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How to Decide What to Build

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Re: How to Decide What to Build

#81

Post by ak39 »

pryelluw wrote: post #40
acconrad wrote: post #28

One of the points the author makes is that you should track the problems you have, and the ones that reoccur will be good signals to solve them. Does anyone else feel pretty content with what they have? Because this strategy I think Paul Graham has talked about in one of his essays for ideas. And to be honest, I do genuinely feel like I don't have much if anything to complain about, and so I can't really think of sta…

I don't normally talk about this, but here is what you are missing: Businesses that make (real) money revolve around one of two ideas: - They sell shovels - They are middlemen (middlepeople?) They sell shovels. This is stolen from the old saying that during the American gold rush the people who made the money were the ones selling shovels. Or facilitating others to go and do what they wanted (in this case, chase a wi…

This is well articulated. I once had an unnecessarily heated argument with a BIL who didn't see the difference between what I called an "entrepreneur" (what you call a shovel maker) and a "trader" (the middle man).

My problem was my nomenclature - they are both entrepreneurs (one builds, they other connects built stuff). You've done what I wanted to do so elegantly!

Thank you.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#82

Post by dalbasal »

greggman wrote: post #70

> validate your market how do you do this? Smartphones existed as PDAs for 10-20yrs before iPhone. If I had shown someone my Sony Clie and said "if I make this work with your finger instead of a stylus, simplify the UI, and charge you $80+ a month for service would you be interested?". except for a few geeks like myself the answer would have been "no, that stuff is for geeks" for most people and yet here we are 10 ye…

Advice like "validate your market," strategies for chicken-egg problems, or the first point (start from a beachhead).... These are not the same as "get a good accountant" or "incorporate this way." They're not hurdles to pass with good advice in specific detail.

These are problems that need clever & creative solutions, and the answers usually aren't do exactly what you are doing now and also this thing. AirBnB started around conferences, momentary and local spikes in demand that let them solve chicken-eggs one user at a time, face to face. This gave them a beachhead strategy, a hardcore users strategy, chicken-egg strategy, a way of validating.

The iphone "boiled an ocean." A thousand man years spent in secret. A big product launch, after which everything about that market changed. It's not an impossibility, boiling a metaphorical ocean. But, it's risky and mostly out of bounds to a startup. If a startup wanted to do this, they'd need to find a different path.

There's a common Henry Ford quote (apocryphal, whatever) about the pointlessness of asking people. They would have told him to make a faster horse, supposedly. You can skip market validation in some cases, with historic products like the iphone, model T, teleportation, cure for baldness or magic sex dust.

A lot of startup advice is about leveraging the strengths of being new and flexible. For an Amazon, Walmart or GM, they are locked in to most of what they do. Startups can adapt everything around a smart strategy.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#83

Post by chmike »

tudelo wrote: post #4

“everything in the world was created by people no smarter than you”. Is there actually any validity to that? Assuming you is a human of average intelligence...

That statement is wrong, but it has the nice effect to remove self inhibition due to complex of inferiority.

Replacing everything with most things would be correct.

Creating some things did not require intelligence.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#84

Post by newman8r »

rorykoehler wrote: post #69
newman8r wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can relate to your sentiment of being content with what you have. I gave up my smartphone, I canceled all paid subscription services, I use linux and open source software for everything. Basically, it's difficult for me to imagine personally paying for any type of SAAS offering, so when I'm working on a project with a paid model, sometimes I have to employ a 'suspension of disbelief' because I'm working on somethin…

That just tells me you value money more than your time. Most people have this the other way around. You can always make more money but you can't make more time.

It's more a function of not having the money to spend rather than being miserly. If I'm able to get traction with one of the projects I'm working on, I'd happily trade some money to save some time.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#85

Post by meheleventyone »

rorykoehler wrote: post #66
acconrad wrote: post #28

One of the points the author makes is that you should track the problems you have, and the ones that reoccur will be good signals to solve them. Does anyone else feel pretty content with what they have? Because this strategy I think Paul Graham has talked about in one of his essays for ideas. And to be honest, I do genuinely feel like I don't have much if anything to complain about, and so I can't really think of sta…

>Can you crowdsource cooking from your neighbors? They have what is essentially this service in Singapore. Professional kitchens that make home cooked meals. Very popular.

Professional kitchens doing home delivery isn’t a new concept though. The OP wanted to scale it in the mode of AirBnB or Uber where margins are reduced by replacing professional staff and rented locations with itinerant labour providing their own setup and shouldering much of the risk.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#86

Post by rorykoehler »

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #80
rorykoehler wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That just tells me you value money more than your time. Most people have this the other way around. You can always make more money but you can't make more time.

Not necessaarily, I have a similar mindset to the parent poster and for me it's largely about keeping the business simple and manageable. To give an example I sell my software through Avangate, this results in a single invoice and payment each month. I know if I switched to Stripe it would save my a couple of percentage points on each sale but then I'd need to maintain systems that handled EU VAT laws, issue license…

Sounds like you have identified a problem that could be solved by a saas offering.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#87

Post by rorykoehler »

meheleventyone wrote: post #85
rorykoehler wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Can you crowdsource cooking from your neighbors? They have what is essentially this service in Singapore. Professional kitchens that make home cooked meals. Very popular.

Professional kitchens doing home delivery isn’t a new concept though. The OP wanted to scale it in the mode of AirBnB or Uber where margins are reduced by replacing professional staff and rented locations with itinerant labour providing their own setup and shouldering much of the risk.

Not at all but they have been enabled by Internet technologies and the cultural change brought about by Internet technologies.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#88

Post by tonyedgecombe »

rorykoehler wrote: post #86
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessaarily, I have a similar mindset to the parent poster and for me it's largely about keeping the business simple and manageable. To give an example I sell my software through Avangate, this results in a single invoice and payment each month. I know if I switched to Stripe it would save my a couple of percentage points on each sale but then I'd need to maintain systems that handled EU VAT laws, issue license…

Sounds like you have identified a problem that could be solved by a saas offering.

No, the point is all these extra products and services end up complicating things, sure they have benefits for many but not for me. I've got plenty of things in my life, I don't need more.

Re: How to Decide What to Build

#89

Post by icebraining »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #48
tropshop wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did the massive regulation on the taxi industry stop Uber? If you build something people find genuinely useful, you will become a force that causes the market to adapt. Regulation follows innovation.

I'm founding Uber for Biotech. No biosafety regulation is going to stop us from CRISPRing our way into better future! Seriously though, I get that archaic rules need to be fought in order to be changed. But there are proper ways to do that, and Uber did it in about the most antisocial way possible aside from murdering people. Please, don't be like Uber. Innovations need a stable society to flourish.

If you want to convince people, you should give an example of a business that faced a similar problem and fought it the correct way.
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