101–110 of 401 posts
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There's no such thing as an original idea. Every idea worth having has been had thousands of times already. There is such a thing as being the first to give a real physical (or commercial) form to an idea, though.
tell that to einstein
Regarding #22, "A web-based Excel/database hybrid," have you ever seen dabbledb.com? It's pretty much fits your description completely and I've really liked it the few times I've had a need for it.
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I don't know. I was just saying that if you want to beat Google, that's their weak spot. Or at least a big one. Most people who read that one will think "huh?" But if someone reads it and thinks "Damn, how did he hear about what we're working on?" that's someone we'd really love to hear from.
The way to approach the Google problem is to ask, when have I been dissatisfied with google search? And you're right, there are very few weaknesses. One of the startup approaches to the Google problem is to join forces with them instead of competing with them. Provide a page that wraps google search, but adds additional searchable items into the searchbar (search emails, todo lists, events, facebook, google all throu…
If you use satisfaction as the test, you may be letting the present state of things influence your thinking too much. E.g. I bet a lot of people were satisfied with pre-Google search engines, and just took their limitations for granted.
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There's no such thing as an original idea. Every idea worth having has been had thousands of times already. There is such a thing as being the first to give a real physical (or commercial) form to an idea, though.
Every idea worth having has been had thousands of times already. Even if this were true (which seems extremely unlikely) someone had to think of it first. So there would have been a point when it was possible to have new ideas. How can you be sure the present is not such a point, when we know there were such points in the past?
I did not say that people do not have new ideas. That is a blatantly ridiculous statement. I said that worthy ideas have already been had.
My argument comes from looking at literary and philosophical ideas, and my comment was a jest in response to another jest, but there's truth in it. There's a persistent quest for originality in literature, and after some years of chasing that particular ghost I came to the conclusion that it's an illusion. All the great subjects, all the great ideas, have been had already. That doesn't make a book written today less valuable, because what I would add to whichever idea I decide to write about is my own, unique perspective on it. But it means that trying to come up with some completely original idea for a book is pointless - if it's "completely original" it is probably worthless. If ten of thousand years of human civilisation have not yet produced that idea in any form, there's probably a good reason.
Hence my statement that ideas worth having have been had a thousand times already.
So, rather than chasing originality in writing, I think it's more worthwhile to enrich my perspective so that what I add to whatever ancient kernel I might pick is actually worth adding.
Now, extending this to start-up ideas, as you well know, if you have a brilliant idea for a start-up, chances are someone has already had that idea somewhere in the world. If no one has had it at all out of 6 billion people, chances are it's not brilliant, and probably not worth pursuing. Moreover, most great business ideas are not "original", but twists on existing ideas, putting an existing concept into a new perspective. So even the first person to come up with a new twist is still just coming up with a new twist. As with books, though, it doesn't matter whether your idea is original, what matters is what you put into it (the execution, basically). I think this is in agreement with your articles.
Businesses exist to fulfil human needs. The idea of fulfilling human needs is as old as human needs themselves. The ways of doing so are just as old. Social networking, for example, might be a new twist on the idea of helping people make and keep friends, but it's still fulfilling the human need for friendship, something which thousands of other businesses do too.
So, again, rather than striving to come up with a truly original start-up idea, I think it's more worthwhile to hone my ability to take whatever idea I do decide to run with and make it into a working business.
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Thats because .com is the king of the internet. The users know dot coms, the term is a mainstream one. And frankly the whole company name doesn't really matter, what does yahoo have to do with search? What does eBay have to do with auctions? Just get some creativity and come up with a word that sounds like a real word and you'll be fine.
Saying .com is the king of the internet sounds like a response from marketing/management. I suspect it isn't all that important and that this will probably be dropped in favor of a practical solution in the future.
# of .us/.info/.me/.biz sites making at least $1mm/yr? 8
Yes its marketing, but that's because consumers pretty much got taught that one of the major ways to see if a business is legitimate is to see if it has the .com extension. Blame all the affiliate spammers who put up the crappy sites on the .info etc domain names to try to make a few bucks by using the bulk method
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There's no such thing as an original idea. Every idea worth having has been had thousands of times already. There is such a thing as being the first to give a real physical (or commercial) form to an idea, though.
That's true, but I hear what mechanical_fish is saying, too. I suffer from much the same problem: many elements on the list are things which I have thought about to an extent that I've worked out every single step needed to make them work. The problem is, I haven't the time to pursue everything I would like to. Let's take the "simplified browsing" problem, for example. I worked phone technical support for an internet…
This is a good observation. Anyway, the issue here is, whether that massive number will have some common notion of what the simpler computer actually is.
Search engine that concentrates on design? What that supposed to mean?
I don't know. I was just saying that if you want to beat Google, that's their weak spot. Or at least a big one. Most people who read that one will think "huh?" But if someone reads it and thinks "Damn, how did he hear about what we're working on?" that's someone we'd really love to hear from.
The idea I submitted and worked on for three years when I applied in 2007 had three of those in one... I don't think anybody has executed on it yet, if you want to read my Spring 2007 application again. (Though if I apply again, it would be with another, more time-sensitive idea, which can also be split up into several of your categories.) I'm not trying to brag, but I did outline the exact way to beat eBay.
I'm working for (somebody else's) startup at the moment and happy with my positioning there, but I've got thoughts coming from a number of these. > 1. A cure for the disease of which the RIAA is a symptom. I built songseed.com with the intention of creating a community for artists (perhaps with careers in other fields) who care about the music and aren't hypnotised by the Big Lie that artists get the sign and then ma…
What about Latex?