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Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

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Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#71

Post by gbog »

Xcelerate wrote: post #9

Assuming your goal is to have a successful startup company, I've often wondered what the optimal trade-off between time-per-startup idea and number of startup attempts is. For instance, I could spend a year working on two really big, elaborate ideas that I have, but if they fail (likely), then I've wasted ("learned what not to do" if you're the optimistic type) a year working on only two ideas. Or... I could invest m…

No, your chances of success are extremely low whatever how you do it, so better do something you like.

And the most relevant bias here is not selection bias, it's the one that makes every driver believe they are above average drivers. The same happens with mergers too: the boss believes he will better than the other one, and forget about all the difficulties and costs of a merge.

I think that if you really need the money you probably should work in a big corp.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#72

Post by Lerc »

Continuing in the face of a stream of "Your idea sucks" presents quite a challenge. You can tell yourself that the best ideas and most successful ventures had similar detractors, but it doesn't always help. You are aware of your own project more than the casual observer. The weaknesses and hurdles to pass are more apparent to you, and you can't help wondering if the comments are insightful and your project really does suck and you are just too invested in it to see the truth.

I have done a lot of things where upon presenting them to people, they would say "What's the point?", "That can't be done", or commonly "There's no point in an alternative to X. Even if it does work, people won't change from X". I have even had "that's the stupidest thing I have ever seen"

The chances of those things becoming enormous successes are tiny, and I'm aware of that. But the chances for those who _did_ become enormous successes were also tiny.

It's a hard road, but only people who walk the road have a chance. Please, rather than criticize the attempt, or the implementation, or the presentation, or their use of apostrophes. Try offering directions that could help them in the direction they want to be going. There's no point in saying "Turn back now." Even if you think they are going in the wrong direction, they have made their choice and the journey will be informative.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#73

Post by mcintyre1994 »

shubb wrote: post #60

I have a startup idea that I'm not going to execute. I currently live with a senior social worker, and my mother was a social worker. Over the years have been deeply troubled by what I've heard. I think this tool could help them, even if it's a bit creepy. Social workers in the UK have a big problem. Different teams, professions (police, medical, housing), deal with the same people, and often collect all the pieces r…

Without relevant domain or speech recognition expertise, it seems that names might be one of the more common areas to get errors while transcribing using such a system, particularly if the system isn't trained for a name and/or it is said by many different voices?

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#74

Post by ef4 »

arbuge wrote: post #42
ef4 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, you have the difficulty backward. It's just fear of the unknown that keeps too many technical people from attempting it. If your product has a demonstrable return on investment, then it is far easier to sell to businesses. Because businesses actually make decisions based on ROI, and consumers mostly don't. Remember that to make a fair comparison, you need to do it per dollar, not per sale. Even if i…

This is only true if there is a cost-effective way to reach the businesses in question. Sometimes there is, sometimes it's less clear.

Sure, but the same objection applies to consumer-targeted products. If your product is for "everyone", you may need to spend large amounts of money to get attention.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#75

Post by bliti »

abrichr wrote: post #65
bliti wrote: post #24

I stopped looking for ideas, and focused on solving problems. There is a difference. Ideas come with a lot of fluff. Meaning that under the right conditions they might work. Solving problems focuses on talking to people who have problems, and figuring out a way to solve it. I now spend at least an hour every week talking to people who have problems I want to solve: people who can pay. (:

How do you choose whom to talk to, and where do you find them?

1. I realized that a product is not built in a vacuum. Meaning that I had to go out and figure out what products where needed. This led me to reach a simple understanding: I would focus on building products that made people money. Selling such products seems to be simpler (I am still testing this at the moment).

2. With #1 in mind, I focused on what businesses need to make money: clients. Thus, I set out to learn how business generated new leads, or followed up on clients.

3. Now that I had focused on solving a type of problem (lead generation and client follow up), I set out to research markets. Every business out there needs leads. But some can be easily automated. Using patio11's appointment reminder app as inspiration, I started to ask people how such app would help their business. Turns out there is a big demand for such a simple application. Who knew that sending text messages and making automated phone calls would be such a life saver?

4. Who did I talk to? Well, who needs to keep constant contact with their client list? Dentists, insurance agents, private schools, auto mechanics, etc.

