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Half-Baked Product

weli.dev

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Re: Half-Baked Product

#251

Post by jason_s »

weli wrote: post #7
k7peak wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave up, how did this make it to page 1 jeez.

I've been experimenting with writing longer-form content. I do agree the main point could be condensed a lot and I'm not the a great writer by far. This is kind of a rant and really cathartic for me to write after working more than 5 years on startups. Just wanted to share it.

Really liked it, and somewhat envious that you were able to create such a well-written, cohesive piece of just about the right length. (I blog on different topics and it's so hard to keep things short and not wandering.)

Re: Half-Baked Product

#252

Post by post-it »

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 fundamental problem is that reality has a surprising level of detail (as described in an article by the same name). The founder is the same kind of guy that believes the government should just get rid of inefficiencies.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#253

Post by metalrain »

nilirl wrote: post #193

Honest question: Does the founder end up making money this way? Can you really get rich building a failed business?

Usually no.

And I have to say that no one tries to build a failed business. Founders can be really earnest about their intentions, work harder when they see the cracks, but often it just doesn't work, they don't find the right way before it's too late.

Maybe just before the end someone tries to siphon the funds into private account or assets into their next venture, but you tend to get caught doing so.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#254

Post by carlosjobim »

weli wrote: post #172
dzink wrote: post #165

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 oven…

But slow organic growth is not a hyperscaling unicorn. Who wants to invest money for a mere 50% return? We need to x100 or x1000 it for it to even be worth to invest.

Slow organic growth doesn't need investments. It pays for itself from revenue. If you need investments, it means the business is gearing up to become bigger, and will have jumps in both expenses and income.

So I can't see the reason for the sarcasm. Different things.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#255

Post by rdbl27 »

icegreentea2 wrote: post #237

I like this part: The founder gets angry. He promised the VCs 10% of Spain’s oven market. The entire market. “We can’t sacrifice any of them.” It’s not just greed. The 5 million was raised with the entire market on the slide. The founder isn’t choosing between right and wrong: he’s choosing which promise to break. I wonder what the author had in mind when he wrote "which promise to break". Is the founder thinking abo…

He's coldly rational:

The investors gave him $5 million. Large commitment, large risk.

Each customer gives him 15k per unit. Even a rare large customer who buys 100 ovens gives him 150k. Small commitment, small risk.

If he breaks his promise to the investors, he can't raise more money easily. It will be very hard to find another $5 million.

If he breaks his promise to the customers with a garbage product, he can more easily find a replacement customer for the much smaller risk.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#256

Post by BalinKing »

marvinstrauch wrote: post #46

Uncomfortably accurate, but a fantastic read. Somewhere between the candle button and "It doesn't rotate clockwise" I stopped laughing and started remembering.

Welcome to HN. Just a heads up that, from the site guidelines[0]:

> Don't post generated text or AI-edited text. HN is for conversation between humans.

(I'm not a mod or anything; I just noticed that most of your comments have been flagged/killed, and I suspect this might be why.)

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Half-Baked Product

#257

Post by annjose »

Such a great read! I kept on nodding and chuckling the whole time reading it. I can see myself as the founder, especially 'spending time in the oven forums' lol.

I went to the /blog route to see other posts by the author, but alas, there is only this one! And that's a gem.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#258

Post by vntok »

quijoteuniv wrote: post #128
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.

Oh, I’m glad I don’t work in the oven or dishwasher business. We’re just starting a stealth startup that’s revolutionizing coding assistants, and the prototypes are amazing. They write code faster, explain it better, and this weekend we’re hoping to solve the last remaining issue: occasionally, they deploy to production.

This issue does not come from the coding assistant. In fact, humans will occasionally do the exact same thing as long as their tools have enough permissions to deploy to both local and prod from the same environment.

Fix it by separating the tools (different non-interconnected VMs, etc for dev/qa/preprod/prod environments) and the permissions (different accounts, sessions, tokens, etc for the run/debug/test/deploy loops).

Re: Half-Baked Product

#259

Post by [deleted] »

Sheeny96 wrote: post #99
askvictor wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long dreamed of a dishwasher that can detect when you remove the (cleaned) dishes from it, and presents a display saying 'load dishes' or something like that. And after finishing a cycle, says 'unload dishes'. Should be pretty easy to achieve with some load cells in the feet, but haven't seen any like that.

We had this at my old work, except it wasn't a display, it was a circular piece of paper with "clean" on one side and "dirty" on the other. When it was done, you rotate the paper so it was clean side up. Should we have gone for series A? It was a pretty great MVP after all, albeit manual, but automation of the paper flipping would of course come on the second iteration

[deleted]

Re: Half-Baked Product

#260

Post by doubleorseven »

Waterluvian wrote: post #80
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…

Restaurant dishwashers use an enormous amount of water. They require a hot water supply that’s much hotter than residential heaters typically supply. They require a more complete manual pre-rinse and scrub. They only accept kitchenware that’s made for them and destroy the rest. Restaurants cycle dishes a lot during a single mealtime. Homes don’t. I don’t think “I can’t wait 2 hours” is typically a real problem.

the real problem with home dishwasher is that it extend the duration of the task.

the task is prepare food, eat, clean. when you leave the kitchen and come back the next day the task is now different, its unpack, prepare,eat,clean.

you are constantly not finishing today's tasks. it lives to see another day. if you can fix it, bound it to the workflow, you will be a billionaire

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