"For example, a social network for pet owners. It doesn't sound obviously mistaken. Millions of people have pets."
I once worked on a social network for dog owners. Not pet owners, dog owners. And not actually dog owners, but their dogs. A place for people to have a social network of ... dogs.
But all the features made it an interesting enough project. The guy even came up with enough money to pay the web agency I was working at for the development - yes, outsourcing core product to an agency.
It took a year for the project to go from "I need devs" to "Build this". By then I had already given my notice at the agency with the dream of launching a cool startup.
I don't know that the dog social network ever launched.
Having heard this idea from multiple relatives over the years, I have to imagine that the trap of building the dog social network that everybody likes the idea but nobody would actually use has cost the economy several basis points of GDP.
These days, being a developer without a social network death-march project story is like being an EMT without a gory accident story. They do exist, but their box of anecdotes seems a little bare.
Ideas should stem from problems. The "problem" with only solving problems for yourself, however, is that you may not be hitting a real market. The tech niche isn't exactly the norm (it's the .1%).
Lean methodologies behind testing problems and market needs are definitely making it better, but it's still extremely time -consuming, can get costly, and can lead to nothing (which is still better than building a product that doesn't go anywhere).
Landing pages, blog posts, setting controls & changes, analyzing the results and transferring those to actual needs and potential customers.
It's a mess.
If only there was something to solve this "problem" of figuring out which problem-solvers are market viable and which aren't quickly and affordably (without the massive learning curve).
My team and I just may have to give tackling this one a try :)
another suggestion for sourcing ideas is to identify weaknesses in popular products then build something where that weakness becomes a strength (e.g., browsing in smartphones => iphone, search in portals => google).
re the unsexy filter, success can create sexiness. nike sells shoes. amazon sells books. salesforce sells enterprise software. yet these are all considered cool, sexy companies for the most part. if you build something people love, you can make it sexy. worry less about if something is sexy today, and worry more about building something people will love tomorrow. sexiness will follow.
After 20 years of entrepreneurship, of struggles and successes, of spending man years of that time thinking about startup ideas, and having learned so many lessons the hard way, I can say the following:
pg's essays are so true and correct that I could practically cry.
If enough people read these essays (especially this and the recent "growth" essay), it could materially boost the economy.
No, it's not because pg is wrong or I disagree with anything he's saying, it's because everything resonates with my startup (Tinj.co, interactive movie ratings) but after 1000+ pitches I still can't succinctly articulate how I know this.
I could probably make a checklist for the criteria of great startup ideas (seems like a toy: check, personal problem: check, inspiration from other fields: check, etc) but I have a hard time imagining that to be persuasive. I guess all we can do is push on towards a beta and let traction speak for itself.
Truly disruptive ideas are difficult to communicate because most people do not have the mental framework to truly grasp them. I guess that's just the catch-22 of disruptive ideas.
I have four questions I'd like to ask you about your startup:
1. Does it help people address their fears? For example, are they afraid of not being heard? Or missing the next great movie?
2. Does it help people feel loved? For example, giving them an opportunity to warn people away from bad movies, or to offer unique insights?
3. Does it help people create or curate beauty? Movie ratings themselves are not very beautiful, but perhaps the personal curation piece is important to some.
4. Does it help people to eliminate ugliness?
...and I wrote this before checking your site. After seeing it, I have this sinking feeling that you are not really serious about your startup, as the homepage makes absolutely no attempt to describe what it is. Cold sign-ups are very 2004. honestly if I had checked first I wouldn't have bothered replying, but since it's already written, here you go. Hope it helps.
1. A big reason more people don't rate movies is because it's unclear how or if it actually helps others (my vote doesn't matter syndrome) or themselves (black box recommendations).
2. Validation is a big motivator, seeing that others agree with you or trust your judgement is huge.
3. Funny you should mention curating beauty, individuals will be able to share and discover based on people that share the same taste in "beauty" in the context of movies.
4. Reading tons of reviews or trying to decide if 79% on RottenTomatoes or a 3.8 stars from something else means you'll actually enjoy a movie is a painful (or ugly) experience to most people I've talked with.
I assure you, @javajosh, we are taking this very seriously as a startup. The launchrock signup page is not the primary way we're finding beta testers, it's merely sufficient before we start a closed beta.
