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What I’ve learned from users

paulgraham.com

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Re: What I’ve learned from users

#181

Post by jonny_eh »

FerociousTimes wrote: post #168
christophilus wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The margin might simply be from cutting out the middleman while keeping the middleman price. So, the buyer is not necessarily better or worse off. But not having to go through a pushy salesman is a big win. It’s why I love Carmax (and would probably like Carvana).

Tesla was supposed to pass some of those cost savings onto the end customer not to pocket it all like this but I'm aware that it's a corporation that's looking to maximize profits to their shareholders and extract as much value as possible from their clientele.

Tesla, like every other publicly traded company, sells their product at a price they feel they can get away with, in order to maximize profits. Any cost savings in the process only affects the floor price, which they're probably not selling at.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#182

Post by NSMutableSet »

FerociousTimes wrote: post #168
christophilus wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The margin might simply be from cutting out the middleman while keeping the middleman price. So, the buyer is not necessarily better or worse off. But not having to go through a pushy salesman is a big win. It’s why I love Carmax (and would probably like Carvana).

Tesla was supposed to pass some of those cost savings onto the end customer not to pocket it all like this but I'm aware that it's a corporation that's looking to maximize profits to their shareholders and extract as much value as possible from their clientele.

In the current market, most figurative Tesla dealers would be charging $7k+ over MSRP, which is what you can currently make immediately flipping any newly-purchased Tesla, even the base Model 3s. I'm sure there are some who would stick to MSRP out of "professionalism", but it wouldn't be the majority.

This obviously won't last, but just something to consider.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#183

Post by panopticon »

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #144
tenpies wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in the future hope to buy a Tesla in large part to avoid that experience And see Tesla knows this, which is why the margin on their cars is higher than most. You may have disliked that sales experience with a dealer or used car salesperson, but it quite likely got you a slightly better deal than had you tried to negotiate yourself.

If you buy a Toyota following the Tesla model, where you call and say "I'd like to buy the car you have, for the price you have listed", you will also have a generally good experience.

My Toyota experience was okay, but I still needed to sit at a dealership for almost two hours to deal with the paperwork, wait for financing, etc. Tesla allowed me to take care of all of that from the comfort of home.

Buying a Ford was the worst experience I've had with a new car, but that could have been entirely on the dealership.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#184

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

FerociousTimes wrote: post #93

Prompted by the negative feedback that this essay received, ranging from being a sales pitch in disguise, to being a word salad going in all directions without answering the central question posed by the author right in the opening paragraphs, I had to go and re-examine the piece and see if these concerns are valid or not, and unexpectedly the second reading reaffirmed my initial positive reaction that this is actual…

I agree, and this is coming from somehow who's been relatively disillusioned with pg's essays of late - I made this comment about another pg essay about a year ago:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28951278

While I still think many of those points apply to this essay (yes, whether or not it's a sales pitch "in disguise", it's still a sales pitch), they don't bother me as much here because pg is specifically talking about his experiences in YC and startups in general. If there is one person who I think has earned the title of "expert on early stage startup experiences and lessons learned" it is Paul Graham.

Yes, he touches on a lot of different points, but I still found it to be a useful read. If anything, I'd be interested in some more pointed follow-up, e.g "Here are some of the top common problems startups hit", with specific examples, or "Here are 5 times founders ignored our advice, and what happened".

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#185

Post by mdorazio »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #147
ianmcgowan wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe rebrand UBI as the government funding a few million startups? That and universal healthcare probably would free up enough people to start their passion project. Enough to cover the ones that want to be artists, caregivers, or just go surfing/play video games.

The thing that fascinates me about UBI (apart from the right wing capitalists promoting socialist utopias) is the effect it (presumably) will have on salaries and companies. I mean HN is populated by people who mostly enjoy their STEM related work, but even so if we did not have to pay mortgages tomorrow I suspect 75% would hand in their notice and go something else - still working but working on their own start ups…

The B in UBI is pretty important and seems to be at odds with what you're thinking. It's meant to be a basic income that guarantees you won't starve or be homeless somewhere in the country. That's it. A backup to fall upon or a subsistence if you don't want to/can't work or a life booster for low income earners. No fancy cars, apartment in a coastal city, big house, vacations, meals out, etc. How many HN readers would quit their jobs tomorrow and move to Alabama to live on $20k/year?

