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You're Overthinking It

engineering.gomiso.com

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Re: You're Overthinking It

#21

Post by dy »

The advice in this article is dangerous for finding success and profit as an entrepreneur if your only knowledge relates to the needs of a developer. Developers are an infamously hard bunch of people to sell products to; as developers, I'm sure we've had all these thoughts:

- this is cool, but I could build something better (how many 37signal open source clones are there)

- this is cool, but way too expensive (Github complaints)

- this is cool, but let me use Google AdWords to get free upgrades (DropBox)

- this writing is great, but I'm blocking all the ads on the page (daringfireball)

Another problem is that when developers decide to do their own startup, the only domain they really understand is software development.

There are millions of people who have problems who can't code - building another bug tracker, productivity tool, email management app, GTD widget might be fun, but the economy of real "business" software that's out there is far larger and more lucrative.

Re: You're Overthinking It

#22

Post by tjogin »

bpodgursky wrote: post #11

Not disagreeing with the rest of the article, but what's wrong with craigslist? It's super clean, simple, fast, and easy to use. What could extra javascript/flash/ajax possibly add to the site?

You've thoroughly misunderstood design if you think it is "extra javascript/flash/ajax".

Re: You're Overthinking It

#23

Post by BadassFractal »

dy wrote: post #21

The advice in this article is dangerous for finding success and profit as an entrepreneur if your only knowledge relates to the needs of a developer. Developers are an infamously hard bunch of people to sell products to; as developers, I'm sure we've had all these thoughts: - this is cool, but I could build something better (how many 37signal open source clones are there) - this is cool, but way too expensive (Github…

Also you're missing out on opportunities that are outside of your field of expertise.

Just the other day I was watching Stanford's talk by David Friedberg about how he built the Climate Corporation which, in my words, provides bad weather insurance for businesses and farmers. The guy doesn't own a farm or a business that's impacted by weather, he's not a user of his own product, but he still went ahead and understood the intricacies of that industry and was highly successful.

Being your own product's user is fantastic, I think it really helps, however you'll be leaving out a lot of good ideas on the table.

Re: You're Overthinking It

#24

Post by chaz »

tedunangst wrote: post #20
starwed wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go to craigslist, and try searching for only 1 BR apartments.

Would you really refuse to look at a 2 BR that's in your price range? Personally, I always just set a price and then take the best available. I guess if you wanted to pick a configuration and then take the best price, craigslist doesn't help filter much. But the price first approach is also the one every broker I've used took.

You're right. But keyword spam, daily reposting, and generic posts that direct you to another site are bigger offenders that make Craigslist really hard to use.

Re: You're Overthinking It

#25

Post by miles_matthias »

By the way, that advice in the Steve Jobs biography isn't actually from Steve Jobs. I'm sure the OP knows this, but I just wanted to point out that it was from Mike Markkula's marketing principles paper entitled, "The Apple Marketing Philosophy"

Re: You're Overthinking It

#26

Post by TeMPOraL »

miles_matthias wrote: post #6

Maybe I should write down every thing I use for a day and glean ideas from that.

Maybe you can write all issues that annoy you about each of those things you use every day, and then see if some of them are problems for others as well, and if they can be fixed? I heard once that it's a great way to generate ideas that might actually give value and bring some money back :).

Re: You're Overthinking It

#27

Post by mark_integerdsv »

Something that I took away from this (awesome blog post) is perhaps not directly related: don't spend too much time worrying about competitors. Build your thing. Just. Build. It.

If you have innovated and not imitated you will have something that no one else has. It's really that simple. You could sit and fret about how easily Google could destroy you, you could worry about the fact that maybe Facebook offers a similar app/service/whathaveyou… None of that matters. Build your thing.

True originality always wins out in the end.

Re: You're Overthinking It

#28

Post by EricDeb »

I think there is definitely a problem with the realism that Hacker News unknowingly perpetuates. I would imagine people who read Hacker News are less likely to start companies because they are exposed to extremely intelligent people's comments on all things technological on a daily basis.

I think people forget that there are a lot of other characteristics besides intelligence necessary for successful Entrepreneurship

Re: You're Overthinking It

#29

Post by shmerl »

dy wrote: post #21

The advice in this article is dangerous for finding success and profit as an entrepreneur if your only knowledge relates to the needs of a developer. Developers are an infamously hard bunch of people to sell products to; as developers, I'm sure we've had all these thoughts: - this is cool, but I could build something better (how many 37signal open source clones are there) - this is cool, but way too expensive (Github…

I'm somewhat curious what does all this have to do with the word "hacker" which denotes kind of approach to life really, in a way of "hacking" it.

Re: You're Overthinking It

#30

Post by PakG1 »

starwed wrote: post #16
MaxGabriel wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that design could still be really helpful if its helps achieve one of those core 'needs.' Craigslist leaves alot to be desired when searching for apartments (my only experience with it) compared to Hipmunk's hotel search, which plots the results on a map with color/size coding.

I recently discovered padmapper while apt hunting, and it's a godsend. It scrapes craigslist for data and posts it to a map. The killer feature is obviously to be able to look at a region and see what's available, but the filtering options are also way easier to use than craigslist's rather pathetic interface.

This is funny because housingmaps, mapping craigslist listings to google maps was the original mashup. The guy went and worked for google because he said he didn't think there were any good barriers to entry to run the idea as a business.
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