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Startups should make something people want (gooddinosaur.com)

8 points by jfi ↗ HN
Kevin Costner is full of sh*t ... when it comes to startups at least. Build it and they will come. I implore you, do not listen to this man! This line of thinking is out in left field (har har).

I have to admit, I used to subscribe to this tag line. A few years back, I felt that if the idea was there, all that was barring a venture from success was time, effort, and determination. As a result, several of my early projects were drastically over engineered and tragically under utilized.

17 comments

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SamAtt
I think usability testing is important(Shout out to Steve Krug:http://bit.ly/dloM7j) but you can't be a slave to it. These days one of the criteria I use when picking services is "how dedicated does the company seem". After having my stuff disappear with a few failed startups I've come to value someone who goes all-in.

When I see a startup shooting for "minimally viable" I head in the opposite direction.

prosa
Interesting perspective. I tend to agree -- and with the MVP concept taking hold, it can be tempting to release too early. Figuring out where to draw the line can be tough though, especially when you are operating on a shoestring.

One thought/question: How much of an impact does a high-quality graphic design have on your perception? I'm betting that going the extra mile on the visuals can strongly aide the perception that the company is legit.

jfi
prosa, great question - 100% think you must have a graphically appealing product out of the gate, but like you said, it is a fine line that you must walk. I try to test my thesis early and often, but my tests will only be taken serious if I put something out that is engaging. Quality must be there, but be mindful to not get caught up in the "extras" that will delay seeing if you should continue down your current path or course correct.
jfi
a Vanity test would be better than my speculation though :)
jfi
SamAtt, you have a great point. When building a new product and service you must be dedicated and put something out that is tight and usable. When you are using a service, this is just as important to see in the founders / company.

When I say "minimally viable" it regards quantity rather than a quality, as in "we think the market wants something that does X, so lets build something that does only X right now ... we will build Y and Z if we see further buy in, but we aren't going to build those until we see if our first go at it was in the right direction."

raganwald
I don't recall Kevin blogging about startups. It was a movie. Honestly, this title seems a little over the top.

As for the advice... It's good but there is a world of difference between testing something you've built and asking people if they'd want something you haven't built. In "The Innovator's Dilemma," the case of excavators is used as a case study.

If you had asked construction managers whether they wanted hydraulic excavators instead of cable excavators, they would have laughed you out of the industry. The hydraulic excavators of the day were flakey and much smaller than the cable excavators. Nobody who was using excavators would want one.

The point was that hydraulic excavators ended up creating entirely new markets. Likewise, my own personal example is the GUI. I remember when this was just a research fancy at Xerox. I used a Xerox Star at Humber College in Toronto. Great stuff, but priced in the stratosphere.

If you'd asked anyone whether they needed a mouse and bitmapped screen to replace their CP/M word processor, you would have been laughed out onto the sidewalk.

Yet look at what we have today. Some things should be shown, and even then you might have to keep plugging until a light goes on and some entirely new market (like desktop publishing) springs up to use your innovation.

[dead] BearOfNH
Of course it wasn't really Kevin Costner. It was Ray Kinsella, the character he played in Field of Dreams.

Oddly enough, "Ray Kinsella is full of shit" is a title I would have clicked on sooner, even though I didn't know who he was.

jfi
I think testing / getting feedback on your vision is vitally important. You aren't going to get buy in from all (or any), but it will give you more of a sense about your venture's risk profile. You can then better evaluate if you want / can continue your time and effort investment.

I'm running on a dime and a dream quite often so this exercise is very important. I'd argue that your examples (which are very, very good ones) demonstrate market participants that could take on a much riskier venture than many would be capable of undertaking.

My point is to not blindly push forward (a mistake I have made many a time, and one that I've seen others around me committing as well), but to size up what you are venturing into whenever possible. I'm completely fine with attempting to turn the tides of an industry or make a new one, but I want to know if that is the fight I'm gearing up for ahead of time if possible.

Thank you for your insights!

raganwald
I agree with your caution. Again with my example, if you look at Xerox, Apple, Microsoft, IBM, and a plethora of companies that have tried to make money selling PC hardware, you see that although the mouse and GUI have obviously "won," actually making money from them has been a challenge.
liquidben
So the trick is to give people what they need, which is not necessarily what they ask for. That doesn't necessarily defy the article's thesis, since it might be possible to phrase questions artfully enough to diagnose needs vs wants, but that might be tricky and take great effort.

And of course, there really was no reason to disparage the auteur behind Waterworld aside from being linkbait. ;)

nir
celeb name + "sh*t" => HN homepage
gcheong
I always find it funny when people who write link bait titles can't seem to find the guts to spell out their curse words.
dasil003
Wouldn't some commentary or analogy on Waterworld be more apropos?
jeromec
I completely agree with this. As the article mentions with shoestring resources it's helpful to make "bang for the buck" choices. For any given successful product, there will be a few things that really resonate with or significantly help the user. The trick is figuring out what these things are. If you hit upon a truly valuable function, chances are your user base will grow even if there is not much else other than that available. A great example of this is Google. When Google was just starting out there were many popular search engines, and the biggest, Yahoo, had tons of money, resources, and content/features available from their homepage. By contrast, Google had a simple search box on their page - but the results returned were clearly superior. The rest, of course, is history. Sure Google now has email, docs, apps, calendar, social services, etc. but they didn't start out that way, and didn't need to. I believe the best strategy is to try and figure out what will really benefit users, not the nice to haves, but what really benefits them, and focus on building that to the best of your ability. Don't sacrifice quality. How you solve the problem should be as top notch as you can make it, but solve the problem and that's it; don't get distracted. Then test it out and see where you stand.
ww520
I am curious at how Apple does it. With their secretive nature, do they go out to show customers what they are building? Or Steve Jobs just has great insight into what customers need and build it for them.
jfi
I wonder the same thing - personally, I think AAPL and Jobs are just that talented that they can "get it right" (extremely hard to do) ... I'm sure they do get out of the lab and get some real world feedback to some degree. But also remember, Jobs has seen his fair share of failed product introductions!
schacon
I don't remember that being Kevin Costner's line. Shouldn't it be "James Earl Jones is full of Sht"?