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How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

blog.ycombinator.com

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Re: How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

#51

Post by _hyn3 »

john_moscow wrote: post #48
rmason wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Number 4 is exceedingly important and it's counter to popular thought. Bootstrapping is painful but if you start growing fast you won't have to seek them out the VC's will find you.

It just depends on the game you are playing. Currently you can make more money selling the emotion of owning a piece of something great to investors, than selling the actual product to customers.

Only over the short-term. Over the long-term, these should even out, all other things being equal.

Re: How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

#52

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

madeuptempacct wrote: post #3
jarsin wrote: post #2

So has Ycombinator abandoned any hope for VR since he calls it a fake trend in the first five minutes? Just curious because I swear saw a blog where they want VR startups to apply awhile ago but can't find it now.

He is dead wrong if he thinks VR isn't huge in the long-term.

VR is overhyped, its use cases are more niche than people are led to believe.

For entertainment, real-estate previews, watching movies together, the experience, learning & simulation, and art modelling its great, but other than that not really. VR social chat is not going to be a big thing, even after gen-Z. People tend to forget what social chat is for, communication. VR just adds no value to that process.

If someone wanted a VR social experience, we've had MMOs for ages. VR social might as well be a VR gaming MMO. It needs to provide a medium to spur social interactions. That market is not very big, although Roblox (10MM average users) would be an interesting market to look at to see where that goes. Your market segment in VR social is going to be smaller than an MMO, which tops at around at 10MM as well. Instagram has 800MM users. Population of america is 300MM+. Put numbers in perspective, its a niche market and won't ever be big. To make a profit, you would have to dump an incredible amount of investment in comparison to making a simple CRUD app. RoI needs to be justified.

VR has already been around for 15+ years, I grew up playing VR games at Disney as a kid. This market is not new. VR is only fun for certain games as well, generally the same games that made Wii and Xbox kinect fun.

Even if VR/AR became entirely portable and seamless, its still not going to have widescale adoption. You can't replace real life.

VR's biggest profit potential is towards small niche groups of people with alot of money to throw around. Much like the mobile game market works, only a few users contribute 90%+ of sales citation needed. Currently, DoD is using VR/AR for leadership & simulation & hypothetical scenario training, because mistakes / setups are expensive and cost lives.

VR gaming will never be a big market until the cost of equipment goes down. And frictionless setup / no context switching. Its still a very high barrier to entry, and a high cost to maintain.

Re: How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

#53

Post by debt »

rexreed wrote: post #27

I'll counter with some more basic and more broadly applicable advice. 1) Build a product people actually want and need and will pay money for 2) Promote yourself incessantly because others will be promoting themselves even more incessantly. 3) Spend your money wisely - focus on people, product, and marketing. Don't waste your money on office trappings and stuff that makes you feel good. Save your lunch money. 4) Igno…

"1) Build a product people actually want and need and will pay money for"

This piece advice seems leftover from a bygone era as this is so fundamental that I wonder does it even bear saying?

Again, if you're building something people don't want or aren't going to pay for, something is seriously fundamentally wrong and you should try to define what you're even trying to achieve; that is, you're not even trying to build a business but may think you are.

In most industries, making money is usually the very first thing that happens and, in some cases, happens before a thing is built or a service is provided.

Starting a business == making money. Maybe it's not profitable, but money should be changing hands. If that's not happening, go back to the drawing board and question everything.

We're not in the Dropbox circa 2013 era anymore.

Re: How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

#55

Post by mattnewport »

swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #52
madeuptempacct wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He is dead wrong if he thinks VR isn't huge in the long-term.

VR is overhyped, its use cases are more niche than people are led to believe. For entertainment, real-estate previews, watching movies together, the experience, learning & simulation, and art modelling its great, but other than that not really. VR social chat is not going to be a big thing, even after gen-Z. People tend to forget what social chat is for, communication. VR just adds no value to that process. If someon…

> VR social chat is not going to be a big thing, even after gen-Z. People tend to forget what social chat is for, communication. VR just adds no value to that process.

This is not out experience using VR chat for some of our meetings. We're a fully remote team building a VR product so we're in a somewhat unique position where all our employees have high end VR gear and we have a big need for effective remote collaboration and communication.

A big advantage of VR over voice or video conference calls is being able to see where everyone is looking. This makes for smoother flowing conversations as you're able to look at someone when you pause and want their input. It's a real advantage over video conferencing. This is true even with very primitive avatars that don't reflect any facial expressions. Being able to collaborate around virtual objects in the environment is also useful in some situations, although virtual whiteboards are still quite primitive in most apps. Social VR is a very different experience from an MMO played in a 2D window.

The hardware cost will continue to come down but it's already not a major barrier for many enterprise use cases. Is certainly not a top concern for our customers.

