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In a similar vein, we used "Kinder", which is like Tinder except it's for choosing baby names - it shows you names that both you and your partner swiped right on. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kinder-find-baby-names/id10684...
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Then don't make it VC-funded: make it a charitable foundation or worker-owned cooperative or something.
All joking aside, if you were to make a charitable foundation or worker-owned co-op, how would you overcome the same challenge software itself has? — Letting the world know it exists. Anyone can code up an application over a weekend. That isn't the problem. VC money is for use in letting everyone else know that you created it. Long, long gone is the age where you could throw something up on the App Store and see the…
It also helps if your service is still somewhat useful to individuals, in the absence of network effects. So, once the core service (organise meetups between users) is implemented, get to work on aggregating and categorising social events that already exist. (Use standard protocols, to leave the ladder around for others to climb, but keep track of your API consumers: some of them might be hostile anti-social entities like Facebook, whose existences need to be nipped in the bud.) Once you have something genuinely useful, pick a small-ish city, and guerilla advertise in it. If you've done things right, that should be enough.
Now, leave a skeleton crew on it, and move on to the Next Big Thing. You should be able to maintain three or four pieces of infrastructure in this way, some of which you might even be able to charge money for! (But resist the temptation to monetise and enshittify, or even just excessively-tweak, what you've built.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
All joking aside, if you were to make a charitable foundation or worker-owned co-op, how would you overcome the same challenge software itself has? — Letting the world know it exists. Anyone can code up an application over a weekend. That isn't the problem. VC money is for use in letting everyone else know that you created it. Long, long gone is the age where you could throw something up on the App Store and see the…
Word-of-mouth. Say to your users: "if you want this to be useful, ask your friends to use it, talk about it online…". (You'll get low conversion rates from this, but it's free, and it doesn't promulgate an attention economy the way that billboards and banner ads do.) Advertising is effort, but it's not that hard, really: most advertising firms are extremely inefficient at their jobs, but they get paid because the alt…
If that worked, why would anyone give up their business to VCs ever? Having VCs is not a fun place to be. It is a horrible situation to find yourself in (unless you are the VC, I suppose).
There was a time where you could rely on word-of-mouth, but those days are behind us. Everyone and their brother is vying for word-of-mouth attention nowadays. The noise is too great. It takes vast resources to emit a usable signal.
In a similar vein, we used "Kinder", which is like Tinder except it's for choosing baby names - it shows you names that both you and your partner swiped right on. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/kinder-find-baby-names/id10684...
Now hear me out, Tinder but for kids. Could go by the same "Kinder" name.
No.
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Word-of-mouth. Say to your users: "if you want this to be useful, ask your friends to use it, talk about it online…". (You'll get low conversion rates from this, but it's free, and it doesn't promulgate an attention economy the way that billboards and banner ads do.) Advertising is effort, but it's not that hard, really: most advertising firms are extremely inefficient at their jobs, but they get paid because the alt…
> Word-of-mouth. If that worked, why would anyone give up their business to VCs ever? Having VCs is not a fun place to be. It is a horrible situation to find yourself in (unless you are the VC, I suppose). There was a time where you could rely on word-of-mouth, but those days are behind us. Everyone and their brother is vying for word-of-mouth attention nowadays. The noise is too great. It takes vast resources to emi…
1. Some businesses can't just be built from nothing-but-software-and-server. You need warehouses, logistics, and all sorts of other fixed costs that exist before you can start recouping your investment. Not everyone has the money to start such a business, despite otherwise having the ability.
2. People aren't entirely stupid. If something's a scam, con, or otherwise a detriment to human flourishing, they're not going to use it unless they have reason to doubt their assessment. Advertising is good at getting people to associate thing with sentiment, which can override their bullshit detectors.
Something that's genuinely-useful, and genuinely-better, can spread without any advertising spending, once it's past the threshold where noise no longer dominates. (For example, Plausible Analytics: I poked around their demo, concluded that it was strictly better than Google Analytics, and (after a couple of chats with one of the founders) started telling everyone with a website about it. I was clearly not the only one.)
I have no idea why anyone would give up their business to VCs if they don't need investment to kick it off, and aren't running a long con.
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> Word-of-mouth. If that worked, why would anyone give up their business to VCs ever? Having VCs is not a fun place to be. It is a horrible situation to find yourself in (unless you are the VC, I suppose). There was a time where you could rely on word-of-mouth, but those days are behind us. Everyone and their brother is vying for word-of-mouth attention nowadays. The noise is too great. It takes vast resources to emi…
Two reasons: 1. Some businesses can't just be built from nothing-but-software-and-server. You need warehouses, logistics, and all sorts of other fixed costs that exist before you can start recouping your investment. Not everyone has the money to start such a business, despite otherwise having the ability. 2. People aren't entirely stupid. If something's a scam, con, or otherwise a detriment to human flourishing, they…
That type of business is rarely appealing to VCs. VCs seek rapid growth and quick exits. Warehouses are the antithesis of that. Hard to scale and even harder to sell. It is an investible business for the right type of investor, but VCs and investors are not synonymous.
> once it's past the threshold where noise no longer dominates.
You are technically correct here, but we're clearly talking about the stage before you've already overcome the noise floor.
> Plausible Analytics
They claim to be self-funded — in other words, acting as their own VCs. Which is all well and good when you're already rich, but if you're already rich (and not looking to get richer) why not just hire a concierge/matchmaker? What do you need a poor man's app for?
I have a folder with furry art and when I'm bored I scroll that.