61–70 of 88 posts
There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…
There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…
Seems defeatist to over ascribe luck to success. The only guarantee is if you don’t try you don’t succeed.
There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…
Yeah, at a certain level everything depends on luck - even things like talent and intelligence through the birth lottery. I find this argument overly reductive. Luck isn't something you have control over, and focusing on it is counterproductive.
All anyone can do is make the best decisions based on available information. Sometimes you make the right bet and still lose, that doesn't mean it was a bad bet.
It’s a nice framework for many ideas I suppose, but there too many examples of “non-obvious” “stupid ideas” with no market or problem to solve that eventually succeed. And plenty of successes that were not innovative but had great execution. Like most things in life timing is everything and we only know the right timing and “ideas” in hindsight.
Can you give some examples of said stupid ideas?
There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…
If you're trying to make the next Google or Amazon, sure, you're going to need to get massively lucky, and do so repeatedly. There's no playbook for that.
But if you have the relatively modest goal of making $5-10k/month to supplement or replace your income, and you have some baseline level of skills and resources, I'm quite confident the right knowledge can help you minimize luck to the extreme.
There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…
So if luck is the most important ingredient, would it make sense to go for ideas where you can see a lot of very different opportunities? Because that seems to be slightly opposed to the “correct” approach of starting with understanding a problem, then look for a solution. If you do, your solution is going to be extremely tailored to one specific problem, and if that doesn’t work out, it will be hard to do anything e…
So yeah, taking a domain / business that can easily and quickly iterate in big market is increasing the odds. Better even if you can theoretically cover multiple markets with only minor changes. Even then there are no guarantees, so.
The risk with the last approach, at least a risk I face basically daily, is to loose focus. In my case logistics. Everybody moving physical goods from A to B is a potential customer. So I have to maintain focus, because the little differences make all the difference. Also, I bootstrap. So my runway is limited. For now I have a solution for solar modules in Europe for small order sizes and work on one for furniture and other heavy-bulky goods for e-commerce companies. And I hope one of them flies before I have to go looking for a job elsewhere.
I am a serial idea writer and I have to agree with the author. Ideas are inherently valuable, maybe not financially, but they're valuable to have and valuable to society to share. It makes me angry that people actually believe ideas are inherently worthless. Or that without any code or implementation they're worthless. It's a meme that needs to die. It's like having your cake and eating it too. Here's a free idea for…
I don't think you're wrong. Great ideas are extremely valuable. But I think the disconnect comes from the fact that it's very easy to mistake mediocre ideas for great ones. Most times when I hear someone's self-described great idea it seems impressive at first, but then fails to hold up to scrutiny. Among other reasons that an idea may not be as valuable as it appears: * It's not actually original. Even if not widesp…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the ideas being worthless meme is an over-correction of the person that thinks the idea is all of the value and wants to hire an engineer to 'just do the implementation' for little reward. Ideas have value, and someone who can unite people with a clear vision can do incredible things but the implementation is a big part of the actual difficulty and usually you have to update the idea as you learn more from th…
Yeah, this is the reason right here. There are thousands of people on internet forums, social media sites and subreddits who want to start projects with themselves as the 'idea man', assuming other people will join and do all the actual implementation work. You see it a lot in game design/development communities, where these people talk about how they'll make the next mega 3D MMORPG where you can go anywhere and do a…
Mainly though it’s through the act of attempting implementation and interacting with the world that you learn the most. Someone who refuses to try to do this to get better probably just isn’t very capable and their ideas probably aren’t very good.
Even if you do come up with an idea that is viable most of the time so have others and it’s the successful execution that sets you apart.
I’ve met people that sit around patting themselves on the back for having the same idea that someone else used to actually build something.
While having the insight is critical, it’s a lot smaller part (also usually their idea was a vague generalization of whatever ended up existing).
Kind of reminds me of how the Winklevoss twins were portrayed in the social network, no idea how true to life that is - but that sense of ownership they had when they didn’t really do anything of value.
There is an interesting bias going on here. I'm wondering how many people upvoting this text has actually built a business, or just want to believe that what was written here is true? Building a business is messy. Most ideas suck initially. Companies who got the problem right the first time are extremely rare. Just as rare as companies who succeeded with a crappy idea having great execution. The hero ingredient is lu…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems defeatist to over ascribe luck to success. The only guarantee is if you don’t try you don’t succeed.
No its realistic. There are many well executing companies with great product market fit that wont be successful. Its very obvious once you actually build a company.
What's an example of a company that had great execution, great product-market fit, and also had solid pricing and distribution strategies, but ultimately failed?