Frighteningly Unambitious Startup Ideas • Hacker News Board

Re: Frighteningly Unambitious Startup Ideas

#131

Post by kerryfalk » Fri, Mar 30, 2012, 3:07 PM UTC

gruseom wrote: post #109

moocow01 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets not go overboard - I'm sure some customers have their complaints but your making the car repair industry sound equivalent to today's Wall Street. I genuinely rarely hear people complain about car repair - now if we were back in 1970 or 1980 Id have a different opinion.

He's not going overboard. When you don't know anything about cars, it's really hard to find a mechanic or car repair shop you can trust. One reason I always try to help people who ask me any question about their computer is that I just think of how ignorant and defenseless I've felt when my car breaks. I do what they do: find the person in my life who knows the most about it and cling to them like a drowning man. If…

Agreed, it's not an overreaction. As an auto enthusiast and someone who has a large group of friends that are also auto enthusiasts we are acutely aware of the issues our non-enthusiast friends have with the auto industry.

We're aware because they come to us with their problems and seek advice. Everything from helping to buy a new car to trying to understand what the mechanic was telling them is wrong with their car.

When I was younger I worked at the front desk of a reputable auto shop. It was very common for customers to mistrust us, and they had good reason to feel that way, too. Not because our particular shop was bad - it wasn't - but because many others are.

The auto industry is huge and has many huge segments that can be targeted. There is room for many companies to grow into significant players.

Re: Frighteningly Unambitious Startup Ideas

#132

Post by wglb » Sat, Mar 31, 2012, 1:25 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #90

jrkelly wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't at the Demo Day, but it's hard to consider making car repair more efficient to be a problem that really matters. Not saying it can't be a decent business, but your essay about ambitious ideas was pushing people to do better.

Do you feel confident that if you had seen Altair Basic in 1975 you would not have said the same thing about it? Like humans, startup ideas all look similarly small at first.

Perhaps off topic, but I bought an altair in 1977 and did a bunch of consulting based on it. Accounts receivable, inventory for a local furniture store. I was insanely excited.

Edit: (In fact when the intel 4004 came out, I was a little frightened that it was going to disrupt our business built on the Sigma 5, but then I realized that it would need software like the stuff we were writing.)

Re: Frighteningly Unambitious Startup Ideas

#133

Post by bertm » Sun, Apr 01, 2012, 11:30 PM UTC

pg wrote: post #81

"If I were Paul Graham, these types of companies simply would not satisfy me (despite what look to be very lucrative payoffs)." That's hilarious, because I'm the one who wrote all the summaries of the startups that she's judging them by. I deliberately express startup ideas as x for y whenever possible because that's the most efficient way to describe a startup in a few words. Airbnb, for example, was in its day "eBa…

It seems difficult to analyze the degree of ambition in any given startup from PR. Although ambition makes for a good story, it doesn't necessarily sell product/get users. So it seems, early stage startups focus on simple messages which the audience will understand. Look at the evolution of PR coming from Air BnB over time.