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Half-Baked Product

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Re: Half-Baked Product

#291

Post by dolebirchwood »

move-on-by wrote: post #94

I remember sitting in on a sales meeting early in my career. I kept quiet, but afterwards I complained to my manager that they were selling features that didn’t exist and conflicted with core concepts of the product. My manager told me that was how sales were made. I left the company not long after, I was already disgruntled prior to that discussion. I’ve seen the same thing everywhere I go. I don’t have the disposit…

I was doing contract work last year for a young solo founder, and he promised a feature to a big customer who only signed up because of this one feature. It was a feature he vibecoded and was able to demo in ways that made it look like it was working, when in reality it was a buggy POS. The customer was going to go live on the platform in a few weeks, and this kid expected me to work over my pre-planned holiday to actually get this (frankly rather complex) feature built properly. I told him good luck, ended the contract, and enjoyed my holiday. No time for that BS.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#292

Post by stickfigure »

iamjackg wrote: post #272
stickfigure wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This situation does exist though; otherwise startups and new products would never succeed. Big companies have blind spots. Netflix, Google, Airbnb, Uber, Slack, the iPhone, Github, Stripe, Dropbox. Big players at the time could have built their products, but didn't.

How many of those are "the exact same product, but better" though? Definitely the iPhone, and possibly Slack. Everything else you listed was a drastic change in the way an existing service (taxis, home media, backups) was delivered or priced, to the point where they feel like either an entirely different product (or an unsustainably priced one that wins by virtue of being cheaper at first, see Uber and Airbnb). I'm n…

Google was definitely "exact same product, but better". It was a search box.

However, I think Anova would be a better direct counterpoint. They started in sous vide, replacing existing products that did the same thing but better. But now they are literally trying to replace ovens. That effort started after the Electrolux acquisition in 2017, but they do seem to be pretty successful. A friend of mine really likes their steam oven, and if I had more space in the kitchen, I would be tempted.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#293

Post by mepiethree »

phtrivier wrote: post #180

This article could have been written 20 years ago (source : I was there), probably 50 years ago, and will probably be written for ever. (Although future éditions will have fun about AI.) What I would love is to read more of the story from the perspective of the salesperson (we're all too sympathetic to the engineers, and potentially ceo - but I suspect their part of the story goes beyond "I'll just say yes to everyth…

from my friends in sales, sales perspective could be: going from meeting to meeting just getting yelled at.

- previous customer yells at you for not delivering required features. You ask the engineer about the status of that feature

- engineers write a manifesto on #general complaining about you for asking them about the status of the new feature

- PM calls you in to yell at you for trying to jump the roadmap

- you start prepping for weekly call with the CEO. at least doubled your numbers this quarter!

- while you're prepping you get a response to one of your cold emails from the day prior, someone calling you "gauche" and "annoying"

- go into CEO meeting. CEO yells at you for being 80% under the quota, because the psychotic quota was set to 10x last year's numbers.

- long day! go home. husband yells at you for working late

etc.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#294

Post by ryandrake »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #284
metalrain wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the story they spend months to build the MVP and people don't like it. This clearly is first point where they could "fail fast", but they believe they can improve and they do. I guess I'm thinking where is the "fail fast" that is fast enough, but also not quitting too early?

> In the story they spend months to build the MVP and people don't like it. Oh, that was another problem! The story says: >> In practice it doesn’t work very well, but it’s good enough for an MVP. No, that's quite clearly not good enough for an MVP! If your product's core functionality—baking stuff, in this case—only works one third of the time, then your product is not viable! It is maybe a proof of concept, but cer…

> No, that's quite clearly not good enough for an MVP!

I think this speaks to the other major weakness of most founders: that they are optimists to a fault. The "MVP" in the story was a colossal failure. It wasn't "good enough." It was a disaster, and they should have just stopped there. But founders wouldn't be founders if they were able to know failure when they see it.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#295

Post by weitendorf »

HelloNurse wrote: post #233
weitendorf wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the opposite reaction, this felt like a story that was literally purpose-built for pandering the hn audience without saying anything interesting. Good fiction teaches you something you hadn't seen before, or challenges your perspective, or articulates a point of view or personality that you had never before considered. If it's just "some guy went to work and it sucked and he was right and everyone else was wron…

One of the points is that, for a startup, not flailing around is very difficult and unlikely: these patterns of failure and "classic bullshit" are the universal norm. This piece "articulates a point of view or personality that you had never before considered": that you and your startup are no better than the characters in the tale, and equally doomed.

