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Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

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Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#31

Post by vkou »

sigstoat wrote: post #15
nologic01 wrote: post #7

No we shouldn't. In fact we should denormalize a lot of dysfunctional business models, the transactional, excessively financialised, dehumanised business that has become the norm. A business is group of people building things together. Its a family. Its a village. We dont want ephemeral families, we dont want ephemeral communities. What we have is not working (pun). The overall drift of the last decades has led to an…

> A business is group of people building things together. Its a family. Its a village. you'll be happier when you stop looking for family at work.

I suspect that the parent poster will be happier when the entirety of their public life isn't a hop from one precarious perch to another.

Why do you think social cohesion and mental health is in the dumps in the developed world?

Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#32

Post by Swizec »

vkou wrote: post #29
Swizec wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's also a whole world of business outside of tech that most of HN is not familiar with I once read that the most reliably money-making business in America is a car wash. Comes with a built-in monopoly because people will only drive so far to wash their car and reliably generates low 7 figures in sales. Plenty of repeat customers and low churn if you meet a quality bar. But who wants a 70% chance at being a mil…

> But who wants a 70% chance at being a millionaire, when there's 0.01% chance at being a billionaire on offer? Literally anyone in the world will take the first deal.

And yet here we all are on HN not taking that deal playing pretend that any day now our lottery tickets will turn into billions :)

Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#33

Post by b2c0412 »

walleeee wrote: post #2

it's a compelling idea imo, if one considers the many ills wrought by organizations which outlive their usefulness and turn to parasitism but we must also heavily penalize hollow businesses, which exist mainly to funnel preexisting wealth to founders/employees before evaporating a similar concept could be fruitful in material technology as well, where ephemeral doesn't mean "obsolete in 2 years so we can sell you a n…

"outlive their usefulness and turn to parasitism" or to become shell companies that keep promising a future or self-deluding that there will be one

Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#34

Post by jrm4 »

It's funny how this is a weird or foreign idea to so many. I teach in IT, so I'm soaked in all the "entrepeneurship" stuff; but somewhere else here had it right. One way to think of a business is that it's simply a machine to solve a problem. It doesn't have to be a self-sustaining money maker.

I'd go so far as to argue that generally, the former is probably better for the world.

Anecdotally, this 100% describes why I started a business. Like many people, I fantasized about the idea of "having a business" but didn't do anything at all serious toward that. For me, it wasn't until an opportunity arose that had not much to do with "making money" per se. Specifically, I'm close to people who tried to start a Black news channel, and the website was trash; I knew I could to a LOT better, and I thought the whole idea was good. The channel didn't work out, everyone had other jobs, and so I don't have much of a business anymore AND THATS FINE.

Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#35

Post by vkou »

Swizec wrote: post #32
vkou wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But who wants a 70% chance at being a millionaire, when there's 0.01% chance at being a billionaire on offer? Literally anyone in the world will take the first deal.

And yet here we all are on HN not taking that deal playing pretend that any day now our lottery tickets will turn into billions :)

The number of founders and #1-3 employees reading and posting on HN is dwarfed by the number of literally everyone else.

Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#36

Post by dghlsakjg »

walleeee wrote: post #27
vasco wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but we must also heavily penalize hollow businesses, which exist mainly to funnel preexisting wealth to founders/employees before evaporating What does this mean? Isn't all wealth that can be used to purchase goods or services "pre-existing" and by definition going to the owners of companies if they manage to make a profit? I might be missing something because it seems you just described all businesses so I wouldn'…

on one side of the spectrum you have Theranos, all manner of predatory financial instruments, need I go on? while on the other extreme you have a cabbage in your garden, which we call a "primary producer" for good reason: it's a fully automated business which for a bit of tending will yield you dinner sure, we're surfing an energy gradient, all of us children of the sun's benevolent surfeit, wealth already exists, fi…

To be fair to theranos, there were very intelligent people trying to do something incredible and had an actual product they wanted to make. If they had been able to do accomplish even some of what Holmes claimed they could, they would have had a real impact.

Unfortunately the business was run by a set of sociopaths supervised by a board of geriatrics with no experience in the industry.

Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#37

Post by bombcar »

bluGill wrote: post #23
Swizec wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's also a whole world of business outside of tech that most of HN is not familiar with I once read that the most reliably money-making business in America is a car wash. Comes with a built-in monopoly because people will only drive so far to wash their car and reliably generates low 7 figures in sales. Plenty of repeat customers and low churn if you meet a quality bar. But who wants a 70% chance at being a mil…

Unfortunately things like car washes are zero sum games - if there already is one "in town" and you open a second all your business at best comes from what the other already had, and in the worst case it starts a price war and make far less. Sure I won't go to the next town for my car washes, but just on my short route to the office I pass 3, and I know of a couple more that would be an insignificant detour. I think…

This is exactly it - and the car washes that "make the money" are more and more the ones attached to gas stations, where they have the latest robotic car ticklers.

Some people (larger trucks, etc) might still pay to use the manual car wash, but the costs are very similar and most will just use the gas station one.

It's like laundromats - there's a very defined market in an area for them, and if you supply that market you can do well, but if it's already supplied you're in for a world of hurt.

Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#38

Post by b2c0412 »

jrm4 wrote: post #34

It's funny how this is a weird or foreign idea to so many. I teach in IT, so I'm soaked in all the "entrepeneurship" stuff; but somewhere else here had it right. One way to think of a business is that it's simply a machine to solve a problem. It doesn't have to be a self-sustaining money maker. I'd go so far as to argue that generally, the former is probably better for the world. Anecdotally, this 100% describes why…

Agree, "a business is simply a machine to solve a problem." The problem is when keeping the business alive as long as possible becomes the core problem to solve.

Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#39

Post by mlhpdx »

Around 2000 I was in Stanford’s executive education program and the discussion at hand was a case study about a company that faced a disruption with a large cash reserve on hand. The question was what the leadership team should do, and the answers were all variations of “spend the money”. Except one - a lone voice allowing that the company could return the funds to investors and call it a day.

Pure heresy. Return the funds, allow investors to decide how/when/if to reinvest? Soundly rejected by the presenter and audience.

I wonder if that’d go differently today? I hope so.

Re: Should we normalize ephemeral businesses?

#40

Post by rufus_foreman »

larsrc wrote: post #30

That is so Silicon Valley. 30 years as the longest span? There are businesses here in Munich that have been around longer than the US has existed. They are not "investable", though, they just go about doing good solid products that people need.

>> There are businesses here in Munich that have been around longer than the US has existed.

There are businesses here in the US that have been around longer than the US has existed.

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