An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK • Hacker News Board

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#21

Post by plinkplonk » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 6:34 AM UTC

rizzn wrote: post #19

plinkplonk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"his point is that scaling up on the web is a solved problem, which is mostly true" Maybe, but that isn't what "Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for startups" means. "Technology" is a lot more than "scaling on the web", even in software based startups. "Steve Blank would say there's Market Risk (will your customers want it?) but minimal Invention Risk (can you deliver it?). " Steve Blank is also careful…

I can't speak directly for John - I'll let him do that when he gets up in the morning and reads this thread.... .... but if I were to interpret that sentence and edit it to better clarify meaning (which in retrospect, I probably should have done since I'm the site's editor), I would put the qualifier "most" in that sentence, so it would read: "Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for [most] startups." We se…

"Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for [most] startups."

Well that is marginally better, but it still assumes a certain kind of startup as evinced by the statement "that marketing influences the community that floods the site,".

You don't need a "flood" of a site by a "community" to have a successful startup. You need customers . Whether customers are pulled in my deliberate "marketing" or technological superiority providing differential capability depends on the exact offering.

If you confine the technology behind a startup to things like using open source CMS es as "building blocks", then of course technology and programming are commodities, and the "scarce talent" is indeed marketing, not programming.

I could continue, but my original point was that it was an over broad generalization, which is addressed if you are talking about the kinds of startups using off the shelf building blocks as their "technology" and have no real technological differentiator, and therefore don't need excellent programmers (who are very hard to find- just ask anyone running a "non cms" startup.)

Under those circumstances, (in other words, with a narrower focus than implied in the original sentence ) the original claim is completely valid. Under those assumptions, technology is not the driver and "scarce talent" is indeed marketing. I concede the argument.

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#22

Post by danielrhodes » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 6:35 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #10

"Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for startups. The scarce talent is business model engineering and product marketing" How true is this? Sounds like wishful thinking from a non programmer to me. (Please note : I am not saying that marketing/product engineering is not important. They (obviously) are. I just think "Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for startups" is too broad a brush)

Most technological innovation today is due to better available resources (CPU, RAM, bandwidth, etc.) rather than say, a better algorithm. The question then becomes: not can you make it, but can you sell it?/will people use it? That's a much different game.

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#23

Post by plinkplonk » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 6:41 AM UTC

danielrhodes wrote: post #22

plinkplonk wrote: post #10

"Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for startups. The scarce talent is business model engineering and product marketing" How true is this? Sounds like wishful thinking from a non programmer to me. (Please note : I am not saying that marketing/product engineering is not important. They (obviously) are. I just think "Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for startups" is too broad a brush)

Most technological innovation today is due to better available resources (CPU, RAM, bandwidth, etc.) rather than say, a better algorithm. The question then becomes: not can you make it, but can you sell it?/will people use it? That's a much different game.

"The question then becomes: not can you make it, but can you sell it?"

This is again, over simplification. (as a matter of fact the exact same oversimplification made by the author of the original article.)

The relative difficulty of "Making it" vs "selling it" depends on what "it" is.

Without a qualifier narrowing down the "it" (e.g another social networking site with no real capability difference from what exists today. In such a case, marketing is much more important than technology) what you say is wrong.

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#24

Post by rizzn » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 7:20 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #21

rizzn wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak directly for John - I'll let him do that when he gets up in the morning and reads this thread.... .... but if I were to interpret that sentence and edit it to better clarify meaning (which in retrospect, I probably should have done since I'm the site's editor), I would put the qualifier "most" in that sentence, so it would read: "Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for [most] startups." We se…

"Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for [most] startups." Well that is marginally better, but it still assumes a certain kind of startup as evinced by the statement "that marketing influences the community that floods the site,". You don't need a "flood" of a site by a "community" to have a successful startup. You need customers . Whether customers are pulled in my deliberate "marketing" or technological…

Yeah, I think there's a narrower focus than what might have been originally implied. I'll let John come in tomorrow and clarify, but most of what John and I deal with are either Web startups or tech sector directly related to web (cloud, hardware, consulting, analysis firms, social media and design firms, iPhone design firms, Facebook development houses, ad agencies that monetize one or more of the aforementioned company types).

This is our world, and though the Silicon Valley startup world encompasses more than these types of companies, this is what was likely in his mind when he wrote it (and the context by which I interpreted the post).

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#25

Post by TimothyFitz » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 7:37 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #13

TimothyFitz wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think his point is that scaling up on the web is a solved problem, which is mostly true. If you look at most startup's pitch/plan the biggest risks are not in technology. Steve Blank would say there's Market Risk (will your customers want it?) but minimal Invention Risk (can you deliver it?). Contrast this with biotech where you're trying to cure diseases. Minimal market risk, tons of invention risk. Read more here…

"his point is that scaling up on the web is a solved problem, which is mostly true" Maybe, but that isn't what "Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for startups" means. "Technology" is a lot more than "scaling on the web", even in software based startups. "Steve Blank would say there's Market Risk (will your customers want it?) but minimal Invention Risk (can you deliver it?). " Steve Blank is also careful…

I think we're agreeing. As I do for all blogs, I just assumed the courtesy implicit prelude: "This is my opinion shaped by my experiences and most likely only applies to the system I'm currently interacting with."