Re: How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

#56

Post by ryeguy_24 »

rexreed wrote: post #27

I'll counter with some more basic and more broadly applicable advice. 1) Build a product people actually want and need and will pay money for 2) Promote yourself incessantly because others will be promoting themselves even more incessantly. 3) Spend your money wisely - focus on people, product, and marketing. Don't waste your money on office trappings and stuff that makes you feel good. Save your lunch money. 4) Igno…

To simplify further:

1. Be good at product management

2. Do marketing a lot

3. Be smart financially

4. Be smart financially

5. Do marketing a lot

6. Be good at product management

7. Be smart financially

8. Be good at product management

Re: How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

#57

Post by Barrin92 »

rexreed wrote: post #27

I'll counter with some more basic and more broadly applicable advice. 1) Build a product people actually want and need and will pay money for 2) Promote yourself incessantly because others will be promoting themselves even more incessantly. 3) Spend your money wisely - focus on people, product, and marketing. Don't waste your money on office trappings and stuff that makes you feel good. Save your lunch money. 4) Igno…

> Ignore Venture Capital

I have trouble seeing how this works in a robotics or biotech company. Yes, if you're building something facing consumers on the web you can go a long way on small savings and people just putting time in. But if you want to build something that requires some capital simply to keep the business running that's going to be difficult.

Re: How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

#58

Post by swaggyBoatswain »

mattnewport wrote: post #55
swaggyBoatswain wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VR is overhyped, its use cases are more niche than people are led to believe. For entertainment, real-estate previews, watching movies together, the experience, learning & simulation, and art modelling its great, but other than that not really. VR social chat is not going to be a big thing, even after gen-Z. People tend to forget what social chat is for, communication. VR just adds no value to that process. If someon…

> VR social chat is not going to be a big thing, even after gen-Z. People tend to forget what social chat is for, communication. VR just adds no value to that process. This is not out experience using VR chat for some of our meetings. We're a fully remote team building a VR product so we're in a somewhat unique position where all our employees have high end VR gear and we have a big need for effective remote collabor…

Fair point I did not consider VR collaboration and idea incubation for enterprise level applications, where details have a higher priority.

My only counter argument to VR chat for enterprise level applications is four fold:

1. Its synchronous, like any conference call. Async is still going to be the main form of communication (Slack, git issues, email, etc). Synchronous communication has a higher weighting on just communicating ASAP with frictionless joining, since time lost is expensive for any company. That time lost comes from putting on your rift, turning it on, navigating to the meeting, minor details like that etc. It might really be minimal issues at best if your team is used to it.

2. Replaying VR, or even 360* videos. Information hides in a 3D plane as opposed to just everything displayed on a 2D screen. Mostly for people that did not attend the conference video / webinar etc. I don't know about you but I watch many of my videos at 2x playback speed. That would give me nausea

3. The advantages you are getting in VR over a traditional video conference call aren't that high. You would know more here, do you really value facial expressions and social cues over a simpler environment without 3d head set?

4. People remoting in need to have a VR set. That eliminates your coffee shop / travel nomad employee, is he really going to be carrying VR gear around? Of course he can just use chat / video, but still you want your work culture to embrace your ideals.

My counter argument to VR chat to general social everyday use, is primarly to cost / portablility / mass adoption / convenience. But these will get better over time.

It definitely has applications for things with your SO/best friend who lives in a different city, I can definitely see the appeal in that.

...I might have overstated myself here at least on that statement

Re: How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

#59

Post by anonymous5133 »

debt wrote: post #53
rexreed wrote: post #27

I'll counter with some more basic and more broadly applicable advice. 1) Build a product people actually want and need and will pay money for 2) Promote yourself incessantly because others will be promoting themselves even more incessantly. 3) Spend your money wisely - focus on people, product, and marketing. Don't waste your money on office trappings and stuff that makes you feel good. Save your lunch money. 4) Igno…

"1) Build a product people actually want and need and will pay money for" This piece advice seems leftover from a bygone era as this is so fundamental that I wonder does it even bear saying? Again, if you're building something people don't want or aren't going to pay for, something is seriously fundamentally wrong and you should try to define what you're even trying to achieve; that is, you're not even trying to buil…

Even though that advice is obvious, it is so relevant and I see lots of people who don't actually follow it. Yes, hard to believe but it is true.

How many times do you see a "show HN" post where the project being showcased is just a very simple project. I am not sure if people are just showing it for feedback or if they want to make the project into a startup eventually. A lot of these projects I see seem like they are just simple features but the developer wants to commercialize it. Problem is the current version of the project is so simple that I rarely see any real market for it unless the project is something really amazing.

Re: How to Succeed with a Startup [video]

#60

Post by anonymous5133 »

fermienrico wrote: post #16

I find Sam Altman's advice on startup completely and utterly useless. They're akin to the "How to become a millionaire" books. I've said this in the past [1] that providing generic advice doesn't work for startups. Every company is unique and they have unique challenges. Instead, Sam should be focusing on bringing stories of various startups in light, interview their founders and have a focused discourse on what work…

I agree that it is a high-level type of advice but it is actually spot on. Everything can't just be handed to you. The hard part about his advice is actually executing on it. Even creating a product that people want and will pay for is extremely difficult.
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