Yes, that's the Internet Consensus and the reddit comment section every time a startup doing anything is mentioned.

You should never take a risk, business people are all evil and stupid, you should treat every employment or business opportunity as purely transactional because they'll do the same to you, there's nothing you can do about your job or employment, the only way to win is to cheat because everyone else is doing it, the key to happiness is educating other there's not really any cause and effect involved in the way things work unless you, personally, already know it. Just, you shouldn't do anything unless you understand everything about it, and if you don't it's not your fault.

> not flailing around is very difficult and unlikely

This is literally the defining trait of startups. What makes it stupid is that it's always more complicated than "engineer guy did everything he could but got screwed in the end" and that in real life, sometimes people do actually make money or establish businesses because of decisions they made, and conversely that there are real causes and effects behind things that don't go the way you want them to. Telling a story that doesn't contradict in anyway with consensus (so, directionally correct but always wrong) opinion has no point in the same way that there is no point telling a story where a knight rescues a princess by journeying through the kingdom making friends and overcoming challenges, then confronts the evil guy and kills him, the end. This is just that, but "the shady business guy and the screwed engineers"

Re: Half-Baked Product

#296

Post by Feathercrown »

klondike_klive wrote: post #140
Sheeny96 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I would for sure be that rookie who is paralysed with indecision over whether to read "clean" as an adjective or an imperative. Is it telling me that it's clean or that it needs cleaning?

Given "dirty" would make a strange (although valid) imperative, it would likely be referring to the state of the dishes

Re: Half-Baked Product

#297

Post by Shacklz »

hobofan wrote: post #231
trinari wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What drives him then? Power?

Seeking approval. It's apparent from everything he posts on X + the memeing + the whole "I am a elite Path of Exile"-saga.

> + the whole "I am a elite Path of Exile"-saga

That was the most "the emperor wears no clothes"-moment I've ever witnessed in my life. I play more PoE than I care to admit, and it was obvious within mere seconds that he has absolutely no clue what's going on.

It was absolutely surreal to watch.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#298

Post by eapressoandcats »

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…

It seems to start with the fact that the founder doesn’t understand the business domain at all:

How do people actually buy ovens? What actually matters for customers, not what do they say matters? Who are the competitors and why do you think you can actually do better than them in at least some niche? What culture actually works for an oven producing company?

Re: Half-Baked Product

#299

Post by BoxFour »

iamjackg wrote: post #272
stickfigure wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This situation does exist though; otherwise startups and new products would never succeed. Big companies have blind spots. Netflix, Google, Airbnb, Uber, Slack, the iPhone, Github, Stripe, Dropbox. Big players at the time could have built their products, but didn't.

How many of those are "the exact same product, but better" though? Definitely the iPhone, and possibly Slack. Everything else you listed was a drastic change in the way an existing service (taxis, home media, backups) was delivered or priced, to the point where they feel like either an entirely different product (or an unsustainably priced one that wins by virtue of being cheaper at first, see Uber and Airbnb). I'm n…

> Everything else you listed was a drastic change in the way an existing service (taxis, home media, backups) was delivered or priced, to the point where they feel like either an entirely different product

Doesn't this still line up with the original point though?

The incumbents had the exact same opportunity to capitalize. Blockbuster could've leaned into streaming hard before Netflix.

I do think that's become a bit harder recently, though, so the original point is slightly less relevant (though obviously still exists, see for example OpenAI vis-a-vis DeepMind). Big companies are much faster on chasing trends, even if they end up amounting to not much. See crypto, for example. I do think part of that reason is because the current wave of companies capitalized where incumbents faltered, so they're desperate not to make the same mistake.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#300

Post by ryandrake »

msteffen wrote: post #183
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…

I read somewhere that almost every very successful person’s results can be attributed to 2-3 tricks that they consistently apply to great effect. With Elon, I think one of his is “build it as cheaply as possible, and then you can afford to only sell to people who are purely excited about the tech.” I don’t know when he learned this (I actually wonder if it was a lesson he learned from Eberhard/Tarpenning at Tesla, wh…

Every startup/SmallCo I worked for seemed to fall into this trap. Sales finally finds a BigCustomer, and the company instantly transforms from a product company into a custom engineering contractor for BigCustomer. We're no longer building our own product vision: We're cramming everything BigCustomer is asking for while they hold a carrot tied to a stick in front of us. We no longer have a general product that can be sold to anyone. We have BigCustomer's wish list and they still haven't bought more than a handful of units.
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