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Think Different – Think Users

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Re: Think Different – Think Users

#21

Post by bidivia »

richardw wrote: post #12

I think almost all users would like easily swappable iPhone batteries. All users would have liked Fords with multiple colours rather than black. Many users would have asked for text messages over 160 characters in 1990 or Facebook with their own themes on the page. Tradeoffs abound. Sometimes what users want will get you to a billion. Sometimes it’ll kill you. What’s the difference?

>All users would have liked Fords with multiple colours rather than black.

They did, over time, choose car manufactures with different colors. But they also loved the price Ford could get for them making only one color available, at first.

The problem was that getting multiple colors made your car extremely expensive and the car had to wait way longer in the queue for the paint to dry. But only at first, over time those problems got solved and people could get to choose colors for cheap.

Today everybody wants closed 3d printers with swappable heads that could print multiple materials and support. They just don't want to pay USD3.000 for it when they can buy a printer for USD200.

If you want to be successful you always have to listen to your users. But you also need common sense.

Re: Think Different – Think Users

#22

Post by formerly_proven »

phendrenad2 wrote: post #15
richardw wrote: post #12

I think almost all users would like easily swappable iPhone batteries. All users would have liked Fords with multiple colours rather than black. Many users would have asked for text messages over 160 characters in 1990 or Facebook with their own themes on the page. Tradeoffs abound. Sometimes what users want will get you to a billion. Sometimes it’ll kill you. What’s the difference?

All users would like easily swappable phone batteries, but all users would also like waterproof phones that push the boundaries of thin & light. All users would like Fords in more colors than black, but all users would also like the low cost that comes from a simplified assembly line and repair center and distribution channel that comes from only having one paint color. What users want will never kill you, but you ha…

"pushing the boundaries of thin & light", yet smartphones keep getting bigger and heavier. The latest & greatest from Apple features phones that literally weigh more than half a pound.

Re: Think Different – Think Users

#24

Post by atoav »

The important thing is to have a valid reason to think different. There are too many people who stubbornly press on because they drank the kool aid of their own uniqueness. They think being different is a value in itself.

As somebody who has been different their whole live, being different can happen when you don't take things as granted, because you will land on other conclusion as people who take things as granted.

But sometimes you will land at the same conclusion, for the obvious reason that a certain way of doing certain things is indeed very reasonable.

In my youth there were many people that tried to rebell against something, but in my eyes they defined themselves ex negativo: they acted a certain way because it was the opposite of the thing they didn't like. This is not free, because you are tightly coupled to the thing you want to differenciate yourself from. I always tried to instead decouple from those things and figure out which conventions are bullshit, which are in principle reasonable (but communicated or lived badly) and which are just prefect the way they are.

The key step however is not to take existing structure, culture and technology for granted and try to come up with your own ways of doing things. Realizing once in a while that you (badly) solved a problem that has been solved for decades can be humbling as well.

Re: Think Different – Think Users

#25

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

bidivia wrote: post #20
ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #11

This is something that I don’t think can be commoditized or created with any kind of predictable process. Outfits like YC aren’t really in the business of creating startups. They are in the business of finding startups. Prospecting, as opposed to farming. They find promising ideas, and try to transplant them into fertile soil. Match “idea people” with “make it happen people.” Good prospectors can get quite wealthy. T…

I agree that YC business is prospecting, but I don't believe they prospect ideas, they prospect people. Ideas are a dime a dozen, and the same idea could be a success or failure depending on execution quality, and execution quality depends on people. Making happen people are actually idea people, each of then have hundreds of ideas in their mind, that just have the guts to make them happen. They go in the arena and f…

Reminds me of this thread that I was in, a few months ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27119718
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