Getting back to the bigger picture though, we're really building a system to efficiently share opinions and see what other people think.
I'm an avid moviegoer (50+ theatrical releases a year) and I completely ignore movie reviews (and it's getting this way with Yelp reviews too) because they lack context. What I mean by this is that a thumbs up/down or star rating is useless unless I have some background on the person giving the rating. For example, for someone to give Prometheus 2 stars when they haven't seen any of the Alien movies is different from an avid fan. I'd like to see a list of other movies/genres the reviewer rated, and maybe some basic demographic info before I listen to their opinion. Not sure if you have that worked into your idea yet...
Apropos of nothing, but a few times in my life I've actually gone to the theater to see a movie I knew nothing about. Nothing about the plot, the cast, etc. No trailer. It's a distinct experience, and sometimes highly pleasant. (I say "Heat" this way. Which was cool because the whole beginning of the movie is that long sequence with DeNiro stealing the ambulance, but I had no idea what the movie was, not even genre, and it was fun to try to figure out what was going on :)
Context is definitely missing from most systems and it's one of our key differentiators. Our goal is to handle all those contextual details so you don't have to.
If you take another look at my original post, my point was that I still can't articulate why this is such a huge pain. If it helps to put it in perspective, I abandoned a Nanoengineering phd doing promising work in medical diagnostics because our rating system solves an incredibly painful problem for me and I'm convinced it's a more important contribution to the world.
To make a (hopefully apt) comparison, what pain point did twitter initially solve? Sharing what you had for lunch?
Therefore, if we can build a better rating system that lets people share more and better feedback, then we can speed up learning and improve the flow and evolution of ideas.
Also, this system wasn't designed for movies, it was designed for answers on Quora. Movies are just a better beachhead.
I think part of your problem might be that you are solving a problem that a small group of people have, and only a small group will ever have. Most people just aren't that into movies; they decide to see a movie (or not) based on the trailer; they view movies as a way to kill two hours or a pretty safe date activity. The number of people who really have a significant "pain point" in deciding what movies to see is pretty small and likely always will be.
Feel free to discount my opinion though, I haven't seen a movie in a theater in probably 5 years and basically think movies are a complete waste of time and money.
You're not the droid they're looking for. Since Netflix gave $1 million to random people for improving their recommendation engine a bit, I'd say there's a lot of value to be created here.
It never hurts to think bigger, too. If they do somehow achieve a big advance in selecting movies, it could probably be applied to books and movies too, right?
It's hard to think of a more impactful problem for the entire entertainment industry than better matching of products to consumers.
So movies are a pretty big business. Not as big as people usually think, compared to energy, food, defense. But pretty big. Culturally, people go to the movies as a form of escapism, because story-telling seems to be a deeply ingrained human need (I don't think there is a single culture we know about that doesn't tell stories). Some of these stories are quite inspirational: they inspire thought, debate, criticism, self-reflection, etc. And some of us, the ones that are inclined to, write reviews. I've written one or two myself. Occasionally conversations get started around movies with friends - arguments about the meaning of Being John Malkovich or why they only made one Highlander movie....
Listening to stories (or watching them, as the case may be) is a usually enjoyable experience - which is why we choose to listen and even pay for the opportunity to listen to a really good story from a really good storyteller. All of the "pain points" around this process have been thoroughly addressed: it's easy to discover movies, buy tickets, download to your computer, get reviews, write reviews. Even the watching experience itself has been improved with 3D (although this is open to debate) and better sound, even things like IMAX and more experimental experiences e.g. Star Tours at Disneyland. There are some places in the world where they even serve food and drink during the movie (or at least during an intermission).
The biggest pain people feel about movies is dealing with the proliferation of choice. It doesn't seem to me that there is an underserved market of people who would see more movies if only they knew about the good ones.
Imagine, if you will, your own personal Heaven. Presumably storytelling and movies are still happening. What is the heavenly, perfect movie-going experience? Does the movie take over your visual cortex? Are movies recommended by God - or indeed, created by Him to perfectly stimulate your mind in the way He knows you like? Does your reaction telepathically propagate to everyone else in Heaven? (Is telepathic propagation connectionless? I suppose that's another thread).
