"Companies" seem like terrible vehicles to work on "projects". Is there a better answer? The dreaded incubator?
Projects and Companies
31–40 of 52 posts
Re: Projects and Companies
#32> The best companies start out with ideas that don’t sound very good. They start out as projects, and in fact sometimes they sound so inconsequential the founders wouldn't let themselves work on them if they had to defend them as a company. Google and Yahoo started as grad students’ projects. Facebook was a project Zuckerberg built while he was a sophomore in college. Twitter was a side project that started with a si…
Google was a bad idea because at that time Yahoo, Excite, Lycos and all those "portals" were making money by keeping the traffic on their site instead of sending them away. They didn't even invest much on "search" as we know it because it's better if users generate more pageviews while trying to find something they want. Now google adsense and adwords sound so obvious but nobody knew they would be so powerful. Google was no doubt a cool "project" but no one knew how it would sustain itself (nowadays it's taken for granted you would make money by advertising but back then that was not so obvious probably) Same goes for Facebook. One big distinction between a company and project is company makes money and project doesn't necessarily have to.
Re: Projects and Companies
#33> If you don’t have the self-discipline to work hard without external pressure, projects can be a license to slack off.
I agree with this, with one caveat. Some of my most productive bursts of output or problem solving have occurred right after a self-imposed, brief period of slacking off. There can be a tremendous benefit from the mental break that goes with 'controlled slacking off,' so long as it's intentional rather than an indication of something more serious (like not wanting to work on the project).
Re: Projects and Companies
#34> The best companies start out with ideas that don’t sound very good. They start out as projects, and in fact sometimes they sound so inconsequential the founders wouldn't let themselves work on them if they had to defend them as a company. Isn't this just cherry-picking of examples that validate a preconception? What about Uber? Dropbox? Amazon? Xiaomi? Theranos: > In the fall of 2003, Elizabeth Holmes, a 19-year-ol…
Does a limo service as a startup idea sound cool to you? What about just another online file storage service when there are hundreds of others out there already without any significant traction?
> Does a limo service as a startup idea sound cool to you?
Do you think they didn't recognize the potential to move downmarket right from the beginning? Starting as a limo service was just a way to delay regulatory issues. Travis shot down Garrett's idea of owning the assets right at the beginning.
> What about just another online file storage service when there are hundreds of others out there already without any significant traction?
It definitely wasn't the presence of "hundreds" of competitors (at least not ones that didn't require sysadmin expertise) that people were criticizing at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
Re: Projects and Companies
#35I like the long-standing definitions of the words: the company is the entity composed of the workers in their official capacity as well as its other resources, legal rights and so forth, and the project is the work the company has undertaken, and you are a beautiful if monomaniacal human being. >It’s far better to be thought of—and to think of yourself—as a project than a company for as long as possible. 'You' are ne…
> If any of these things were synonymous, there would be some serious implications. If your project fails, then you as the projectcompanyperson, are a failure and may cease to exist(instead of you still being an alive person whose project failed and whose company may or may not be on the rocks) Fear of (personal) failure can be a strong motivator though; "One of the most interesting things we've discovered from worki…
Or if you already failed (and we all fail to various degrees all the time) then fear of looking bad can prevent you from doing the right things to manage the consequences of failure. It is a double-edged sword.
Re: Projects and Companies
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does a limo service as a startup idea sound cool to you? What about just another online file storage service when there are hundreds of others out there already without any significant traction?
> Does a limo service as a startup idea sound cool to you? Do you think they didn't recognize the potential to move downmarket right from the beginning? Starting as a limo service was just a way to delay regulatory issues. Travis shot down Garrett's idea of owning the assets right at the beginning. > What about just another online file storage service when there are hundreds of others out there already without any si…
Your argument actually supports my argument. Yeah that's why the expression is "looks like a bad idea", not "it is a bad idea". It looks like a bad idea to others, but not to the founders because the founders obviously know (or believe) something that others don't. Otherwise, if the founders were working on something even they thought was a bad idea, that would be an idiot.
Re: Projects and Companies
#37GitLab we always talk about GitLab the company and GitLab the project as separate things. This because the open source project is bigger than the company. Hopefully this helps us keep thinking like a project.
Re: Projects and Companies
#38> The best companies start out with ideas that don’t sound very good. They start out as projects, and in fact sometimes they sound so inconsequential the founders wouldn't let themselves work on them if they had to defend them as a company. Isn't this just cherry-picking of examples that validate a preconception? What about Uber? Dropbox? Amazon? Xiaomi? Theranos: > In the fall of 2003, Elizabeth Holmes, a 19-year-ol…
DropBox fit that category. It was a solved problem for the people on HackerNews. "Oh we already have rsync for that". They had a very critical reaction here, most people thought the idea didn't have any value, but now look at where they are.
I also think that back when Amazon started, a lot of people laughed at the idea of selling books online. In fact for many, many years with Amazon making huge losses people predicted they would fail.
But I agree there are always exception to the rule. The question, I suppose, is which one is the rule?
Re: Projects and Companies
#39> The best companies start out with ideas that don’t sound very good. They start out as projects, and in fact sometimes they sound so inconsequential the founders wouldn't let themselves work on them if they had to defend them as a company. Isn't this just cherry-picking of examples that validate a preconception? What about Uber? Dropbox? Amazon? Xiaomi? Theranos: > In the fall of 2003, Elizabeth Holmes, a 19-year-ol…
Does a limo service as a startup idea sound cool to you? What about just another online file storage service when there are hundreds of others out there already without any significant traction?
> Does a limo service as a startup idea
Does a mobile optimized, GPS optimized, delivery service startup idea sound good to you?
Uber didn't solve the car service problem, they solved the getting you in a car right now problem.
"No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame."
edit: further reading suggests my comment is more or less in line with the parent's point - call it a wash :)
Re: Projects and Companies
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Does a limo service as a startup idea sound cool to you? Do you think they didn't recognize the potential to move downmarket right from the beginning? Starting as a limo service was just a way to delay regulatory issues. Travis shot down Garrett's idea of owning the assets right at the beginning. > What about just another online file storage service when there are hundreds of others out there already without any si…
Your argument actually supports my argument. Yeah that's why the expression is "looks like a bad idea", not "it is a bad idea". It looks like a bad idea to others, but not to the founders because the founders obviously know (or believe) something that others don't. Otherwise, if the founders were working on something even they thought was a bad idea, that would be an idiot.
No, you're missing the point. The idea was obvious to plenty of others (Box in the case of Dropbox, Lyft/Sidecar in the case of Uber).
The difference for Uber was that they were able to raise an enormous amount of funding, then use it to subsidize their service to the hilt while expanding to as many locales as possible. It's still not clear that the business is sustainable: http://gawker.com/here-are-the-internal-documents-that-prove...
In the case of Dropbox, they just eschewed profitability and instead pursued consumer traction, whereas Box pivoted to enterprise. And it's still not clear that Dropbox is a better company than Box, especially if Box can get its CAC under control. After all, most people are using Dropbox for free, which is one reason Box pivoted to enterprise: http://www.businessinsider.com/dropbox-ceo-drew-houston-grow...
The differentiating factor between the founding teams wasn't knowledge of some secret, but the social capital needed to raise the financial capital to run a lossmaking business for years on end.