The Pivot • Hacker News Board

Re: The Pivot

#21

Post by imgabe » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:21 PM UTC

e40 wrote: post #15

Success simply can't be predicted to any level of statistical comfort. There are, however, a small percentage of people that consistently succeed. I met a guy like this, and I came to find out he had eliminated a lot of the risk of his software ventures by having a ready-made market for his company among his friends in the venture/banking world. I saw him do it a few times and realized that it was cheating, in a sens…

Given a large enough population with random outcomes, of course a small percentage will consistently succeed.

Re: The Pivot

#22

Post by yid » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:23 PM UTC

peterwwillis wrote: post #16

So, at a basic level, a pivot is just a field experiment without a control? Or is it an observational study?

It's just another step in a stochastic optimization algorithm.

Re: The Pivot

#23

Post by wlievens » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:24 PM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #12

For those of us not working on cat photo sharing products for the ever shifting consumer market there is considerably less luck, throwing random stuff at the wall, and pivoting involved. B2B SaaS is pretty nice. Join us on the dark side :)

The big question is: how do you discover and identify a good b2b problem that needs solving in the first place.

Re: The Pivot

#24

Post by guelo » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:26 PM UTC

wlievens wrote: post #23

wdewind wrote: post #12

For those of us not working on cat photo sharing products for the ever shifting consumer market there is considerably less luck, throwing random stuff at the wall, and pivoting involved. B2B SaaS is pretty nice. Join us on the dark side :)

The big question is: how do you discover and identify a good b2b problem that needs solving in the first place.

Exactly. It's the same. You throw up an idea and start pivoting. If you have a more staid business model some startup will eventually find your niche and out hustle you.

Re: The Pivot

#25

Post by guelo » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:28 PM UTC

devindotcom wrote: post #9

If you remove the questionable assumption that most of the ideas are good, isn't it rather kind of institutionalizing "throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick?"

The difference is the analytics. If it's a good startup it's going to learn so much from the shit on the wall that the next pivot will be much more informed and likely to be succesful.

Re: The Pivot

#26

Post by smacktoward » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:30 PM UTC

devindotcom wrote: post #9

If you remove the questionable assumption that most of the ideas are good, isn't it rather kind of institutionalizing "throw enough shit at the wall and some of it will stick?"

Well yes, but as Serious Businesspeople, we need a Serious Business Word to describe the shit-throwing process.

Like "pivot."

Re: The Pivot

#27

Post by bjelkeman-again » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:31 PM UTC

wdewind wrote: post #12

For those of us not working on cat photo sharing products for the ever shifting consumer market there is considerably less luck, throwing random stuff at the wall, and pivoting involved. B2B SaaS is pretty nice. Join us on the dark side :)

Some days I just think my world, B2B but governments and multilaterals rather than businesses, is just too slow moving. Other days I think that it is really quite interesting to see that quite simple tech can be hard to implement in organisations that haven't understood tech to be important until recently.

It is nice though to move people from paper processes to mobile/SaaS/cloud and near-real time data collection and see the lightbulb go up. Feels decidedly light-side.

Re: The Pivot

#28

Post by silverlake » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:33 PM UTC

Consumer internet startups are like Hollywood entertainment. No one knows what TV shows or movies will be successful. The industry tries to make smart bets: invest in big name directors or actors, or sequels or copycats or cheap reality shows, but it's still a gamble. Successful shows come out of nowhere. So they keep trying random shows every season and see which ones stick. Doesn't this sound like Silicon Valley?

Re: The Pivot

#29

Post by silverlake » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:35 PM UTC

wlievens wrote: post #23

wdewind wrote: post #12

For those of us not working on cat photo sharing products for the ever shifting consumer market there is considerably less luck, throwing random stuff at the wall, and pivoting involved. B2B SaaS is pretty nice. Join us on the dark side :)

The big question is: how do you discover and identify a good b2b problem that needs solving in the first place.

You work in that industry until you understand it intimately and develop connections.

Re: The Pivot

#30

Post by wdewind » Mon, Jun 16, 2014, 9:36 PM UTC

guelo wrote: post #24

wlievens wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big question is: how do you discover and identify a good b2b problem that needs solving in the first place.

Exactly. It's the same. You throw up an idea and start pivoting. If you have a more staid business model some startup will eventually find your niche and out hustle you.

No, not really. In our (Justworks) case, our founder had to setup payroll, benefits and compliance for multiple companies (Adtuitive and Etsy) and so was intimately familiar with the problem when he started it.