5. Once I knew the who, finding the where was as simple as looking in my cellphone. I called my dentist, and insurance agent to talk about the application (before writing any code). They gave their feedback and I set out to write it.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#77

Post by jlgreco »

shubb wrote: post #60

I have a startup idea that I'm not going to execute. I currently live with a senior social worker, and my mother was a social worker. Over the years have been deeply troubled by what I've heard. I think this tool could help them, even if it's a bit creepy. Social workers in the UK have a big problem. Different teams, professions (police, medical, housing), deal with the same people, and often collect all the pieces r…

If you are relying on teleconference hardware made by other companies, I suspect that you will have those companies cloning your software for their hardware.

I mean, I assume Cisco Telepresence stuff doesn't already record/transcribe meetings... If your idea starts to take off, I would bet that it will for sure in the near future. That seems like exactly the sort of functionality you would expect from that sort of hardware.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#78

Post by 001sky »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #62
ensignavenger wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have come up with a lot of ideas to solve business problems, but I am reluctant to implement them for the concern that selling to such businesses would be a far more difficult problem than simply creating something that works better than what they are currently using. Business often make stupid decisions based on relationships with sells people or brand recognition more than merit of the solution. Of course, this p…

First, it should be noted that if you're actually in the industry you're targeting, chances are you have relationships that you can leverage. Your comment seems to imply that you're an outsider with no domain expertise who believes he has ideas to solve problems in various markets. If that's the case, you have the aforementioned domain expertise shortcoming. Second, far too many technical folks seem to believe that t…

you have the aforementioned domain expertise shortcoming

This seems a little harsh or judgemental.

Big Co's don't care about your 10pc better product, because it may be 10% of a cost center that is maybe 15% of revenues. That makes it a 1.5% margin business for them, which is literally not material. Given the politics of BigCos, the top guys have limited bandwidth. They typically don't want the brain damage associated with taking on operational risk for non-material benefits on the upside. Its a distraction, and a fundamental conflict of interest for them. The quality of your sales guy, is only so good as he helps develope a product with lowe operationa implementation risk and has the already-in-place-relationships with a BigCo to de-risk their adoption. even in the best case, its a tough sell. The better bet is to show up with a 10x solution. That turns a 15% cost into a 1.5% cost, and creates a 13.5% increase in profitability. Now that you are moving the needle, you will get people's attention. Even at sr. levels...Just some things worth thinking about. As petet thiel rightly notes, there are varying abstractions of 'sales' skills that come into play, not all are of the door-to-door "sales guy" variety.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#79

Post by 7Figures2Commas »

001sky wrote: post #78
7Figures2Commas wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, it should be noted that if you're actually in the industry you're targeting, chances are you have relationships that you can leverage. Your comment seems to imply that you're an outsider with no domain expertise who believes he has ideas to solve problems in various markets. If that's the case, you have the aforementioned domain expertise shortcoming. Second, far too many technical folks seem to believe that t…

you have the aforementioned domain expertise shortcoming This seems a little harsh or judgemental. Big Co's don't care about your 10pc better product, because it may be 10% of a cost center that is maybe 15% of revenues. That makes it a 1.5% margin business for them, which is literally not material. Given the politics of BigCos, the top guys have limited bandwidth. They typically don't want the brain damage associate…

> This seems a little harsh or judgemental.

It wasn't. My statement was prefaced with "If that's the case..."

> Big Co's don't care about your 10pc better product, because it may be 10% of a cost center that is maybe 15% of revenues. That makes it a 1.5% margin business for them, which is literally not material.

You're missing the point: you realistically aren't going to know what product to build, or be able to assess its value before you build it, if you have no domain expertise.

An entrepreneur with domain expertise is far less likely to build a product that doesn't create enough value to be viable than an outsider who doesn't understand the businesses he's targeting. In other words, the entrepreneur who actually understands what he's doing because he understands the industry probably isn't going to build a 10% better product that is 10% of a cost center that is associated with just 15% of revenues.

Re: Startup Ideas Every Nerd Has (That Never Work)

#80

Post by [deleted] »

7Figures2Commas wrote: post #79
001sky wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you have the aforementioned domain expertise shortcoming This seems a little harsh or judgemental. Big Co's don't care about your 10pc better product, because it may be 10% of a cost center that is maybe 15% of revenues. That makes it a 1.5% margin business for them, which is literally not material. Given the politics of BigCos, the top guys have limited bandwidth. They typically don't want the brain damage associate…

> This seems a little harsh or judgemental. It wasn't. My statement was prefaced with "If that's the case..." > Big Co's don't care about your 10pc better product, because it may be 10% of a cost center that is maybe 15% of revenues. That makes it a 1.5% margin business for them, which is literally not material. You're missing the point: you realistically aren't going to know what product to build, or be able to asse…

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