Lessons from Moneyball
37signals.com
Lessons from Moneyball
1–10 of 54 posts
Re: Lessons from Moneyball
#2A/B testing and the like will only guide you to local maxima. Human thought and intuition, ie design, will retain its importance as the impetus for original ideas which can then be optimized through testing. And users will continue to evaluate software as they do today, "with their own eyes and emotions." Sorry, nerds.
Re: Lessons from Moneyball
#3Even Better:
Dharmesh Shah's
Startup Lessons From 17 Hard-Hitting Quotes In "Moneyball"
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/76799/Startup-Lessons-F...
Re: Lessons from Moneyball
#4[deleted]
Re: Lessons from Moneyball
#5A/B testing and the like will only guide you to local maxima. Human thought and intuition, ie design, will retain its importance as the impetus for original ideas which can then be optimized through testing. And users will continue to evaluate software as they do today, "with their own eyes and emotions." Sorry, nerds.
Why test when you can wait for 37signals to publish their successful results? Then just copy that.
Re: Lessons from Moneyball
#6A/B testing and the like will only guide you to local maxima. Human thought and intuition, ie design, will retain its importance as the impetus for original ideas which can then be optimized through testing. And users will continue to evaluate software as they do today, "with their own eyes and emotions." Sorry, nerds.
Sure, small A/B testing will probably only get you to a local maxima. I've never understood why most people think A/B testing is just about changing the color of a button -- it's that, but it's so much more. It's about testing any idea, no matter how big a change it is.
Most people don't lack original ideas, just like there's no shortage of people who would like to be major league baseball players. What people do lack is the ability (or perhaps just the will) to evaluate their ideas objectively.
And while users may evaluate software with their own eyes and emotions, that behavior manifests itself in objective, quantifiable outcomes that have some impact on your business. If measurable user behavior doesn't impact your business, I'd guess you aren't really in a user-driven business.
Re: Lessons from Moneyball
#7Billy Beane's shit doesn't work in the playoffs, the book/movie ignored the Big Three, and information advantages go away.
The startup corollaries: small-bore inefficiencies can't overcome luck and strong competition, don't attribute success to A when it's really the obvious B (i.e. what differentiates your product doesn't mean it's actually better - Gowalla and foursquare is my favorite example here), and people will steal your landing pages because they work better.
Re: Lessons from Moneyball
#8Billy Beane's shit doesn't work in the playoffs, the book/movie ignored the Big Three, and information advantages go away. The startup corollaries: small-bore inefficiencies can't overcome luck and strong competition, don't attribute success to A when it's really the obvious B (i.e. what differentiates your product doesn't mean it's actually better - Gowalla and foursquare is my favorite example here), and people wil…
Billy Beane's shit doesn't work in the playoffs
What is this supposed to mean? The season gives you a 162-game sample. The playoffs are a coin-flip, by comparison. It's just too small of a sample to draw any conclusions, which is why both old- and new-school baseball guys have an endless array of cliches about how anybody who makes it in to the playoffs has a chance to win.
Re: Lessons from Moneyball
#9Billy Beane's shit doesn't work in the playoffs, the book/movie ignored the Big Three, and information advantages go away. The startup corollaries: small-bore inefficiencies can't overcome luck and strong competition, don't attribute success to A when it's really the obvious B (i.e. what differentiates your product doesn't mean it's actually better - Gowalla and foursquare is my favorite example here), and people wil…
Luckily with software you can earn or raise more money to 'change your team' to then be fit for the playoffs.
Re: Lessons from Moneyball
#10Billy Beane's shit doesn't work in the playoffs, the book/movie ignored the Big Three, and information advantages go away. The startup corollaries: small-bore inefficiencies can't overcome luck and strong competition, don't attribute success to A when it's really the obvious B (i.e. what differentiates your product doesn't mean it's actually better - Gowalla and foursquare is my favorite example here), and people wil…
Billy Beane's shit doesn't work in the playoffs What is this supposed to mean? The season gives you a 162-game sample. The playoffs are a coin-flip, by comparison. It's just too small of a sample to draw any conclusions, which is why both old- and new-school baseball guys have an endless array of cliches about how anybody who makes it in to the playoffs has a chance to win.
It's a reference to a famous essay by Nate Silver (you may know him from FiveThirtyEight at the NYTimes) and Dayn Perry: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=betweenthenu...
In short, the A's roster was actually constructed to succeed over 162 games but the compromises he had to make on defense and power pitching to get extra value are particularly fraught in the playoffs, where you're battling the better offensive teams in the league. Of course, the playoffs are a crapshoot (the Cardinals had no business being in, let alone winning in 2011), but the compromises Beane had a direct effect on their heartbreaking playoff losses in the early 2000s.