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I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

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Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#331

Post by achillesheels »

chefandy wrote: post #305
achillesheels wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Google is a product of luck and not centuries of the willfully successful extensions of men, e.g. Leland Stanford, on this continent? What, in your estimation, can be controlled then?

Even the most straightforward occurrences are contingent on many factors. If they wasn’t true, science would br pretty easy. Saying founders heavily discount the importance of luck is different from saying it was entirely random.

What matters is the succession of factors that are in founders or companies control. The objection is that most of Google's success is luck - uncontrollable good fortune. It's precisely the motivation towards gaining fortune that leads to conscientious decision-making in principling the action of one's mind to will the body into organizing itself with others in the future society - positively.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#332

Post by xorcist »

abirch wrote: post #65
a1371 wrote: post #31

This was a fun read, but I think it came to the wrong conclusion. The real issue imo was "I had practically only weeks of runway". You just don't have time to make it happen. As a fellow start up founder, I see most of my job being just buying time for the business. Buying time to make, to talk, and to think. It wasn't like the tool had no value to Susan, maybe with a booth at her go-to annual expo, mentioning a few…

I agree with your comment about the wrong conclusion. Google didn't have a monetization plan, it launched in 1998 and didn't do adwords(ads) until 2000. It's always better to have positive cashflow, however, enough capital lets you have more runway. At the end of the day you do need someone who will pay. Not that I dislike attorneys but they could have been a client. If you can show that a doctor didn't prescribe the…

Google was a research project several years before that!

Graduate students wouldn't have demanded that raise only a few weeks in.

(Just kidding. Or am I?)

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#333

Post by IanCal »

randomdata wrote: post #204
IanCal wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had this argument before, from the same side you're coming at it from, and I was wrong. It's really not about building a viable product in that sense - the Dropbox demo video is the classic example of an MVP that isn't a "product" as such.

The Dropbox demo video was a prototype at best, and probably more accurately thought of as an advertisement. Definitely not a product, let alone a viable one. MVP meaning "something I did to make my business successful" isn't meaningful. The first version of Dropbox that landed into users hands and started to generate revenue could be accurately thought of as an MVP. It didn't do everything imaginable, but did just e…

I know exactly what you mean, but this is not what Eric Rees means by the term. That is why the previous poster said

> This is completely different to an MVP as defined in The Lean Startup. It's absolutely about proving whatever needs proving.

Here's a relevant article.

https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-pro...

And

> A minimum viable product (MVP) is the most pared down version of a product that can still be released. Product demos, crowdfunding projects and landing pages are all common examples of MVPs.

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/27809/minimum-viable-p...

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#334

Post by randomdata »

IanCal wrote: post #333
randomdata wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Dropbox demo video was a prototype at best, and probably more accurately thought of as an advertisement. Definitely not a product, let alone a viable one. MVP meaning "something I did to make my business successful" isn't meaningful. The first version of Dropbox that landed into users hands and started to generate revenue could be accurately thought of as an MVP. It didn't do everything imaginable, but did just e…

I know exactly what you mean, but this is not what Eric Rees means by the term. That is why the previous poster said > This is completely different to an MVP as defined in The Lean Startup. It's absolutely about proving whatever needs proving. Here's a relevant article. https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-pro... And > A minimum viable product (MVP) is the most pared down version of a product that…

> I know exactly what you mean, but this is not what Eric Rees means by the term.

Frank Robinson coined the Minimum Viable Product. This is what he had to say about it:

"The MVP is the right-sized product for your company and your customer. It is big enough to cause adoption, satisfaction and sales, but not so big as to be bloated and risky."

Steve Blank is credited with popularizing the term. Here he emphasizes that the MVP is about reaching sustainability for the company. What he calls an 'MVP tree', which produces potential MVP candidates, may be closer to what we're discussing here.

"An MVP tree is a way of methodically breaking your mission into smaller components and formulating MVP candidates that may get your company sustainable and scalable."

Ries, whoever he is, was free to make up his own definition, just as I can define the sky to be the hot molten lava deep inside the earth, but his definition does not match the usage of its originator nor is it in alignment with how (most) everyone else uses the term.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#335

Post by IanCal »

randomdata wrote: post #334
IanCal wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know exactly what you mean, but this is not what Eric Rees means by the term. That is why the previous poster said > This is completely different to an MVP as defined in The Lean Startup. It's absolutely about proving whatever needs proving. Here's a relevant article. https://techcrunch.com/2011/10/19/dropbox-minimal-viable-pro... And > A minimum viable product (MVP) is the most pared down version of a product that…

> I know exactly what you mean, but this is not what Eric Rees means by the term. Frank Robinson coined the Minimum Viable Product. This is what he had to say about it: "The MVP is the right-sized product for your company and your customer. It is big enough to cause adoption, satisfaction and sales, but not so big as to be bloated and risky." Steve Blank is credited with popularizing the term. Here he emphasizes that…

> Ries, whoever he is

The author of the book that the other poster was talking about.

> Steve Blank is credited with popularizing the term

As is Ries.

> Here he emphasizes that the MVP is about reaching sustainability for the company.

Hmm. Here's a post from him that's absolutely not about sustainability but about validating core assumptions (and not building a product): https://steveblank.com/2013/07/22/an-mvp-is-not-a-cheaper-pr...

> Ries, whoever he is, was free to make up his own definition, just as I can define the sky to be the hot molten lava deep inside the earth, but his definition does not match the usage of its originator nor is it in alignment with how (most) everyone else uses the term.

It would be very at odds with the current use of the term MVP to define what dropbox did as not an MVP.

This isn't becoming hugely productive, so I'll leave it where I started - I've had this argument before from your side, and the dropbox video is an MVP. It is not a niche view.

Re: I wasted $40k on a fantastic startup idea (2020)

#336

Post by chefandy »

achillesheels wrote: post #331
chefandy wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the most straightforward occurrences are contingent on many factors. If they wasn’t true, science would br pretty easy. Saying founders heavily discount the importance of luck is different from saying it was entirely random.

What matters is the succession of factors that are in founders or companies control. The objection is that most of Google's success is luck - uncontrollable good fortune. It's precisely the motivation towards gaining fortune that leads to conscientious decision-making in principling the action of one's mind to will the body into organizing itself with others in the future society - positively.

Matters by what measure and to whom?

Sure, not just anybody could have founded Google, even if born to mathematics and computer science professors prioritizing their educations and offering enough of a safety net to start a company rather than toil to pay off student loans for their Stanford computer science graduate educations which facilitated a relationship with a professor willing to connect them with Andy Bechtolsheim right at the Internet’s precipice… but it sure did help.

What they did required hard work, intelligence, creativity and discipline to execute... But implying those are the only factors worth considering is garbage. Their circumstances guaranteed they’d be able to reap greater rewards than nearly anybody else for the same output even if google had failed. Just look at the Opportunity Atlas. Do you really think talent is that geographically focused? If you don’t consider their circumstances lucky or don’t think they made much difference, I’m not really sure what else to say.

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