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Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#211

Post by mijoharas »

Const-me wrote: post #197
robertoestivill wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I suggest investing in an SSL certificate for your website? I find it really hard to really trust if that's your contact information ;)

Not OP, but I don’t have certificate on my personal web site either, and I don’t think I need one. > find it really hard to really trust if that's your contact information Because Google implemented warning in their web browser, and you comply without understanding their reasons? SSL is most useful for credit cards processing. SSL makes some sense for e-mails and chat messages, also for authentication. SSL is useless…

> Increases entry barrier, centralizing internet even more. For-profit internet companies have zero issues paying for certificates, it’s part of their business. It raises barrier for ordinary people. Also creates more incentive for placing ads on their web sites to reduce costs. Guess who earns most profits from internet ads?

Lets encrypt is one obvious thing to mention here, besides removing the cost barrier to entry it really is quite simple to set up.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#212

Post by alexobenauer »

avichalp wrote: post #106
alexobenauer wrote: post #38

Here's the recommendation I give to students when they ask me this question (it's a common one!): You come up with a brilliant idea, you obsess over it, you Google some info, and on your screen lies your idea, being done by someone else, for the last two years. You’re all too familiar with that sinking feeling in your stomach that follows. You abandon the idea almost immediately after all that excitement and ideation…

Good points. If you don't find any existing solutions then is it a sign that your idea is probably not that good? Or very few people care about your problem?

Not at all. We've had this happen quite a bit. The key is making sure that people have the problem that the product solves (and that they really hate the problem, or it costs them quite a bit of time or money, etc.). That's what you're really looking for: if people would pay to have the problem solved. That's indicator #1; not necessarily if there are existing solutions out there.

While it is harder marketing something that has no existing solutions like it, we've found that it's definitely not impossible.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#213

Post by alexobenauer »

throw082 wrote: post #141
avichalp wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good points. If you don't find any existing solutions then is it a sign that your idea is probably not that good? Or very few people care about your problem?

It could very well be that people simply don't know they are dealing with a problem that can be solved.

These are my favorite problems - the ones people hate but seem resigned to living with; almost as if it's a simple fact of life. When you come in with a solution, they'll be skeptical at first, but you'll know quickly whether or not you're on a great solution for them.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#214

Post by mk4p »

biztos wrote: post #194

I had, or I guess still have, an idea for Yet Another Web Framework. I've written four versions of it in three languages already. I kept running into a problem: if it was complex enough to realize my full vision, then I wouldn't have time to maintain it, especially if it got any traction at all. Plus, for each single thing I wanted it to do, there were pretty well established things you could use instead. I enjoyed p…

I think someone else did it: https://neocities.org/

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#215

Post by noir_lord »

welly wrote: post #142
planb wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You restaurant analogy fails, because restaurants are at a fixed physical location and the seats are constrained. I find Ben Thompson's "Aggregation Theory" quite insightful on this topic: https://stratechery.com/2015/aggregation-theory/ That's not to say that you cannot be successfull running a small service, but it needs to be differentiated in some way and not just copy the existing ones (which works fine for a ch…

That's fair but how about streets in any big city or town (certainly in the UK) where there is fried chicken shop after fried chicken shop after kebab shop after another kebab shop? The only thing that differentiates each of those places are usually the logos and the name of the shop (London Fried Chicken, Tasty Fried Chicken, Hackney Fried Chicken etc. - not a great deal of imagination there). The food is almost ide…

A lot of those fried chicken places are fronts for money laundering.

Not all but many, ask yourself if you've ever wondered how 7-8 chicken ships stay open when only one is good and ever has customers.

Something does

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#216

Post by cambaceres »

I've been working on a project for the last 6 months, and this week the company will be founded. When I came up with the idea I barely googled it, I just assumed that if it existed I would know about it. A few weeks ago however, I found out that a version of the system I'm building exists already.

After the initial negative response I started to carefully examine my competitor's solution, and the more I look at it, the more I'm convinsed that our system will outperform it big time. They apparently have technical problems which has stopped them from capturing market shares in the past 6 months.

