Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Start with a Problem, Not an Idea

blog.startupprofessionals.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 50 posts

Re: Start with a Problem, Not an Idea

#3

Post by zealog »

Absolutely true. Nothing here is ground breaking, but it seems like so many people forget this. My greatest successes have always come from trying to "scratch my own itch." In fact, it's usually something completely out of left field that never seemed like a business that turns out to resonate with others.

Re: Start with a Problem, Not an Idea

#4

Post by h80nm3 »

LOL! another self-professed "startup professional" stating the obvious, common people, most likely, you get the IDEA because you see the PROBLEM. amazing how many people makes a living by stating the obvious.

Re: Start with a Problem, Not an Idea

#5

Post by s3graham »

This is part of the perverse reason I can't get behind the advice to start a startup immediately after university.

Suffering at a large company for a while isn't self-flagellation, it hands you hundreds of things needing solutions.

Re: Start with a Problem, Not an Idea

#6

Post by patio11 »

Take a luxury and make it a commodity.

It works the other way, too. Water is a commodity -- a commodity which is, essentially, free at the margin -- that is also a multi-billion dollar business in the US. Much the same could be said about food.

(I am about to step on some toes. Turn away if you're easily offended.) There are entire industries which are designed around the proposition "You are too good to consume X. Poor people consume X. You should instead be consuming X Prime. You can tell it is better than X, because it costs five times as much."

A separate but related issue: consumption of status goods among poor people.

In terms of selling B2B services, I am often amused by re-luxurization of commoditized services: taking something which was once customized and extraordinarily expensive but then made into cheap-and-infinite-scale and then competing with the cheap-and-infinite with something that is a cut above but which still scales.

Data centers circa 1996: luxury service. Web hosting: commodity service. Slicehost: not a commodity service, but the marginal cost to the firm is still close to zero.

Personalized financial advice: luxury service. Your bank's website and free checking: commodity service. Mint: personalized financial advice, but at scale.

Graphic design: luxury service. Stock icons: commodity service. 99designs: commodity-priced luxury service that scales.

Re: Start with a Problem, Not an Idea

#8

Post by jyothi »

The title itself is a ton of advice. So simple and so profound.

I think 'start with a problem' - creates a clear definition of success (solve the problem), demands focus and makes everything so simple to figure out.

Re: Start with a Problem, Not an Idea

#10

Post by tomjen »

patio11 wrote: post #6

Take a luxury and make it a commodity. It works the other way, too. Water is a commodity -- a commodity which is, essentially, free at the margin -- that is also a multi-billion dollar business in the US. Much the same could be said about food. (I am about to step on some toes. Turn away if you're easily offended.) There are entire industries which are designed around the proposition "You are too good to consume X. P…

People often come up with water as an example, but it fails on many levels:

In many cities the "native" water is full of chlorine If you travel to a foreign country, you may not be able to drink the native water at all If you are not at home, getting water may not be possible unless you by it in bottles. Bottles enable you to carry around water, which is useful for car trips, etc.

Post reply on HN