If not knowing what movie to spend your disposable income and leisure time on is an incredibly painful problem for you, you desperately need a bit of perspective.
"we're really building a system to efficiently share opinions and see what other people think."
This is exactly it - well said. And as you said, "movies are your beachhead".
All you need is why what you do is different and/or better (which is still not exactly clear, unless it's finding peers).
It's sometimes tough for engineers to be focused less on being precise in description, and more inspirational to goals. I have to work at it every day.
You can boil it down a lot more than that. And not necessarily to such noble criteria.
http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html famously boils it down to one question: Your "use case" should be, there's a 22 year old college student living in the dorms. How will this software get him laid?
Fundraising & customer acquisition are like dating; logic doesn't get you very far. The points PG makes might be valuable in convincing yourself that it's a field worth pursuing, but for convincing people to give you their attention and their cash, you need a different approach, which will usually involve some combination of: stories, charisma, status, social proof, exclusivity, to name just the first that come to mind.
The best material I've found about this kind of stuff is: Robert Cialdini's "Influence", and some of the less creepy pickup material, particularly to do with "inner game". Also, this new book by Australian business journo Valerie Khoo looks interesting:
Try the Richard Feynman approach - if you really want to understand what you're doing, try to teach it. Like, write a manual about what your business does, explain it to mom, etc.
+1 for teaching. I find that explaining deep technical problems to people who are smart, but otherwise clueless about technology, forces me to understand the issue myself at a much deeper level. My girlfriend is the best rubber ducky debugging buddy ever.
It's certain that the problem is me, and my poor communication skills, I never blame the audience.
Describing what we're doing and illustrating the pain points aren't the same thing.
How about this: Tinj is a rating system that lets people externalize opinions about movies in context so they can receive comprehensive recommendations.
See? Told you I still suck at this.
Here's a problem we're solving: Given that opinions are complex, how do you figure out what other people think about a movie?
Read reviews? That's biased to critics and writers (less than 1% of the population).
Look at star ratings? What does 4-stars even mean?
Check out social media? How many tweets and blogs would you have to read?
Ask your friends? Which ones actually share your tastes and have seen the movie?
Unfortunately, complicated problems tend to have complicated answers.
That was a good pitch actually, convinced me to take a look at your site. My wife and I always have a very hard time deciding for movies, often because rating sites are worse than useless if you don't have mainstream tastes.
One thing I would suggest is when you mention it, have a link ready with an email signup so people like me who are intrigued can easily sign up to get a mail when the beta releases. The name seems fairly popular at least a google search for "Tinj" or "Tinj movie reviews" didn't work. (Although the hacker news thread came up with the second search)
One minor point I'd raise with the .co is a while ago I read (on HN I think) that one a particular startup had a lot of feedback from users saying "you're missing an 'm' in your logo/url". It might confuse some people that aren't familiar with how ccTLD/gTLD's work.
If you've come across this before, forgive the pestering, I just thought it was fair to point out before you've launched.
I feel your pain. It's hard to find the balance between saying what problem you're solving vs how you're solving it.
This is what I suggest you do. It might cost you ~$50 or so. Go to a coffee shop like Starbucks and offer someone to buy them their coffee in exchange for some feedback on the "new website you're building". Try to find normals (not super technical folks, unless that's your target audience). Explain to them what you're building, let them play with the site (hey this is also a nice UX test), take your notes whatever but in the end, ask them to explain to you what your site does. Maybe if you do this with 10 or so people you might see a pattern emerging (bonus: get pretty good feedback on product too).
I am not saying this will work, but this will not be a waste if the people you talk to are anything close to your target audience.
P.S. What Emmett is saying above is to give him a one sentence description that brings him as close as possible to cloning your site. Also, do you really need "externalize opinions"?
Different pitches for different people/situations. The problem is, people don't all have the same pain. It gets worse. Some people have gone numb from the pain and aren't conscious of it any more. The irony is that our rating system would be perfect for matching the right pitch to each person.
I've more or less mastered the 1-minute demo, hard not to since I've done it a thousand times (and a thousand different ways too). Trust me, I used to suck a lot more.
As for the "externalize opinions" line, just trying something new.
...externalize opinions about movies in context...
