In all fairness, Pinterest still looks like a stupid idea. Like Twitter. Like Instagram.
Stupid is popular, though. You don't need to build more than the most mundane of the things to have a popular product.
What a stupid idea
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Re: What a stupid idea
#22I still do this - it's something I'm actively trying to fix. I'm worse still when products never materialize into a full-fledged success, still seem mvp/alpha but provide enough interest and income to spin up a proper shop here and there.
I think the root of it, for me at least, is just a bit of envy staring down at me from my shelf of half-completed and less interesting ideas.
Re: What a stupid idea
#23In 1978 I thought Bill Gates trying to sell BASIC interpreters for what was 90% of the cost of the computer to run them was a pretty stupid idea :-) That said, one of my VC friends defines an Entrepreneur as someone who can take a stupid idea and make it successful. Sort of an homage to the whole idea that they can see something you cannot. These days when I'm confronted by this sort of proposal I ask the person maki…
I thought bottled water was idiotic "Who's gonna pay that for water ? ! ? Gone in six months." And phone sex lines. "1.99$ first minute, $.99 each additional minute? Please!" In six months their rates doubled. Business models can be hard to judge.
Re: What a stupid idea
#24Stupid idea doesn't mean it's not gonna make money. Great idea doesn't mean it's gonna make money. It's damn near impossible to predict what the public is gonna like.
Re: What a stupid idea
#25The moral of this isn't that stupid ideas are good. It's that unfamiliar insights can be hard to understand and recognize, even for smart people. The right question to ask when confronted with something new isn't "What's wrong with this?" It's "What's the most interesting new insight(s) here?" A lot of smart people like to ask the first question at the expense of the second, and that's a mistake.
Re: What a stupid idea
#26I thought Twitter was stupid when it came out. "Why would any one choose to limit themselves to 140 characters? Also the name is dumb and childish. 'tweet'? Who wants to 'tweet'? I'm a grown man, I don't want to 'tweet...' etc." I still don't know why Instagram is a thing.
I could never take a good picture. I used Instagram for the first time and it was fast, so easy, and I was actually proud of the interesting pictures I could take (not necessarily to share widely, but at least for myself). Instagram got someone like me, who never carried a camera in his life except for when I was kid holding a camera for my parents on vacation, to actually use their phone as a camera.
Re: What a stupid idea
#27I think this happens because we're poor judges of character. Yes, there's many bozos out there, but if you ask enough questions you will be able to differentiate them.
I'm still working on this, but I've seen that if you put aside your preconceptions and try to understand the product that is being showed to you, using it, asking a lot of questions and really giving yourself some time for big picture conversation, you are able to tell them apart.
Re: What a stupid idea
#28We built an app that 'listens' to social media and closely correlates with the S&P 500 http://elite.kredstreet.com/all (zoom in to see the correlation) You have no idea how many people have ignored us along the way and yet our signal will be used by high frequency traders to trade the stock market. Talking to investors often reminds me of this gem... http://www.xtranormal.com/watch/7203877/fundraising
EDIT: someone just emailed me and said this was stupid. LOL
Re: What a stupid idea
#29>I want to make an app for browsing catalogs. It's like a fashion catalog, but you can organize and share outfits
Is this really a fair description of Pinterest today though? Maybe as originally described it is a dumb idea.
Vine, on the other hand, is really awesome and Curtis saw it right then, but was more worried about how it would find popularity rather than whether it was a "good" idea.
Re: What a stupid idea
#30I thought Twitter was stupid when it came out. "Why would any one choose to limit themselves to 140 characters? Also the name is dumb and childish. 'tweet'? Who wants to 'tweet'? I'm a grown man, I don't want to 'tweet...' etc." I still don't know why Instagram is a thing.
How could you not see how Instagram is a thing? You can take a picture then press few buttons and now everyone you know can see your picture. If you don't see how that is popular maybe the problem isn't with Instagram.