I mostly agree with his sweeping generalization if applied to, say, the subset of startups that get coverage on Techcrunch.

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#26

Post by TimothyFitz » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 7:40 AM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #20

TimothyFitz wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which book are you referring to? I wasn't the one who came up with the idea for this feature. The initial version of IMVU had this feature, so it's at least 5 years old.

Ted Nelson had a project called Xanadu, that amongst many other things kept track of partial contributions to derivative creations. If you came up with this independently you may want to look into to the Xanadu project for more inspiration along these lines, it is definitely very interesting reading.

Ahh yes, I'm familiar (though not familiar enough) with project Xanadu. The concept of keeping track of derivations is fairly common; far less common is the idea of derivation for the express purpose of indicating participation in the value chain and thus participation in the compensation.

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#27

Post by plinkplonk » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 7:43 AM UTC

TimothyFitz wrote: post #25

plinkplonk wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"his point is that scaling up on the web is a solved problem, which is mostly true" Maybe, but that isn't what "Technology, however, isn’t the driver any more for startups" means. "Technology" is a lot more than "scaling on the web", even in software based startups. "Steve Blank would say there's Market Risk (will your customers want it?) but minimal Invention Risk (can you deliver it?). " Steve Blank is also careful…

I think we're agreeing. As I do for all blogs, I just assumed the courtesy implicit prelude: "This is my opinion shaped by my experiences and most likely only applies to the system I'm currently interacting with." I mostly agree with his sweeping generalization if applied to, say, the subset of startups that get coverage on Techcrunch.

"I think we're agreeing."

Yes we are.

"As I do for all blogs, I just assumed the courtesy implicit prelude: "This is my opinion shaped by my experiences and most likely only applies to the system I'm currently interacting with.""

As did I, but if, as a writer, I made an unqualified claim (even if true) that is completely out of whack with my readers experience, I think it is fair to get push back. This is perhaps due to my coming across this article on HN vs directly on the original site.

I think the article is a decent one (not great, but decent).

"I mostly agree with his sweeping generalization if applied to, say, the subset of startups that get coverage on Techcrunch."

As would I. But this is HN. :-)

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#28

Post by arijo » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 7:48 AM UTC

TimothyFitz wrote: post #6

"The scarce talent is business model engineering and product marketing – building for scale isn’t the problem anymore. I can build a hack protytype that works well into the "validation" stage to establish a funding event or customer revenue stream then use the new capital to rebuild, hire and grow." This interestingly follows my own career growth. I was the tech lead responsible for scalability/reliability at IMVU fo…

Do you think IMVU would be the great company it is today if it started with two product marketing folks and one business "model engineer" and all the programming was outsourced to "commodity" coders in elance.com or getafreelancer.com?

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#29

Post by plinkplonk » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 7:54 AM UTC

arijo wrote: post #28

TimothyFitz wrote: post #6

"The scarce talent is business model engineering and product marketing – building for scale isn’t the problem anymore. I can build a hack protytype that works well into the "validation" stage to establish a funding event or customer revenue stream then use the new capital to rebuild, hire and grow." This interestingly follows my own career growth. I was the tech lead responsible for scalability/reliability at IMVU fo…

Do you think IMVU would be the great company it is today if it started with two product marketing folks and one business "model engineer" and all the programming was outsourced to "commodity" coders in elance.com or getafreelancer.com?

that seems to be a reaction to an exaggeration of what Tim said. He clearly said(emphasis mine)

"I was the tech lead responsible for scalability/reliability at IMVU for a long time, but eventually our bottleneck clearly shifted from reliability back to marketing/product development. "

I read it as, "Once we got reliability sorted out, the bottleneck moved to marketing/product development."

He never said IMVU could have been built without good programmers(of which class, he is an instance), but product dev/marketing became (or were) equally important (or more important) and so he moved to that team. At least that's how I read it

Re: An Entrepreneurial Counter Culture is Looming – The Startup Market is Not OK

#30

Post by arijo » Sun, Sep 20, 2009, 8:17 AM UTC

plinkplonk wrote: post #29

arijo wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think IMVU would be the great company it is today if it started with two product marketing folks and one business "model engineer" and all the programming was outsourced to "commodity" coders in elance.com or getafreelancer.com?

that seems to be a reaction to an exaggeration of what Tim said. He clearly said(emphasis mine) "I was the tech lead responsible for scalability/reliability at IMVU for a long time, but eventually our bottleneck clearly shifted from reliability back to marketing/product development. " I read it as, " Once we got reliability sorted out, the bottleneck moved to marketing/product development." He never said IMVU could h…

I agree. However the point I was trying to make is that technology expertise continues to be a "scarce talent" which seems to be the opposite view of that supported by Tim's post.