I'm not even sure what that means. Target your pitch to an 8th grade reading level. Yours sounds like the abstract for a research paper. And these days, your core value proposition should be able to be expressed in a tweet.
Right, I understand that pain points and solutions are not the same thing. I didn't ask for you to describe the pain points. I really am asking what you're building. In a concrete way, what does it actually do?
Hey man. I read your one sentence pitch and it left mr really confused. Writing this post to show you what confused me in case it's helpful in your fine tuning your pitch.
>How about this: Tinj is a rating system that lets people externalize opinions about movies in context so they can receive comprehensive recommendations.
What does "externalize opinions" mean? As someone who has never seen your service, I know what an opinion is, but "externalize" is a complex word with multiple nuanced meanings. As a prospective user I assume you mean "voice".
What does "in context" mean? Again, as a prospect I have zero idea what you mean by that, so I will assume you mean "on my site".
What does "receive comprehensive recommendations" mean? I guess it can be my FB friends (if I give another service access to mytriends list) or strangers or (worse) friends I have to make on your site before it brcomes useful. I'll assume "strangers or FB friends".
Put it together, and the pitch becomes (to me, a prospective user who had zero context about your srvice beyond this sentence and who you are trying to convince to visit your site): "Tinj is a rating system that lets people voice opinions about movies on the Tinj website so they can receive recommendations from strangers or FB friends.". This may be totally wrong, but it's the picture I got. To which as a user I say: "Big deal. I don't need this site when I have FB and RottenTomatoes."
I hope hearing some feedback from a stranger will help you refine your pitch.
If it makes you feel any better, I've held the opinion for years now that ratings are broken across most services on the web. Jeff Bezos even acknowledged as much in a famous essay of his on how the distribution of one-to-five star ratings settle over time. Still, every new service sticks to the binary thumbs-up/down model or five-star. I'm sure you probably know the pitfalls of each, so good luck to you. I'm hoping you'll become the Disqus of ratings for every site. The analogy holds, interestingly, in my mind: comments had no consistency along UX or reputation before Disqus came along.
I used to start pitches by telling people we're fixing rating systems, that was usually enough to get people's attention.
I think you're talking about Yahoo and the J-curve, couldn't find anything by Bezos.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, we went through a phase of pitching ourselves as "Disqus for ratings" but the problem was it's hit or miss with people.
Essentially it sounds like what you are claiming to be able to do, is recommend movies I like better. The 3-axis movie rating system or whatever is just how you solve that problem [and that might not work so you'd have to be open to trying a new method to solve the problem].
It's difficult problem to solve, you need lots of users and a good algorithm to improve on what IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes provide. In general I find that I'm happy with the ratings on IMDB and generally I will like the high rated films on that site - though I can imagine there are a lot of people that doesn't work for.
It would take a lot to convince me that someone had solved this problem (many have tried and failed), like a bit of hype from everyone or some rave reviews. However, in absence of that and seeing that you had done 1000+ pitches, I looked at your site and it has an invite form on it - so really you haven't even started yet.
the problem you're trying to solve is discovering new movies for a user, right? i assume it is, so let me try to expand on why you might have trouble with your current offering:
- some people enjoy movies and are always looking for new stuff.
- their joy is watching movies, not rating them. like / not like right after the movie is ok. some disconnected process is not, this is work, not joy.
- what are the major, simple factors leading to the next good movie?
1., Same personnel involved. director, screenwriter, main actors.
2., I liked their previous work.
3., The major outliers are found by chance or word of mouth. then 1 and 2 are in play.
Now, does a web page solve this nicely? No. Much smarter would something akin to what Netflix is attempting. A XBMC/Plex/VLC plugin maybe that tracks HABITS. No effort involved. The plugin tracks the movie history and maybe, maybe asks at the end if you like the movie.
You can apply the same to songs, etc.
And yes, Netflix, Amazon, all prior art. But actually working.
Convenience is key for consumers. Seamless. Easy. Valuable. Instagram hooked itself into the photo making process. Flickr did not.
I am going to give my opinion just on a first impression analysis. You need to change the name of your startup. tinj.co? It has nothing to do with anything and inevitably you need to explain it with three words after stating your name, but my problem is your three words don't help define tinj.co. So I went to your website and I was like OK, tinj.co has to stand for something. But it just says a new way to rate. 5 stars is no good anymore. In conclusion, I am all for your idea, but your name its making me angry.
