Unfortunately, the rarity of the super product means this tactic is useless. Step 1. Be born with silver spoon in mouth
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The Zombocom Problem
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Re: The Zombocom Problem
#12> Platforms have to start here too. Otherwise, they’re DOA.
Completely agree with this. The person who starts building the ultimate meta-framework or meta-API as step 1 is almost inevitably doomed to failure if they can't articulate a specific problem they solve better for their users.
Re: The Zombocom Problem
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was the "lucky" part? The article claims that Bezos learned that web usage was growing 2300% a year (public knowledge), decided to sell stuff on the web, made a list of 20 potential products, and decided that books were the one where an online store could best compete. Is that wrong? It makes it sound like the particular way Bezos was lucky was by happening to be smart, smarter than the rest of us who were payin…
What I mean by luck is that I don't think that Bezos (or the rest of us) had any special qualifications or experiences that meant that we were the only ones who could have made amzn work. He was lucky in that his situation at D.E. Shaw allowed him to do the market research that led him to the book store concept (notably after Shaw rejected it). He wasn't smarter than the rest of us. Had Shaw not asked him to research…
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Re: The Zombocom Problem
#14Unfortunately, the rarity of the super product means this tactic is useless. Step 1. Be born with silver spoon in mouth
I don't know. The reality is just that most business ideas don't pan out. There were hundreds of well-funded efforts to build online retailers before Amazon happened. If you're well-off, it's obviously easier to try and try again, but you're still likely to fail. I think the article is right in that if you don't have a clear business idea ("we're building a platform"), the odds are even worse. Except when they aren't…
Amazon retail was the first customer for AWS.
Re: The Zombocom Problem
#15I remember, when I was just starting, the founder of the company saying that if you tell him you're offering an 'engine' that's mostly saying you don't have an app. Of course, some successfully sell 'engines', but I think there's a basic truth that you need users to make your business work and make what you're building better and battle-hardened, and to get those users you usually have to be providing just what someo…
I've also noticed this. Seems rare to find successful frameworks that were actually built out as a framework from the start.
Here are two that I worked on for 10 and 5 years, respectively:
https://Intercoin.org/applications
Maybe I was just a crazy socialist LOL
Here is the why:
Re: The Zombocom Problem
#16Earlier quoted context omitted.
What was the "lucky" part? The article claims that Bezos learned that web usage was growing 2300% a year (public knowledge), decided to sell stuff on the web, made a list of 20 potential products, and decided that books were the one where an online store could best compete. Is that wrong? It makes it sound like the particular way Bezos was lucky was by happening to be smart, smarter than the rest of us who were payin…
What I mean by luck is that I don't think that Bezos (or the rest of us) had any special qualifications or experiences that meant that we were the only ones who could have made amzn work. He was lucky in that his situation at D.E. Shaw allowed him to do the market research that led him to the book store concept (notably after Shaw rejected it). He wasn't smarter than the rest of us. Had Shaw not asked him to research…
I see! So the luck was in happening to be paying attention to the right things, and happening to bet on them even though other equally smart people (like David Shaw) decided not to, given the same information? Thank you for explaining.
Re: The Zombocom Problem
#17So but how do we build software that can be anything without falling into the Zombocom trap? I believe that Bezos interview shows us exactly how.
[insert list here]
No offense, I'm from GenX, we were doing those things before Bezos came along in fact that was the norm. See VisiCalc one paragraph up for an example. Attempting to create markets for your product like with the Metaverse or blockchain solutions versus just creating products for an actual market that already exists is a relatively new phenomena in the industry. I don't know why we started doing this to begin with.
Re: The Zombocom Problem
#18While I’m not quite sure what we’re talking about here in terms of platforms, I’ll mention a couple of personal and team server platforms that are subject to the Zombocom Problem and a couple that aren’t. WordPress, NextCloud, and OwnCloud try to be all you need and even though they have plugins they seem subject to the Zombocom problem, because stuff gets shoehorned into a particular app. On the other hand there is https://sandstorm.org/ and Dokku, which let you run an app and just give resources to them, so if you want to run a Trello clone you can just run the Trello clone.
Sandstorm had a clear goal of getting critical mass and changing personal servers forever and I think in many ways it was close.
Re: The Zombocom Problem
#19So but how do we build software that can be anything without falling into the Zombocom trap? I believe that Bezos interview shows us exactly how. [insert list here] No offense, I'm from GenX, we were doing those things before Bezos came along in fact that was the norm. See VisiCalc one paragraph up for an example. Attempting to create markets for your product like with the Metaverse or blockchain solutions versus jus…
> I don't know why we started doing this to begin with.
Because Steve Jobs said:
> People don't know what they want until you show it to them.
and too many people wrongly believe that they are as smart as Steve Jobs.
Re: The Zombocom Problem
#20So but how do we build software that can be anything without falling into the Zombocom trap? I believe that Bezos interview shows us exactly how. [insert list here] No offense, I'm from GenX, we were doing those things before Bezos came along in fact that was the norm. See VisiCalc one paragraph up for an example. Attempting to create markets for your product like with the Metaverse or blockchain solutions versus jus…
Everyone thinks they’re a genius that can solve every problem and no one wants to sell books better.
More realistically, everyone knows the best you can get with your own little thing is bought out. That is not enough for many smart people’s ego.