Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
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Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
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Re: Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
#2Tract was founded to build software to fix Britain’s housing crisis.
Though there are problems software can fix, software cannot fix most problems because most problems are not software problems.
In the case of real-estate, it is a mistake to assume general market inefficiency. For example, the "housing crisis" might be a crisis for people looking for housing, but it is not a crisis for land owners and land owners are the real estate market.
A good rule of thumb is "if you think software can solve a problem, you probably don't understand the problem."
Re: Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
#3Tract was founded to build software to fix Britain’s housing crisis. Though there are problems software can fix, software cannot fix most problems because most problems are not software problems. In the case of real-estate, it is a mistake to assume general market inefficiency. For example, the "housing crisis" might be a crisis for people looking for housing, but it is not a crisis for land owners and land owners ar…
Reminds me of an interview I saw at the height of the NFT/crypto craze, when the interviewee was challenged to come up with a use-case, and they threw out "buying a house".
So there is (AFAIK) just one part of the process to buy a house that blockchains could address, and that is transfer of ownership. The rest of the process is an estate agent (realtor) communicating between buyer/seller/legal/etc to make it all happen. A tiny proportion would be solved 'on-chain'.
Maybe shouldn't need to be said, but people really need to _actually_ understand a problem before proposing a solution!
Re: Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
#4" Housing in Britain is expensive because getting planning permission is difficult. "
Nothing to do with millions of new people arriving wanting to live somewhere?
Re: Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
#5Tract was founded to build software to fix Britain’s housing crisis. Though there are problems software can fix, software cannot fix most problems because most problems are not software problems. In the case of real-estate, it is a mistake to assume general market inefficiency. For example, the "housing crisis" might be a crisis for people looking for housing, but it is not a crisis for land owners and land owners ar…
I was discussing railways to somebody and noting how at-capacity the British network is. He was adamant that we just hadn't optimised the system enough and that more maths and more software was needed. I tried my best to explain that we had in fact done that, and that in the end, there's no getting around the bottleneck of moving 100 tonne vehicles along a finite set of steel rails.
Re: Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
#6[flagged]
Re: Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
#7" Housing in Britain is expensive because getting planning permission is difficult. " Nothing to do with millions of new people arriving wanting to live somewhere?
About 6% to 10% increase in housing cost due to immigration in the UK since 1990. Total increase ~150%. So marginal impact.[1]
But nice populist dog whistle.
1: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/migration-and-hou...
Re: Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
#8Tract was founded to build software to fix Britain’s housing crisis. Though there are problems software can fix, software cannot fix most problems because most problems are not software problems. In the case of real-estate, it is a mistake to assume general market inefficiency. For example, the "housing crisis" might be a crisis for people looking for housing, but it is not a crisis for land owners and land owners ar…
I was discussing railways to somebody and noting how at-capacity the British network is. He was adamant that we just hadn't optimised the system enough and that more maths and more software was needed. I tried my best to explain that we had in fact done that, and that in the end, there's no getting around the bottleneck of moving 100 tonne vehicles along a finite set of steel rails.
You could apply clever modelling to work out what minimal set of upgrades would best increase capacity .. and then spend the next 30 years trying to get one line built.
We're stuck at basic political questions like "should there be efficient trains between London and Manchester?" At least Burnham knows what a Manchester is.
Re: Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
#9Before studying the document with great curiosity I need to express the feeling of newcomer entrepreneurs to the construction sector not living those highlighted barriers before starting this noble quest.
Re: Postmortem of a British Startup: Tract
#10" Housing in Britain is expensive because getting planning permission is difficult. " Nothing to do with millions of new people arriving wanting to live somewhere?
That, and the green belts suffocating the cities where people can have jobs, and the passive money accumulated in funds seeking reliable place to park. Some others too, anyhow, better not to pick a single one.