--note: I know nothing more than my rottweiler sitting next to me. The difference between me and most people is that I will tell you I know nothing. So just take the advice and do with it what you want.
What is the difference between a "problem" or an "inconvenience" that is worthy for a startup to tackle? Alot of startups seem to have trouble deciphering that- sometimes spending immense efforts of time and money on a 'problem' that really is frivolous at best.
...On the other hand, I suppose for some ideas you would never know unless you tried to execute it...
One thing I've noticed that has generated a ton of ideas, particularly within the hospital setting I'm in, is to listen to all the questions staff members ask one another. Who's doing that? When's this happening? How do I do that? etc. They're all seemingly mundane questions that get asked on a daily basis, but they give you great insight to the daily frustrations that people have come to accept (that's why they're boring everyday questions). They also often shed light on a lot of the accessory tasks people endure in order to accomplish their main job.
As an example: in a hospital, we have the "sign out sheet" which is a list of the current patients and all of their important data. These sheets are usually manually updated and it's a very, very tedious task; you've got to make sure all the dosages are current, and they're already in the system! Anyway, I kept noticing the residents would ask one another if they had updated the sheet and realized this was a pain-point that's become an accepted part of the day-to-day medical routine. That's just one example.
Good problems don't have to elicit noticeable frustration. In fact, I'd say many of the best problems around are ones that have pushed people past frustration and into acceptance.
> As an example: in a hospital, we have the "sign out sheet" which is a list of the current patients and all of their important data.
This. Seriously, the Institute of Medicine has implicitly decided that this is the problem that it wants the world's entrepreneurs to solve.
The IOM observed that there were many errors made in medicine. Errors in medicine harm and kill people.
Many people believe that doctors (residents) who sleep too little are more liable to commit errors. They believe that a lack of sleep is dangerous to patients; therefore, the ACGME instituted duty hour restrictions on residents.
As a consequence of this, residents work for fewer consecutive hours. Necessarily, they "hand off" their patients to one another more frequently than they did in the past. As you can imagine, there is also risk in the handoff process.
The IOM and the ACGME, via their pronouncements and policies, have decided that long shifts are too dangerous to try to solve. Instead, they are willing to throw all of their eggs into the "handoffs must be safer than long shifts" basket. Handoffs are dangerous, hard, annoying, and they happen at least twice per shift per attending, resident, and midlevel provider every day. I don't mean to tell you how to solve handoff problems, but I do want to underscore the problem that kyro has identified.
For what it's worth, here is a reading list that I think does a pretty good job providing the context needed to understand most of the problems in US health/medicine right now:
Health Behavior Change and Treatment Adherence: Evidence-based Guidelines for Improving Healthcare (Medical adherence)
This list doesn't do a great job of covering certain niche problems like current issues in drug discovery or electronic records, but I think it provides enough context to understand whatever issues aren't covered directly. One of the quirks about medicine is that a lot of the data we have on even the most important issues (e.g. antibiotic resistance) is either 10+ years old or else woefully incomplete, which is extremely unfortunate but on the plus side it makes it actually fairly easy to learn about what would otherwise be way too complicated for anyone not in the industry to understand.
I completely agree with you and have come across the same finding, but from an entirely different perspective...
Short of scratching your own itch, a great way to come up with startup ideas is through careful observation of others, and particularly those who could be defined as a "market" of sorts (e.g., those in a hospital setting, business, etc.). Observing behaviors and the language people use when they are trying to accomplish a task is an amazing way of developing new ideas, which can easily lead to new startup ideas.
I've been in qualitative market research for about 10 years now and by far the most effective studies I have run for my clients has been through observational and ethnographic research methods where we just follow along as people try to perform a task. This is the best way to uncover unmet needs and ideas for new products.
If you're stuck for a startup idea, just ask someone in an industry you're personally interested in if you can watch them do their job for a day. Just sit there and observe - ask questions only at the end.
If you really watch carefully, that will produce more ideas than you know how to handle (although I still agree with pg's original point - solving your own problems is the best way to go because you'll be more likely to stick with it through the inevitable ups and downs of startup life).
