TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving? • Hacker News Board

Re: TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving?

#21

Post by bpatrianakos » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 12:01 AM UTC

diego wrote: post #17

"What problem are you solving" is dogma. At the earliest stage, a startup is an experiment to see if people want something. There are tons of examples of companies that started as toys, and ultimately became businesses. In hindsight you can always come up a description of the problem they were solving at the time, even if nobody knew the problem existed. You could do this for Twitter today: they solved the problem of…

Thank you for this! That's one thought I had but forgot to mention in another comment below. Dogma is the perfect word for it too. I also believe the people repeating that dogma are doing it either out of ignorance or some attempt to make themselves feel important and world changing. That's where your second point comes in - those same people will do all sorts of mental gymnastics to explain the problem which may not even exist. Your example of Twitter is perfect too! They now say its some novel communication platform. Well, I'm pretty sure it started as what basically amounted to Facebook status updates on a site called Twitter. Now people are rewriting history to make the legend true.

Re: TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving?

#22

Post by sopooneo » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 1:07 AM UTC

I'm sure most profitable companies were formed to solve a problem. But a few absurdly successful ones don't really fit that description. You can shoehorn them in, but it seems like a stretch to explain the "pain point" facebook solved. Instead, it seems like in those cases, they provided a new thing no one knew to want before.

Re: TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving?

#23

Post by marknutter » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 4:48 AM UTC

ssebro wrote: post #13

osuburger wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally fine with the feedback. Thanks for checking us out! To address your point though, we've actually found that we have a pretty awesome mix of users that consists of both early adopters and more "normal" people. For example, my dad loves movies and gadgets but never reads any tech blogs or hears about this stuff normally. He likes using our site because he can hear about things he is interested in but normally n…

It seems a little weird that someone who loves movies doesn't hear about them through any other sources. While I wanted to sign up for some of the movies, I knew I'd see ads for them on TV, or at bus stops when they launched. I've literally never missed the launch of something that I cared a lot about, because by definition I'd be the kind of person they'd be trying to reach. But the proof is in the data - if you're…

There are those of us who are interested in launches but just don't have the time to dedicate to keeping track of their status.

Re: TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving?

#24

Post by brackin » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 10:07 AM UTC

diego wrote: post #17

"What problem are you solving" is dogma. At the earliest stage, a startup is an experiment to see if people want something. There are tons of examples of companies that started as toys, and ultimately became businesses. In hindsight you can always come up a description of the problem they were solving at the time, even if nobody knew the problem existed. You could do this for Twitter today: they solved the problem of…

Uber is a good example. Started as a black car service for Silicon Valley but are fixing transportation problems in major cities with eventually 5+ modes of transport for anyone. They're fixing urban logistics, at first they were a neat app.

Re: TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving?

#25

Post by randomrant » Thu, Sep 13, 2012, 8:32 PM UTC

bpatrianakos wrote: post #18

SparksZilla wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't identify with your problem, but I totally believe that it's a problem. I was at Disrupt and saw a lot of really cool companies solving real problems. That said, I also saw a lot of sexy apps and sites that really aren't addressing problems at all. They do cool things, look nice, and work well, but they really aren't addressing problems. Thoughts?

The startup gods have proclaimed that you must solve a problem and now everyone seems to be taking it as an absolute truth. The startup gods are wrong. Listen, solving a problem is what we need more of in this world. It's hard, its rewarding, and the idea of it is sexy though the problem itself may not be. That said, solving some problem is not the only way to succeed or be relevant. Some things can be cool and sexy…

Brilliant. You said it all.

Gaming is a huge industry. Tell me what problems this whole industry solves, vitamin or painkiller? I would argue that it is a huge waste for the society. Same goes with alcohol. Do they acutally "create" more problems?

The truth is that people want to spend money to buy vitamins and many useless things. If you provide them and people buy, you have a business.

The notion of a startup having to solve a problem and the argument of vitamin or painkiller are stupid and amateur.

For OP, indeed, you are trying to solve a problem. But you create a new problem for me - I have to remember to go to your site to learn whatever I want to know, on top of many things I do everyday - cnn, wsj, techcrunch, gmail, YC news, facebook, twitter. I already get more information than what I can digest. I cannot remember to go to your site and will not have incentive to do it. Until you provide something unique that I need, I won't visit your site again. (I visited yesterday.)