Starting vs. Building a Company • Hacker News Board

Re: Starting vs. Building a Company

#11

Post by kevinconroy » Tue, Oct 16, 2012, 3:13 AM UTC

programminggeek wrote: post #4

To be perfectly honest, there are a few companies that exist because the build and sell something fairly remarkable as a product or a service, but there are literally millions of companies that survive off of the inefficiencies in existing markets. Many/most businesses operate off of a form of arbitrage, not unique product creation. For example, look at retail, it exists on the arbitrage opportunity of buying things…

Retailers are not surviving off inefficiencies in the market. They're "distribution as a service" (DaaS) that handle the complex logistics so that the manufactures don't have to.

Part of why Walmart is putting so many smaller retailers out of business is because they're experts at optimizing a huge part of the vertical stack of retail, distribution, and logistics operations.

Re: Starting vs. Building a Company

#12

Post by daslee1969 » Tue, Oct 16, 2012, 3:44 AM UTC

mlchild wrote: post #9

I think the key dichotomy here is between creating a successful product at the core of a company and creating a successful system that is able to repeatedly generate, select, and distribute products that fill market needs. Disney, 3M, and Apple are all great examples of "blockbuster factories" that are able to repeatedly innovate into the next field of play.

great point. better said than my articulation of continuing to innovate through tech cycles.

Re: Starting vs. Building a Company

#13

Post by mlchild » Fri, Oct 26, 2012, 11:37 PM UTC

daslee1969 wrote: post #12

mlchild wrote: post #9

I think the key dichotomy here is between creating a successful product at the core of a company and creating a successful system that is able to repeatedly generate, select, and distribute products that fill market needs. Disney, 3M, and Apple are all great examples of "blockbuster factories" that are able to repeatedly innovate into the next field of play.

great point. better said than my articulation of continuing to innovate through tech cycles.

Thanks! Great piece, by the way — my goal is to be a successful starter and builder. And I agree that many seem to focus only on the former.