The coffeeshop fallacy • Hacker News Board

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#41

Post by aloneinkyoto » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 3:57 PM UTC

chc wrote: post #30

aloneinkyoto wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why am I being down voted for this? It is not spam and not intended as flame bait. It is not off topic and it is not pointless humor. It is a serious comment that needs to be debated and not hidden away at the bottom of the page. I am not stating anything extremely controversial, simply the same thing the article is stating, but with a slightly different wording. Don't down vote me because you disagree with me or bec…

You are making a much bolder claim than the article, a very specious claim to boot (that for some reason sustainable businesses can't do good work), and you are not providing any supporting evidence for this controversial claim. You may not have meant it as a troll, but the effect is very similar The article is just saying that running an X business means you spend a lot more of your time on the "running a business"…

I didn't claim that a sustainable businesses can't do good work. I simply claimed that sustainability is at odds with producing good things. Which is a fairly different claim. Though I can see how the distinction was not perfectly clear in my comment.

But to be honest I thought I was being very careful in my wording about something that should be self evident, e.g.

"...will most likely not be as inherently good as it could be."

Running a business implies a trade-off. The trade-off is that if you want to be successful (i.e. sustainable) you need to focus on the business and not the product. Which is exactly what the article is stating.

Maybe a better example to support my claim is Apple. They make great products. But the way they do that is by focusing on the process of creating great products. Jonathan Ive specifically talks about this in the Objectified documentary. He says that most of their time is spent on designing the manufacturing process and the tools needed to mass-produce the products, only a very small part of the time is spent on the actual design of the phone or computer and that design is almost always a direct implication of the manufacturing process rather than something they magically dream up in some creative haze.

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#42

Post by richcollins » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 3:59 PM UTC

If he saw a big opening he could exploit, he'd be there regardless of whether it was drilling for oil or starting a babysitting empire.

This is why most everything that we use is shit.

Also see: http://thetudu.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/the-real-reason-well...

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#43

Post by CPlatypus » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 4:01 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #8

Without taking anything away from the article, it's worth noting that running a software business absolutely can provide one with a great lifestyle. More so than pretty much any other profession I can think of. The lifestyle I wanted: pretty much as close to zero required work as possible, the ability to do said negligible work from anywhere I feel like parking myself (preferably with good rock climbing), enough mone…

Yes, the combination of high pay and time/place flexibility is very appealing compared to the way most people live. You can still apply the same theory within computing, though. For example, a lot of people start out wanting to invent their own programming language, both to "scratch an itch" and because it's a pretty high-status gig. Then they get bogged down implementing libraries and fielding requests for new language features and I'm sure it's no longer so much fun. By contrast, databases or filesystems might seem boring to use but there's actually a lot of exciting work going on under the covers. We even have our own equivalent of the B&B scenario, with people who want to develop cool web stuff and then find they have to spend most of their time on the underlying functionality (assuming they have any worth speaking about). In the end, it's always worth thinking about the job rather than the product.

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#44

Post by aloneinkyoto » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 4:02 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #36

aloneinkyoto wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why am I being down voted for this? It is not spam and not intended as flame bait. It is not off topic and it is not pointless humor. It is a serious comment that needs to be debated and not hidden away at the bottom of the page. I am not stating anything extremely controversial, simply the same thing the article is stating, but with a slightly different wording. Don't down vote me because you disagree with me or bec…

Well, I'll tell you what tipped me over the edge was when you played the "whoa, tell me what's wrong instead of downmodding me" when timestamps show at least three people engaging with you before this post you made here.

Yes, but the only feedback provided was that my argument was a straw-man. I.e. they disagreed with the point I was trying to make. And as far as I understand, the social contract on Hacker News implies that you don't down vote if you disagree, only if the comment is spam or trolling, etc.

Although I suppose I'm on the verge of becoming somewhat of a troll right now.

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#45

Post by daniel-cussen » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 4:04 PM UTC

jasonkester wrote: post #8

Without taking anything away from the article, it's worth noting that running a software business absolutely can provide one with a great lifestyle. More so than pretty much any other profession I can think of. The lifestyle I wanted: pretty much as close to zero required work as possible, the ability to do said negligible work from anywhere I feel like parking myself (preferably with good rock climbing), enough mone…

Not even autopilot runs on autopilot as perfectly as software.

