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Half-Baked Product

weli.dev

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Re: Half-Baked Product

#161

Post by euroderf »

sixtram wrote: post #23

Oh, I'm glad I don't work in the oven business. We're just starting a stealth startup that's revolutionizing dishwashers, and the prototypes are amazing. They use less water, less detergent, and this weekend we're hoping to solve the last remaining issue: occasionally, they break glasses.

> less water, less detergent,

I achieve the first two goals by simply scrubbing+rinsing dishes after most uses and letting them dry. No glued-on food to go gnarly. They go thru the dishwasher once in a while. It's my personal strategy for being eco without getting food poisoning, but I've never seen a paper that evaluates this method in comparison to more-typical workflows (i.e. in-sink wash-using-soap or in-dishwasher wash-using-soap).

Re: Half-Baked Product

#162

Post by rpdillon »

weli wrote: post #145
lilerjee wrote: post #143

Interesting story. This seems a true story of the author? The author understands the characters of the people in the process of business. Understanding reality is not easy.

Not a situation that happened to me per se. More of a mix of situations that have happened to me and I've seen happen to people close to me aggregated into a single metaphor.

I've been working in startups since 2012 and this was a superbly crafted narrative that articulates so many of the odd circumstances that lead to inscrutable decisions in early stage companies...really well done!

Re: Half-Baked Product

#163

Post by BobBagwill »

chasd00 wrote: post #98
flowerbreeze wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're joking, but I've long dreamed of a different type of dishwasher. One that washes instantly. I don't need it to fit more than a single plate at one time. Just put something in from one end, and out comes clean and dry plate on the other end. Like a car wash. I am quite certain these exist already large kitchens and I seem to remember one from a school diner from maybe 35 years ago, but I've alway…

The answer is obviously paper plates and plastic silverware /s

Then someone has to remember to buy them and take out the trash. The canonical solution is for you and your lazy roommates to eat straight from the pot over the sink. When done, fill the pot with water, to discourage the ants and roaches. Occasionally, you end up with a drowned ratling, but hey, wachagonna do?

One pot, no dishes. Each roommate has to keep track of their private spoon. Greedy "clever" roommate who shows up with a liter ladle triggers a spoon fight in the kitchen. Eating from pot by hand is corrected by rapping their knuckles with your spoons. Eventually, all the glassware ends up broken, and some bozo threw out all the used red solo cups, but luckily, the kitchen faucet has a spray attachment.

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Airman's Odyssey

Re: Half-Baked Product

#164

Post by themightyquinn »

I’ve felt like this before but I think the responsibility of the founding engineer is underestimated. 20% of the company is a cofounder and a partnership. The failure was compromising on the buttons. An engineer who can say “no” is far more valuable than the one who will grind out features for a sales call.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#165

Post by dzink »

Here is another story: A baker who bakes for her kids every day makes an oven. She spends years perfecting it by herself with details only someone who uses this product would notice. The nuance of gold baked details in just the right places on the bread, the infusion of essences for the cakes. The precise charring on the pizzas. She goes to young founder events to meet likeminded makers and they talk about space ovens and OvenCrunch incubators fund them just on school name and ideas. But the oven maker with the kids doesn’t even get an interview. She applies with a working product and increasing sales year over year for 10 years and no interview. Her over becomes an organically growing best seller and she doesn’t need the seed money anymore. Incubator founders have spend their seed funding on fancy trips and conferences and flying over the Egyptian pyramids on instagram. The Incubator partners say they don’t fund oven makers anymore because the business is too slow to grow and consumer stuff is a tarpit.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#166

Post by orliesaurus »

weli wrote: post #145
lilerjee wrote: post #143

Interesting story. This seems a true story of the author? The author understands the characters of the people in the process of business. Understanding reality is not easy.

Not a situation that happened to me per se. More of a mix of situations that have happened to me and I've seen happen to people close to me aggregated into a single metaphor.

Amazing job writing this up!

Re: Half-Baked Product

#167

Post by DANmode »

sixtram wrote: post #23

Oh, I'm glad I don't work in the oven business. We're just starting a stealth startup that's revolutionizing dishwashers, and the prototypes are amazing. They use less water, less detergent, and this weekend we're hoping to solve the last remaining issue: occasionally, they break glasses.

Are you really doing this?

I’d like to speak with you, if so.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#168

Post by terminalbraid »

brap wrote: post #159

We keep seeing this. If you had to point out the fundamental problem, what would it be? I think it’s the disconnect. Each persona is an expert in their own field but is completely oblivious to other critical areas. The founder knows how to raise money but doesn’t really understand the customers. The engineer knows the tech but doesn’t really understand what it takes to keep the business afloat. The salesperson knows…

> The engineer knows the tech but doesn’t really understand what it takes to keep the business afloat.

This is assuming there IS a way to keep the business afloat. It's this framing of thinking that has caused more suffering, frustration, and bad will in all the places I've worked at which are just reskins of this article.

A business is entitled to it's model but it is not entitled to success. This story which is more than just a strawman or anecdote gets it right: The engineers are doing their job the best they can with unreasonable expectations set by people who do not feel they need to be constrained by reality and just have dollar signs in their eyes. The engineers do not share the same type of blame as everyone else at the company. Their failure was enabling nonsense and greed.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#169

Post by ngm7 »

Being able to say no, across the company! Having an engineering team which is allowed to say No the founder. Having a sales team which is allowed to say No to the customer. Having founders who are allowed to say No to themselves, sit patiently and figure the root-causes.
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