If I would have found out about this other company 6 months ago, I would have never started working on the project. Thank god I did though. I have learned so much about web and app development, I have expanded the idea of what I'm capable of, I'm about to found a company (which of course anyone can do but feels super exiting for me :D ) and I actually have a shot at making it fly.

It is always better to do something than nothing.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#217

Post by ndusan-hn »

alexobenauer wrote: post #38

Here's the recommendation I give to students when they ask me this question (it's a common one!): You come up with a brilliant idea, you obsess over it, you Google some info, and on your screen lies your idea, being done by someone else, for the last two years. You’re all too familiar with that sinking feeling in your stomach that follows. You abandon the idea almost immediately after all that excitement and ideation…

I think overall by Googling the idea and finding that someone else already is doing it should be taken as a positive thing, since it's validates your idea and gives you confirmation that there is a market share for it. Now you just need to make your idea better and more appealing when trying to reach to those existing users ;) Instead limiting yourself, look at it as an opportunity.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#218

Post by alexobenauer »

notimetorelax wrote: post #89
alexobenauer wrote: post #38

Here's the recommendation I give to students when they ask me this question (it's a common one!): You come up with a brilliant idea, you obsess over it, you Google some info, and on your screen lies your idea, being done by someone else, for the last two years. You’re all too familiar with that sinking feeling in your stomach that follows. You abandon the idea almost immediately after all that excitement and ideation…

What questions do you ask yourself to develop your ideas further?

Some of my recommendations:

* Ask yourself what would kill the idea, or the category it's in. Sometimes this leads us to come up with entirely new, even better ideas. Often it leads us to come up with a few better pieces to your original idea.

* Ask yourself what the simplest solution would look like for the user in an ideal world, then what the best technical solution would look like under the hood in an ideal world, then how you can marry the two in this world.

* Workshopping the idea with others can lead to totally new developments on the idea as you understand the problem you're solving better, what people think their solution would be, what people think of your solution, etc.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#219

Post by Const-me »

mijoharas wrote: post #211
Const-me wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP, but I don’t have certificate on my personal web site either, and I don’t think I need one. > find it really hard to really trust if that's your contact information Because Google implemented warning in their web browser, and you comply without understanding their reasons? SSL is most useful for credit cards processing. SSL makes some sense for e-mails and chat messages, also for authentication. SSL is useless…

> Increases entry barrier, centralizing internet even more. For-profit internet companies have zero issues paying for certificates, it’s part of their business. It raises barrier for ordinary people. Also creates more incentive for placing ads on their web sites to reduce costs. Guess who earns most profits from internet ads? Lets encrypt is one obvious thing to mention here, besides removing the cost barrier to entr…

> it really is quite simple to set up

I haven’t tried but I think it’s only simple is you’re willing to manually renew every 90 days. I’m not willing to.

Automatic renewals are only simple for popular environments like LAMP, my web server runs Windows server with IIS and old school asp.net. I can run arbitrary native code on that server, but I don’t have GUI access to that machine.

But even if it would be super-easy and automated for 100% web servers, that’s still introducing a dependency to a third-party service, for no value for audience of my web site. Just shutting up a web browser that I don’t even use myself is not a good reason, IMO.

Re: Ask HN: Are you put off building something because it already exists?

#220

Post by jdormit »

Const-me wrote: post #197
robertoestivill wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

May I suggest investing in an SSL certificate for your website? I find it really hard to really trust if that's your contact information ;)

Not OP, but I don’t have certificate on my personal web site either, and I don’t think I need one. > find it really hard to really trust if that's your contact information Because Google implemented warning in their web browser, and you comply without understanding their reasons? SSL is most useful for credit cards processing. SSL makes some sense for e-mails and chat messages, also for authentication. SSL is useless…

> SSL is useless for static content

This is just... false. Without SSL, static content can be MITM'd just like anything else. Don't believe me? Connect to the WiFi in any Starbucks and visit http://example.com. That redirect to the Starbucks WiFi login page certainly isn't being served from example.com...

Please stop spreading misinformation about SSL.

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