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the
unreasonable man. George Bernard Shaw
Most people are reasonable; most founders are unreasonable.
Capt. Sullenberger has quite an interest in applying the lessons learnt as a fighter pilot, squadron safety officer, and legendary airline pilot.. to healthcare. This was part of his consulting business, before US Airways 1549 made him famous.
In healthcare, checklists improve safety, but so do other procedural changes. If a pilot has a mishap, the FAA/NTSB always investigates. Hospitals rarely investigate patient mishaps (deaths, malpractice etc.) unless there is a lawsuit filed, and state medical boards rarely investigate either.
Finding a solution is not enough. You must have a strong convincing power and ability to tackle with employees who will create obstacles for the new system.
I've just wishlisted this on Amazon. Thanks for posting it. It follows along very well with what I'm reading from Michael Gerber's E-Myth (also a bestseller on processes)
I've read it, and it's a great book. Another I just started reading is Safe Patients. Smart Hospitals. by Peter Provonost, who's the guy who actually conceived the idea of hospital checklists that Atul Gawande built upon.
This is a spectacular essay. PG is dead-on correct here. In fact, one of the strongest reactions I had while reading it just now was "Shhh Paul, you're giving away the secret!" :)
And this doesn't just apply to tech startups...
The business I currently run (an exotic car rental company) started out precisely as described -- it was an idea I had to solve a problem I was facing (I wanted to rent a super-fancy car to drive across the country. Nobody in NYC offered that service). The business started as a fun side-project - a toy. I figured it would be a hobby business - something I could do in my spare time while I figured out what business I "really" wanted to start. I built it myself - did the deliveries, threw a website together, learned SEO, etc.
And sure enough, I was surprised by how much other folks also wanted this service. So when I went live - the calls kept coming. That was 8.5 years ago, and the business now employs over 20 people and is about to open in its 3rd city.
So take PG's words to heart - they're some of the best I've read.
If you don't mind me asking, I was always curious: who is the common clientele for these kind of services? People who own such cars at home and want something similar while travelling?
Thanks! The answer I generally give to "who are your clients?" is "yes" -- it's so across the board that even I was surprised. The median client really varies on location -- in NY it's typically a guy heading out to the Hamptons or Jersey Shore for the weekend of fun, but it's also women looking for a fun gift, celebrities looking for better service (though, somewhat surprisingly, celebrities more frequently rent what we call "luxury" cars -- BMWs, Mercedes, Range Rover, vs what we call "exotic" cars -- Ferraris and Lamborghinis), and, yes, folks who own them at home and like to try something similar-but-different while on the road.
tx for the answer. due to the price tag I always thought most of the people that afford it, can afford to buy one as well.
I guess you pay a lot of insurance. have you had any problems like 'spoiled kid rents a murcielago, wrecks on the first corner?' or some fun/weird stories? (needless to say the whole business of owning such cars must be fun :) maybe you could do an AMA on reddit)
NP :) Yep, we've actually had that _exact_ scenario (though I suppose it's not terribly surprising, but funny that you got it exactly correct). Dumb kid (over 21, but still a kid) from CT rented a Murcielago to show off, made it about 10 minutes and this happened:
haha :) ouch. I don't know why I particularily mentioned the Murci, maybe because I remember a similar story on wreckedexotics website (borrows from dad, the rest is obvious). I also recall TopGear describing this Lambo as particularily safe but only to a certain point after which it spins you to a certain crash. Yet I somehow expect more noob wreckages from RWDs.
This is a perfect example of a sustainable niche business, and one of the reasons I love this particular PG essay more than most. I find that a lot of PG essays (especially his recent "growth") exhibit an obvious VC / Silicon Valley bias, but this one is globally applicable to everything from an exotics rental company to a rapidly-growing IPO-targeted hot startup.
Both your business and the PG essay also triggered "why has nobody written/created this in such a simple way before?" thought processes, which in my mind is another good indicator that the concept behind both is quite sound.
Had I known prior to my current trip to NYC, I'd probably be a customer right now - as it stands a Phantom for the day tomorrow is really appealing but I'm not sure I want to drop the cash :)
I'm really surprised to hear NYC of all places didn't have one of these 9 years ago. I feel like there's always been a bunch of them here in Texas.