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#46

Post by patio11 » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 4:09 PM UTC

jimboyoungblood wrote: post #24

jasonkester wrote: post #8

Without taking anything away from the article, it's worth noting that running a software business absolutely can provide one with a great lifestyle. More so than pretty much any other profession I can think of. The lifestyle I wanted: pretty much as close to zero required work as possible, the ability to do said negligible work from anywhere I feel like parking myself (preferably with good rock climbing), enough mone…

yes, you will be able to own that coffee shop, but you won't want to. being their landlord is a better way to go. also, i don't think software is viewed as a "high-prestige" profession.

Writing letters isn't high-prestige either, which is why lawyers don't describe their job as writing letters all day. Learn from their example.

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#47

Post by phillmv » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 4:12 PM UTC

jimboyoungblood wrote: post #24

jasonkester wrote: post #8

Without taking anything away from the article, it's worth noting that running a software business absolutely can provide one with a great lifestyle. More so than pretty much any other profession I can think of. The lifestyle I wanted: pretty much as close to zero required work as possible, the ability to do said negligible work from anywhere I feel like parking myself (preferably with good rock climbing), enough mone…

yes, you will be able to own that coffee shop, but you won't want to. being their landlord is a better way to go. also, i don't think software is viewed as a "high-prestige" profession.

It's relatively easy for us to be in the top 10-5% of earners. We don't get doctor-respect, nor lawyer-money but… I'd say medium-high prestige.

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#48

Post by robfitz » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 4:33 PM UTC

MicahWedemeyer wrote: post #38

I have found that being personally interested in the product has a lot of benefits. First, if you're a user/consumer, it's easier to determine which features are most important as well as usability issues. It's surprising how unusable some products are because the developers never actually use them. Second, and most important, a personal connection helps to get you through the dark days at the start. It's very emotio…

I actually completely agree with you[1].

My [intended but perhaps poorly articulated] point was that playing DnD doesn't feel the same as making tools for DnD.

However, if you accept that premise and are willing to endure potentially dull work, then caring about DnD will allow you to make much better DnD tools.

[1] (updated to remove irrelevant personal information)

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#49

Post by true_religion » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 5:14 PM UTC

quinndupont wrote: post #17

lhnn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'd downvote you if I could, not because I disagree with you, but because this is a strawman. The author used a low margin, low sucess business example to make a point about what mindset someone should be in to successfully run a business. You took from that the message that anything enjoyable is not sustainable. "Focus on creating something inherently good --> it will not be sustainable" You also l…

Coffee is an insanely high margin product. You think it costs $4.00 for the 5 grams of coffee in your drink?

Coffee itself is high margin, but the coffee business is not a high margin business.

You have to employ people to make coffee manually, and quickly. You have to buy a machine to aid them in this, and keep it in good maintenance.

Additionally, you have to supply perishables like milk to go in the coffee.

You have to keep them in your shop buying coffee, or incite them to buy coffee here when they're hungry instead of going to go to dunkin dounuts.

You can do this with nice decor, or by placing yourself in an already attractive location, or taking a margin loss on selling bake goods in order to bring in coffee customers.

In any case, your high margins for coffee product have rapidly vanished.

Re: The coffeeshop fallacy

#50

Post by hack_edu » Thu, Oct 20, 2011, 5:18 PM UTC

quinndupont wrote: post #16

Since when does a coffee shop have a 10% success rate? According to a large study by the Speciality Coffee Association of America, independent coffee shops in the US have a 90% success rate. Perhaps the author mistakenly assumed coffee shops have the same market dynamics as a restaurant, but coffee is low-staff, low-overhead, and high-profit. So long as people are walking in the door, you'll do okay.

The only café's I see around the bay area that are Speciality Coffee Association of America members are those that are long-established and shockingly up-scale.

Does this study apply to newly founded coffee shops, or just the failure of existing ones? The analogy in the article is more toward newly founded businesses. Citation?