The client won't pay a dime for your prep time.

Even you win the project, how many changes did it take to reach UAT? If the project delays, you are losing time and money again.

How can you ask the customer to accept the UAT, which changed a lot from original scope of work due to lots of change requests? But the client will never say, Oh I am wrong, sorry, I am going to compensate you with big money.

Compared with product business, the order amount is indeed small, may be $20 / month. But I feel happy because I am no longer a slave of an enterprise begging for business all the time

Re: Idea Generation

#135

Post by seleniumBubbles »

rytill wrote: post #126
seleniumBubbles wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having reliable, auditable, public protocols which can operate without the blessing of the world’s existing governments is precisely the point. Killer examples include any products or services which would provide a net positive value to society but are currently outlawed within various geographic territories for superstitious reasons and/or to protect existing industries from competition. Prediction markets are an ex…

> non-private markets can’t be used for manipulating elections, sponsoring assassinations, or incentivizing real-world action of any sort. (In any prediction market with a public order book, any attempted “action-incentivizing position” can be consumed by arbitrage until all that remains is a measure of the event’s real probability) Source(s) for this? I know prediction markets will have far-reaching consequences whe…

One of the best papers I've seen is Crime Markets: Non-Usefulness of Prediction Markets for Assassination and Crime: http://bitcoinhivemind.com/papers/6_Crime_Markets.pdf Summary:

> Some worry that censorship-resistant prediction markets will be used to encourage assassinations (and other crimes); this concern does not hold up to a sober examination. “Assassination markets” (AMs), as originally proposed by Jim Bell, are irreconcilably different from Prediction Markets (PMs). My experimental method for funding public goods with PMs has features which render it incompatible with crime. Furthermore, markets would generally present an excessively-complex, risky, and convoluted form of criminal financing. Truthcoin presents a (peaceful) alternative for accomplishing ideological goals, which features greater persuasiveness as well as lower cost. I conclude with a short discussion covering [1] recourse for those affected by AMs (of any kind), [2] features of Truthcoin designed to amplify the inherent impracticalities of AMs, and [3] the (necessarily relevant) total net effect of Truthcoin on political assassinations, general crime and general human welfare.

The linked paper does a thorough job of explaining this scenario, but to summarize: yes, in the absence of other market participants you might try to bet on low-probability events and make them happen. But because it's a public market, anyone can see the anomalous "predictions" you have made, and "free ride" on or even "front run" your position, including your accomplices (who can also sabotage you). On net, your position will be mostly consumed by arbitrage, your payout will be inconsequential compared to the capital required, and the probability "returned" by the market will remain accurate.

Re: Idea Generation

#136

Post by MagnumOpus »

soniman wrote: post #114
bko wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's better to have 100 users love you than 1 million kinda like you. The true seed of scale is love, and you can't buy it, hack it, or game it. A product that is deeply loved is one that can scale Interview with Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, Altman goes more into his reasoning [0] https://mastersofscale.com/sam-altman-why-customer-love-is-a...

Linkedin is literally used a little by a lot of people.

Paid LinkedIn Premium (which is what matters to founders and VCs) in contrast is used a lot by few people - headhunters, HR and PR people.

Re: Idea Generation

#137

Post by RexetBlell »

rytill wrote: post #126
seleniumBubbles wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having reliable, auditable, public protocols which can operate without the blessing of the world’s existing governments is precisely the point. Killer examples include any products or services which would provide a net positive value to society but are currently outlawed within various geographic territories for superstitious reasons and/or to protect existing industries from competition. Prediction markets are an ex…

> non-private markets can’t be used for manipulating elections, sponsoring assassinations, or incentivizing real-world action of any sort. (In any prediction market with a public order book, any attempted “action-incentivizing position” can be consumed by arbitrage until all that remains is a measure of the event’s real probability) Source(s) for this? I know prediction markets will have far-reaching consequences whe…

If you want to know how the decentralized oracle problem is solved, scroll down to “dispute round” in this paper https://www.augur.net/whitepaper.pdf

Re: Idea Generation

#138

Post by fredsters_s »

fredsters_s wrote: post #36

> YC once tried an experiment of funding seemingly good founders with no ideas. I think every company in this no-idea track failed ...coinbase was a 'no idea' startup

on further investigation this is not true - they applied with a bitcoin wallet. Thanks for the fact check!

Re: Idea Generation

#139

Post by Gengar »

Kiro wrote: post #107

Am I the only one with a list of over 1000 ideas that would all become billion dollar companies if I just had the time to do them all?

I have the opposite problem. How are you generating ideas?

Re: Idea Generation

#140

Post by asdf21 »

RhodesianHunter wrote: post #71
christiansakai wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your skill is really valuable. I am the opposite end of the spectrum. I'm an engineer and I think a decent programmer and a creative guy but when it comes to generating business ideas I'm just dead as a zombie.

Ditto. That or I have a great idea, and then go and realize someone else is doing it and has been in business for years.

That doesn't mean it's not a good idea.

There was MySpace before Facebook, 2nd mover advantage and all that.

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