I'd love to hear more about your early days. I'm guessing you had to convince a bank to loan you money to buy a Ferrari, but you were a new business with no established credit history. How did that go?
I'm also very interested in learning about determining pricing for a service leasing out assets on a short term basis. I've had an idea that involves renting on a monthly basis (no, not exotic cars!) but I'm not able to figure out a pricing model to see if my target (low) prices are feasible.
What a great idea!.Eventually you´ll find what is broken in the car renting community and be able to offer a better service outside your actual market.
I'm a huge fan of your service, I've read a lot about you, GTC, and have been interested in the whole aspect of it for awhile. This is a shot in the dark, but could I email you a couple questions? I promise not to take too much of your time.
Pretty strong parallels here with his article about "schlep blindness".
Specifically: " Drew Houston realizes he's forgotten his USB stick and thinks "I really need to make my files live online." Lots of people heard about the Altair. Lots forgot USB sticks. The reason those stimuli caused those founders to start companies was that their experiences had prepared them to notice the opportunities they represented."
Also the section about "wells" and attacking a problem at least some people care deeply about, instead of a shallow 'hole' is one that has just allowed me to clarify and refine some of my thoughts and ideas about where I'm at right now.
Having exited earlier this year from the start up I co-founded, I've been thinking a lot about this lately as I weigh up what to do next. We arrived at our start-up idea 10 years ago in much the way pg says you should, which was more by accident and serendipity more than anything else. So, I can vouch for the veracity of his advice.
I came across the following quote by William S. Burroughs recently:
Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.
Replace "Happiness" with "a start-up idea", and I think you get what pg is getting at:
A Start-up idea is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek a start-up idea for itself seek victory without war.
Our mind abhors these serendipitous explanations, and searches for convenient patterns instead. Ask for the keys to career success and you'll get logical explanations, recommendations, pathways and approaches. Then ask someone how he or she became successful and suddenly it becomes a story of serendipitous encounters, unexpected changes in plans, and random consequences. It does not make sense to ignore this basic fact about success any longer.
I love your quotes! I am myself a founder just getting to market and these serendipitous encounters and random acts seem to pop up out of nowhere and solidify my progress. Cheers and thanks!
Similar to the advice you read on "creating your own luck", you need to put yourself in situations where "serendipity" can happen more easily. In other words, if you want to become an actor, move to L.A. If you want to work in Finance, hang out in Wall Street, etc. There are of course no guarantees, and of course you can become an actor without living in L.A., and a financial analyst without being on wall street.
If you walk through a bad neighborhood by yourself late at night with a George Costanza like wallet bulging in your back pocket, you increase your chances of being mugged. It won't happen every time, but you are certainly "tempting fate".
So, "walk" in "neighborhoods" where you tempt fate in your favor. Go to meetups. Volunteer at organizations where people are trying to solve important problems. Ask people you find interesting to go for a coffee. Socialize with small business owners. Contribute to open source projects.
There is an interesting Forbes article on "The Four Essential Personality Traits Of Every Entrepreneur", one of which is "Luck-Dominant":
"...luck-dominant founders—which make up more than 25% of founders in the authors’ studies—are men and women whose positivity and intellectual curiosity create circumstances where a positive outcome is more likely. In other words, “they’re lucky by attitude, not by fate.”
Having worked "IT" for my fraternity, I can say that this would be about as mundane as most business software is. Accounting, scheduling, keeping minutes of meetings, database of contacts.
On the more practical side, write down any idea you have no matter how crazy they sound or where you are (use your smartphone's Notes app). It will quickly become an habit and you'll soon find yourself with dozens of ideas. Eventually, the hard part will begin: choosing the right one.
Another good trick is to write down those ideas on your blog at a fixed interval. This has two side effects: it forces you to either execute on an idea or let it go and it gets you feedback from your visitors. Here's my most recent idea dump: http://syskall.com/some-crazy-and-not-so-crazy-startup-and-p...
Choose something many people like a little vs Choose something few people like a lot.
Sounds like start with a niche. Which is great advice.
