Anyone afraid?
After posting here the last time, I have decided to work on an idea I've had for a while. The project has been quite a handful already (but so much fun!!) and I'm doing it in the evenings after work. It will involve truly extensive work in the future (hardware, DSP, audio, iPad programming) - but I think it's a very cool (and much needed) product idea. I have started to prototype the hardware (since I remember the fundamentals from before) and my hope is to bring in outside expertise to finesse each component to perfection as I have a working-ish prototype.
But for some reason, I have this terrifying feeling that 3 months into the project that a company will have the exact same product and that's 3 months of work down the drain.
Anyone else have this fear? Is this normal? What did you do to overcome it? Is the solution just to jump in and see how it goes?
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 54.4 ms ] threadHah, it's a little late for that, here. Some of the ideas I was chewing on in 2006 or so, were a bit novel then, but probably only a bit. But I lolly-gagged around, didn't stay focused, and never delivered anything. Now there are a billion companies playing in the space I'm interested in (in a vague sense).
At this point, I'm not really focusing on having some ground-breaking new idea that revolutionizes anything, I just want to focus on some specific things and try to be better in a few areas, and maybe introduce one or two ideas / features that may still be a little bit novel.
Basically I go back to what Bob Parsons (of Godaddy fame) had to say (paraphrased slightly) "Don't be afraid of a crowded market, just be better than everybody else."
Here's the flip side: if no one else was interested in your area, it's probably not very interesting. Dropbox wasn't the first file-syncing service. Vimeo was started before YouTube. And there were plenty of social networks before Facebook, which was entering an area where there were large and well-funded incumbents when it was literally some kid's dormroom project.
It may be worth keeping in mind Fred Wilson's advice: once you're pretty sure you know what you want to do, put your head down and execute: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/your-worst-enemy-is-yourself...
There are competitors in the field. The problem that I'm trying to solve has been marginally solved (using sloppy shortcuts) but I want to solve it the real way. I think there's a market. It's a niche market, with 2 very established companies (100+ years old) but they don't have (i'm really really really hoping they don't) what I want to make.
on the other hand, maybe you're right and maybe they have tried what i'm trying and it failed and they gave up...
I am sorry, but that is the worst piece of advice ever. Why bother with science if we can just appeal to the idea that what other people think is most likely correct? Why don't we just give up the game now?
Now, the fact that someone else has thought of the same thing you are, has put a lot of time into developing it, spent their hard earned money to market and sell it and just perhaps is making a profit from it, means that your idea is probably valid. You're more likely to make money by doing what someone else has profitably done before and adding your twist to it than coming up with something completely unique.
There are many car manufacturers, brands and types of candy, clothing, tools, computers etc. Pick just about any product and you can find a dozen people making different versions of it and they're all making money.
People are suspicious of the unfamiliar. Sell them something they've seen before.
Luckily, there are people daring enough to try something new.
You gotta decide whether creating a paradigm shift is more important than making a profit. Just don't plan on both happening.
"Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'"
Sorry for the trite quotes, but there is truth here. Are pursuing this project because it's worth doing or because you hope to get paid? First to market doesn't assure success. If it's worth building, build it. The worst you can do is learn something new. Your time is never "wasted" if you are having fun, learning, and developing your chops.
Apple didn't have the first MP3 player. IBM didn't make the first personal computer. Being first to market might not mean quite what you think.
Maybe not the best example. IBM's first PC came out in 1991. Ten years later they were posting billion dollar plus losses which almost killed it. Profitability returned as they began to withdraw from the PC market.
Ok, that's paraphrased slightly, but that's the gist of it. For more:
http://www.insearchofstupidity.com/
Besides the humor, and admonitions against arrogant stupidity (yah, redundant), In Search of Stupidity made clear that competent technical leadership is vital. IIRC, Joel Spolsky's introduction in the book points out that only Microsoft stayed in the top 10 of software from the 80's through the end of the 90's, in large measure because billg understood the importance of e.g., personally advocating for OLE with his software team; while his competitors were busy with yachts and alienating their developer communities.
Your homework, is to go and watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8lUt0Ile00
and write "Put him in a body bag" 100 times on the whiteboard.
Meanwhile, I feel like I am "doing nothing". :-/ :-/ :-/
What I've come to see is that the idea is not all there is. There's also execution (I suck) and timing and most of all luck.
Most of my ideas are for things that already exist but I think all existing solutions suck.
So no, I'm not terrified. When facebook came out, there was myspace already. When tumblr came out, there was blogger already (not to mention wordpress). When posterous came out, there was tumblr already.
When Ubuntu came out, there was already debian and red hat and suse and tons of others.
I can't think off the top of my head of a single successful product whose success was solely based on it being the first to arrive to the market.