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Half-Baked Product

weli.dev

261–270 of 447 posts

Re: Half-Baked Product

#261

One important part of the story is in the very beginning: The founder’s motivation. To become wealthy. You see this in the startup world a lot. Founders with 5+ failed startups in different sectors, because said founder picked the fields mainly by doing some market analysis. Not domain expertise. There’s then a big mismatch between what the founder thinks is possible, and what the domain expert thinks is possible. Th…

> they wanted our data, and promised the moon on features

I know a company that fits this so well that I almost want to check the names. It's older than 3 months though.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#262
post #165

Here is another story: A baker who bakes for her kids every day makes an oven. She spends years perfecting it by herself with details only someone who uses this product would notice. The nuance of gold baked details in just the right places on the bread, the infusion of essences for the cakes. The precise charring on the pizzas. She goes to young founder events to meet likeminded makers and they talk about space oven…

Ten years later: The woman's oven is still a niche product, but awareness of it is growing, because the quality is just so good. Professionals swear by it and the name is written only with the utmost reverence in the Italian (and other) forums.

The baker is happy and proud with what she could contribute to the worldwide bakers community and has made enough money that she and her family never need to worry again. There is just one problem: By now, she is getting old and none of her kids are interested in bakery or oven tech. She's also getting a steadily growing amount of offers to sell the rights to the brand.

Eventually, she caves and sells the brand and designs to BigOven. They promote her brand front and center and initially also use her design. But over time, BigOven replaces more and more parts with cheaper equivalents while keeping the overall look the same - until eventually, they replace the entire product with a stock design.

The bakers take a while to catch on (during which time BigOven makes a ton of additional money from the brand value) but eventually, the quality decline becomes impossible to ignore. Frustrated posts about corporate greed and enshittification make the rounds on the Italian forums.

"They don't make em like they used to" someone writes...

Re: Half-Baked Product

#263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those Restaurant “dishwashers” are sanatizers. A dishwasher is a person in a restaurant. They are the ones removing and getting the dish clean.

Dishwashers? How dare you. We preferred to be called “Sanitation Engineers - Dishwashing Division” Even had bossman put it on our paystub (he was so tolerant of us kids. I think he was just happy that we were into buffoonery and not meth).

Dishwasher? I hardly know her!

Re: Half-Baked Product

#264

This article could have been written 20 years ago (source : I was there), probably 50 years ago, and will probably be written for ever. (Although future éditions will have fun about AI.) What I would love is to read more of the story from the perspective of the salesperson (we're all too sympathetic to the engineers, and potentially ceo - but I suspect their part of the story goes beyond "I'll just say yes to everyth…

For me the worst scenario is when a kitchen sink of non-existent functionality the customer never asked for was sold. And in all likelihood it will never be used. But some project manager is hellbent on getting it through the pipeline and checked off!

I (maybe idealistically) believe that when you give the people building agency and connect them with the end-user, you get better outcomes.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What drives him then? Power?

Seeking approval. It's apparent from everything he posts on X + the memeing + the whole "I am a elite Path of Exile"-saga.

Interesting, I didn't know; context:

> His character, at the impressive level of 95, reflected not only a significant time investment but also a high degree of expertise.

> Musk’s performance has sparked skepticism about whether he genuinely leveled and equipped his character himself.

> The prevailing sentiment in the gaming community is that Musk doesn’t typically invest much time in video games, but instead leverages gaming achievements to draw media attention.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Elon-Musk-embarrasses-himself-...

Re: Half-Baked Product

#266

Uncomfortably accurate, but a fantastic read. Somewhere between the candle button and "It doesn't rotate clockwise" I stopped laughing and started remembering.

Welcome to HN. Just a heads up that, from the site guidelines[0]: > Don't post generated text or AI-edited text. HN is for conversation between humans. (I'm not a mod or anything; I just noticed that most of your comments have been flagged/killed, and I suspect this might be why.) [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

From the same guidelines:

> Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#267

> The engineer realizes something: building an algorithm that calculates baking time for cakes, pizzas, and bread is quite a bit more complex than it looked. Every dough is its own universe. They need to hire more engineers. Why did the engineer "who spends all day talking and arguing about ovens" not realize this sooner? Sure, "it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not u…

In the story they spend months to build the MVP and people don't like it. This clearly is first point where they could "fail fast", but they believe they can improve and they do.

I guess I'm thinking where is the "fail fast" that is fast enough, but also not quitting too early?

Re: Half-Baked Product

#268

This article could have been written 20 years ago (source : I was there), probably 50 years ago, and will probably be written for ever. (Although future éditions will have fun about AI.) What I would love is to read more of the story from the perspective of the salesperson (we're all too sympathetic to the engineers, and potentially ceo - but I suspect their part of the story goes beyond "I'll just say yes to everyth…

Seller here. There’s no justifying the sales fails in this story. It’s strictly cautionary.

In this story specifically they needed to bring technical stakeholders to Mallorca.

Re: Half-Baked Product

#269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those Restaurant “dishwashers” are sanatizers. A dishwasher is a person in a restaurant. They are the ones removing and getting the dish clean.

Dishwashers? How dare you. We preferred to be called “Sanitation Engineers - Dishwashing Division” Even had bossman put it on our paystub (he was so tolerant of us kids. I think he was just happy that we were into buffoonery and not meth).

Did this actually happen? That's pretty wholesome lmao.
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