Anyone talking about UBI as though it would be a significant income source and fund a "fun" life is an idle dreamer - that will never work.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#186

Post by jollybean »

Is anyone bothered by the consistent lack of YC/PG's ability to coherently articulate all of these lessons pedagogically?

Almost all of their advice, even Siebel, is in the negative: 'don't do this' etc.

Siebel does give specific advice, and it's great, but a bit ad-hoc.

Even if startups are counter-intuitive, there should be a way to write this book, with 'How To' lessons, even if it's very 'case based'.

There are enough examples of YC companies that they could grab 10 examples for each specific foray, to demonstrate what works, what does not and why.

There's enough experience and data that someone should be able to write the high level rules, and then discuss a ton of field-level tactics that work for things like brand, direct sales, communications, marketing etc. etc..

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#187

Post by Kye »

phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #148
paxys wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While what you are saying is historically true, the internet has made the car salesman role pretty much irrelevant. I expect the job (and dealerships themselves) won't exist a decade or two from now. There are enough pictures, videos, spec sheets, expert reviews and forum discussions available online that the word of a sleazy salesman is worth nothing. More and more customers today walk into dealerships only because…

People have been saying this for 20 years. Yet car salespeople are more important than ever from what I've seen. But let's ignore that because you could argue it's just opinion. My favorite example/rebuttal to this is: Imagine a car sales evolves to basically vending machines. You walk up to the box, pick a car, swipe your card, and a roll-up door opens and your car pops out. Amazing! No salespeople needed. Every tow…

Even the grocery stores with good self-checkouts have someone there to resolve issues and answer questions. I wouldn't use a self-checkout that didn't since I'd have to hope someone working the day I had trouble was trained on the system.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#188

Post by JohnFen »

lnwlebjel wrote: post #102
phpthrowaway99 wrote: post #94

PGs take on why early stage VCs gain so much experience reminds me of my opinions on why car sales is the best sales experience. I sold cars for almost a decade and was pretty good at it averaging 30 cars a month. That means every year I helped people sign for $16 million of products. In the end I probably sold 3000 cars for over $100 million. (Note, I stayed in it way too long. I think most of these benefits would c…

Interesting. I rank buy a car from a new car salesman as the worst consumer experience of my life. So much so that I've since bought used cars and in the future hope to buy a Tesla in large part to avoid that experience. I understand that it could greatly benefit the salesperson in understanding the social psychology of the consumer ... but never again will I subject myself to that process.

Entirely this. The main reason why I've only purchased one new car in my life is because dealing with car dealers (new or used) is about as fun and rewarding as pulling out my fingernails.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#189

Post by JohnFen »

btbuildem wrote: post #145
lnwlebjel wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I rank buy a car from a new car salesman as the worst consumer experience of my life. So much so that I've since bought used cars and in the future hope to buy a Tesla in large part to avoid that experience. I understand that it could greatly benefit the salesperson in understanding the social psychology of the consumer ... but never again will I subject myself to that process.

I've only ever bought used cars, from individuals. Paying extra for the overhead of a dealership and some salesperson's bonus seems absurd to me. You're pretty much guaranteed to get taken advantage of by a professional. Local classifieds, private sellers, take the car to a trusted mechanic for an inspection.

That's my policy. The only two cars I've purchased that I deeply regretted were one new one and one from a used car lot.

I've never had any issue from a private sale.

Re: What I’ve learned from users

#190

Post by tlb »

gnicholas wrote: post #114

Is this what VCs want when they ask what you have learned from your users? It sounds like most of the learnings are about what his users do wrong, and why. There's surprisingly little in the way of "our users told us X and we realized we need to do Y". I assumed that when people ask what you've learned from your users, they're not asking you to list how lousy your users are at doing various things, and why they just…

What YC's users want most of all is for their startups not to fail, so the essay talks about learning what makes startups fail and how to help founders avoid it.

Founders ask for other stuff from YC too: a hangout lounge in SF, comfier seating, shared office space. But helping their startups succeed is 100x more important than all those frills, as any founder who has succeeded or failed will confirm.

Markets where customers only care about one thing are rare, so people aren't very familiar with them. They're unlike commodity services like dentists, where you care about convenience & frills, and more like heart surgeons where you want the one that will give you the best chance of not dying.

I suspect that not providing the frills helps YC attract better founders, because the best founders care only about their startup succeeding, while the scenesters care more about the frills. Also, it sets a good example of focusing on the most important thing, as startups should. Most importantly, by not spending much time on other stuff, YC can focus its energy on helping startups succeed.

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