You guys should work on formatting your posts, bold list titles or italicize or underline - I am too lazy to read everything, I want to skim before I decide to read.
I agree. I need to be more disciplined about that...
How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
11–20 of 66 posts
Re: How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
#12I fully agree with the article, however, when I think of most the big successes of the last 10 years, they all fall in the exception category. What does that tell me? Would that have worked for twitter? No. For Google search? Barely. For Facebook? Probably not. GroupOn? Probably.
You probably could have done this with Google search. Would you love to replace the super slow inaccurate search you are using now with one that delivered accurate results in 1/10th of the time?
[1999] Sure, but I'll believe it when I see it. Look, I've already tried about 10 different search engines, and even with the best of them (altavista) you count on having to click through a few results pages to find what you want. Web servers aren't psychic, you know. You get out what you put into it. There are already a lot of smart, well-funded companies working on this, so good luck.
People who Knew Search back then knew that tedium was part of the bargain, just like people who Know photo sharing today know that tedious sorting/tagging is inevitable if you shoot a lot.
Re: How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
#13I'm not sure I'd want to take any advice that suggests starting off a business relationship by lying to the potential customer. (Re: "Identify your target customer. COLD email 20 of them and offer to pay THEM to use your product if they are willing to offer some feedback. See how many respond. If anybody responds, tell them that the offer is oversubscribed and that it is no longer available. See how many of those peo…
Dry testing has always been controversial, it seems.
Re: How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
#14If anybody responds, tell them that the offer is oversubscribed and that it is no longer available.
Wow!
A company built to handle other people's money that recommends deception. What's wrong with this picture?
Re: How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
#15I fully agree with the article, however, when I think of most the big successes of the last 10 years, they all fall in the exception category. What does that tell me? Would that have worked for twitter? No. For Google search? Barely. For Facebook? Probably not. GroupOn? Probably.
Perhaps you shouldn't just implement ideas, you should implement technologies. And carefully map out your user flows. And then you should make sure that each conversion step actually converts in the real world.
Re: How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
#16If anybody responds, tell them that the offer is oversubscribed and that it is no longer available. Wow! A company built to handle other people's money that recommends deception. What's wrong with this picture?
I think you are being a little melodramatic. This is to vet an idea, not a sustainable way to build a business. I even said that it could/should be more of a thought experiment. And besides, I'm not recommending that you maliciously and deleteriously deceive people.
pg on naughtiness: "Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not goody-two-shoes good. Morally they care about getting the big questions right but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word "naughty" rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules--but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant, though; it may be implied by imagination."
Re: How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
#17If anybody responds, tell them that the offer is oversubscribed and that it is no longer available. Wow! A company built to handle other people's money that recommends deception. What's wrong with this picture?
I think you are being a little melodramatic. This is to vet an idea, not a sustainable way to build a business. I even said that it could/should be more of a thought experiment. And besides, I'm not recommending that you maliciously and deleteriously deceive people. pg on naughtiness: "Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not goody-two-…
Sorry to say, Rich, that was not the response I expected.
AFAIC, there is no gray area here. I have argued (yes, many have disagreed with me) the same for years here.
A little background...
I have seen more deals than you can imagine ruined because someone lost trust. As simple as that. The salesman fibbing to his wife on the phone in front of the customer. The contractor paying the 3rd party vendor a little extra to get his customer's deal. I even saw someone lose a million dollar deal because he took his customer for a ride in his leased car with the speedometer disconnected.
And the reasoning was always the same: "If he could do this little thing to someone else, what will he do with my big deal?"
It's not a matter of what is effective. It's a matter of what's right and wrong. For many people (me included, of course), there is no gray area.
I realize that jaywalking != murder, but deception in business tactics is always a big deal. When one has little more than your reputation to judge, all data that affects that reputation is fair game.
I was disappointed with the original post. Calling deception "a little melodramatic" and citing a pg naughtiness quote as an excuse leaves me more disappointed than ever.
Re: How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you are being a little melodramatic. This is to vet an idea, not a sustainable way to build a business. I even said that it could/should be more of a thought experiment. And besides, I'm not recommending that you maliciously and deleteriously deceive people. pg on naughtiness: "Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not goody-two-…
Sorry to say, Rich, that was not the response I expected. AFAIC, there is no gray area here. I have argued (yes, many have disagreed with me) the same for years here. A little background... I have seen more deals than you can imagine ruined because someone lost trust. As simple as that. The salesman fibbing to his wife on the phone in front of the customer. The contractor paying the 3rd party vendor a little extra to…
If I had more time, I'd go through all your previous HN comments disparaging WePay for different reasons. Somehow I doubt your motivation for doing so is a sterling commitment to morality. If it was, I doubt you would introduce your criticism with: "A company built to handle other people's money...", and instead, just focus your criticism on the point you are attacking.
Re: How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry to say, Rich, that was not the response I expected. AFAIC, there is no gray area here. I have argued (yes, many have disagreed with me) the same for years here. A little background... I have seen more deals than you can imagine ruined because someone lost trust. As simple as that. The salesman fibbing to his wife on the phone in front of the customer. The contractor paying the 3rd party vendor a little extra to…
If I had more time, I'd go through all your previous HN comments disparaging WePay for different reasons. Somehow I doubt your motivation for doing so is a sterling commitment to morality. If it was, I doubt you would introduce your criticism with: "A company built to handle other people's money...", and instead, just focus your criticism on the point you are attacking.
No need for you to waste any time. Here they are:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959512
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959304
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1959114
The first was meant as a compliment. I think you have a great idea and appear to be doing a great job with that idea. I have recommended you to quite a few people as the perfect solution to their problem. I wish you nothing but great success.
The other two were in response to a rant about airline customer service on your corporate blog. I thought this was a bad idea and tried my best to explain why. I think the main reason I responded like that was because I saw a young company I cared about potentially making a mistake and I wanted to point it out.
To be honest, I didn't ever remember the 3 previous comments when I responded to this thread. I would have never put 2 & 2 together if you hadn't pointed it out. Thinking that someone giving you feedback because they "have it in for you" can be a dangerous assumption.
I realize that hn is much bigger than it once was, but it's still a great sandbox to try stuff out and fix problems before the rest of the world finds out. Thus the feedback.
Somehow I doubt your motivation for doing so is a sterling commitment to morality.
Do you respond to others who provide you feedback like this? I sure hope not.
Re: How to (In)validate Your Startup Idea
#20No thanks. Lies are a bad business model and a worse life model. Makes one think wepay.com's sense of ethics all boil down to whether it makes them money or not.