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Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#21

Post by fauigerzigerk »

Yes there will always be room for new applications (web or not) or kitchen appliances for that matter.

Don't make me think about my kitchen! it's awful! I can't seem to keep it clean and the traditional solution to this problem, marriage, has apparently run its course. My girlfriend is a software geek as well and hates to clean the kitchen (and vacuuming) even more than I do. So where is that long promised robot revolution? Bring it on!

And where is that website that lets me auction my food orders, to be delivered by the best bidder? And knowing about the food I eat, the site could also tell me which nutrients I'm supposed to consume more of and which ready meals contain them, excluding the ones I hate.

There are so many old unsolved problems. Anonymous hassle free micropayments for instance...

Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#22

Post by Tichy »

brlewis wrote: post #19
Tichy wrote: post #11

Always is too big a word. Perhaps in 50 years we will all have plugs into our brains, and we will just KNOW things - we don't have to read stuff anymore, we are just connected to the information. No more need for web applications, so no, I would not say that there will always be web applications, although there might be. Will there always be new opportunities? Of course. At the moment, there are also still lots of op…

The brain plug invention would only increase the need for automated information processing.

Of course, but I would not call it "Web application" anymore. Perhaps brain application?

Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#23

Post by zaidf »

"I'd rather use 5-10 really useful apps than 40-50 marginally useful ones."

You answered your own question. What this means is that if you are serious about your start-up, you should shoot for nothing less than being in the 5-10 "really useful" list.

It is not easy by any means and pg has said before that as more and more start-ups launch, the difference between great ones and average ones would become more apparent.

Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#24

Post by hhm »

pg wrote: post #4

People's wants seem unlimited, at least in the near term. If you accept that, the only limitation on the number of web startups is how many needs can be satisfied by software. (The web is just the current default software platform.) And since everything is turning into software nowadays, it seems likely that the infinite demand for new stuff translates into an infinite demand for new software.

The problem is, does every need generate an interesting market? Are the interesting markets unlimited as well?

Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#25

Post by ivankirigin »

hhm wrote: post #24
pg wrote: post #4

People's wants seem unlimited, at least in the near term. If you accept that, the only limitation on the number of web startups is how many needs can be satisfied by software. (The web is just the current default software platform.) And since everything is turning into software nowadays, it seems likely that the infinite demand for new stuff translates into an infinite demand for new software.

The problem is, does every need generate an interesting market? Are the interesting markets unlimited as well?

market = need

Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#26

Post by hhm »

ivankirigin wrote: post #25
hhm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, does every need generate an interesting market? Are the interesting markets unlimited as well?

market = need

No. I can have needs I'm not going to pay for. Or I can have needs whose solutions are too expensive. Or many needs can come from people who have not too much money so not all needs are an interesting market.

Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#27

Post by ivankirigin »

hhm wrote: post #26
ivankirigin wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

market = need

No. I can have needs I'm not going to pay for. Or I can have needs whose solutions are too expensive. Or many needs can come from people who have not too much money so not all needs are an interesting market.

What is an "interesting market"? It's a non distinction.

If you aren't going to pay for a solution to a need, then it isn't a need. If you can't afford it, that is a technological issue. There is no such thing as someone with "too much money".

[edit: there are certainly things that money can't buy. Though I'm sure you can mail-order a lovely bride, a Zen Buddhist sensei fresh from Japan, and adopt some children in need to give your life meaning]

Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#28

Post by hhm »

ivankirigin wrote: post #27
hhm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I can have needs I'm not going to pay for. Or I can have needs whose solutions are too expensive. Or many needs can come from people who have not too much money so not all needs are an interesting market.

What is an "interesting market"? It's a non distinction. If you aren't going to pay for a solution to a need, then it isn't a need. If you can't afford it, that is a technological issue. There is no such thing as someone with "too much money". [edit: there are certainly things that money can't buy. Though I'm sure you can mail-order a lovely bride, a Zen Buddhist sensei fresh from Japan, and adopt some children in ne…

Sorry if I didn't express myself correctly. I'm not a native English speaker.

I say: you can have a need, but you can have not enough money to pay for a solution to that need. For example, you can say that as there is so much poverty, there is a big need for food so there is a big market for food right? But probably, the sector that is suffering poverty wouldn't make an interesting market, as would not have money to pay for the food you might offer to it.

That's an exaggeration, but the same can happen with other stuff. There are lots of human needs you can point to, but the segments that would pay for solutions to these needs are, as I think, more limited, for many reasons. Maybe your solution is expensive for them, maybe they don't want to use credit cards online, etc...

About "too much money"... that was where my "non-native" English came along. I meant: maybe the people that have the needs have not enough resources (money) to buy your product/service, making that an uninteresting market despite being an unattended need. I was not saying you can have "too much money".

Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#29

Post by imgabe »

Each individual mainstream user might have a finite number of needs, but the number of needs of users in aggregate is effectively infinite. I agree that I'd rather use 5-10 great apps than 40-50 marginally useful apps, but why do you think the 5-10 apps you find most useful would be the same 5-10 apps someone else does? No one webapp has to appeal to the entire market to be successful, it just has to appeal to enough users to provide an income to cover its costs.

This reminds me of Joel Spolsky's take on the 80/20 bloatware myth. The idea being that bloated programs like Word are bad because 80% of the users only use 20% of the features. But they don't all use the same 20% is the problem, so you can't just remove 80% of the features without pissing off a sizable group of people. I think the same applies to web apps. Nobody needs every one of them, but the right set of web apps for any given person probably isn't identical to anyone else's.

Re: Ask YC: Will there really always be room for more successful web startups?

#30

Post by Retric »

cperciva wrote: post #2

Every idea I think of, someone else has done. Maybe your ideas aren't specific enough. Take my own not-yet-launched project ( http://www.tarsnap.com ), for example: Online backups. Lots of people have done those, right? Mozy, Carbonite, iDrive... google can easily find dozens of them. But that's just the "30 thousand feet" view of what I'm doing. I'm not just doing online backups -- I'm doing secure online backups. S…

That sounds a lot like http://www.idrive.com/ or www.evault.com/ and or several other systems out there. Building a secure system is a hard problem and even if you build the best system few people can judge how well your doing. You could market it as "The only 4096 bit system" but you end up with a tiny market segment.

I would suggest starting with a secure chat system with good logging options. That way you can reasonably target teenagers, bankers and the truly paranoid. And you don't need a huge backup infrastructure or a 50$ / year price tag to compete.

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