I like how in this essay pg managed to balance the idea of building something you really want (but may have a market size of 1) vs a problem that everyone has but is only a small itch-to-scratch problem
I ran and failed a number of startups for a number of reasons, and I think this essay resonated the most with me as the idea fountain never stops. Choosing the ideas were in fact the difficult parts, and I know a few months down the track, I'd be reading it again.
Twitter was built so people would be able to blog via SMS. That was the idea; that was the problem they were setting out to solve. That's not what made them big.
They inadvertently solved the need of microblogging. No need to maintain blogs; no need to write long posts. Just a simple, short way to keep people informed with what you are doing. But that's not what made them big either.
What made them big is celebrities took to it and used it as their main form of communication with their fans. That's why I made an account a few years back and I'd venture to say over half of the active users did the exact same. Twitter has since evolved past that, at least for me, but it was definitely the initial reason for the boom. Would they have been successful without that? Probably not.
So is Twitter a good idea? I don't know. I really don't know.
I remember thinking how atrociously bad the idea of limiting your expression to 140 characters (or any other short limit) seemed to me. And here I am, going on my third year of being an avid Twitter user.
Sometimes ideas play out in interesting, new ways. I very much doubt that the originators of Twitter thought of even half the ways their service is being used today.
Twitter was obviously a great idea, but it wasn't an obviously great idea.
Just because no one (including the Twitter guys) could see the direction it would grow in doesn't mean that it wasn't a great place to start. In retrospect, clearly it was.
I guess I don't think there is a 100% correlation between success and a great idea. I think that luck can be just as big a factor in success as the idea, especially in the mass consumer space.
If celebrities didn't take to Twitter I very much doubt they would have hundreds of millions of users now. You could argue the idea is what drove celebrities to use the service, but did it? If another service came out before or around the same time that celebrities used instead, would we say "Twitter is obviously a great idea that just didn't catch on?"
I think the thing that is being overlooked with Twitter and celebrities, is that it's yet another case of cutting out the middle-man that the internet does so well.
Delivery of celebrity gossip, information, photos to fans is big business. It was also gate-kept by an industry who decided who was cool and who was not.
Celebrities quickly worked out they could by-pass this channel and go direct to their fans. The broadcast and print media no longer were the gatekeepers, and the celebrities could build their own direct channel to their fans.
Now celebrities make money just by having a direct link to their fans and have an incredibly effective marketing channel. And now they often accept money for posting something on twitter.
I think it's one of those examples where the media-replacement is coming in along an axis that nobody expected.
The future of media is less in the masthead but more in the individually branded producer. To achieve this requires a lightweight direct channel. Which twitter has achieved without really setting out to.
Noticing is key for me. I have zillions of startup ideas from mundane to crazy, they are all outgrowths of noticing either something missing or someone frustrated or being frustrated myself and wanting something, or to do something, and not being able to.
Strangely (or perhaps not) getting married made me better at noticing. I could sit in a room and watch TV because there was 'nothing else to do' when my wife sat in the exact same room she saw all sorts of things that needed doing. And when she pointed them out they became obvious to me too. Perhaps I'm an inveterate slacker but those things were deeply camouflaged against the patina of knik-knacks that couldn't hide from her. Oh there is the radio that needs the knob glued to work again, that corner needs a light fixture. The top speakers are covered in dust, the board games have started tumbling out of the AV cabinet and are threatening the dog cushion.
I had invested way too much time as a youth trying not to see things I didn't have time to do or want to do, that I perfected my non-vision vision. She helped switch that off which made my marriage better (fewer arguments) and suddenly seeing things that could be better but weren't yet. One of those 'benched' (sort of ideas was a computer system for teaching computer science. The Raspberry Pi helps wonderfully in that regard. So sometimes even when I don't make progress things get better :-).
Observe everything and learn new things. This leads to (problems ∩ solutions) = ideas. Sooner or later you'll have more great ideas than you'll ever have time to execute.
Free startup idea for the day. 3D design software for the masses. It seems to cover lots of the bases in the article. I feel the need for this right now (just this weekend I wanted to print out a plastic part to fix the broken piece on my lawn mower). 3D printing seems to be an up-and-coming area. The hardware for this is still being perfected, but the software seems further behind. There are lots of competitors making 3D modeling software, ranging from FOSS to the ultra-expensive enterprise-y, but they all seem to have a very steep learning curve. Most people who are going to own 3D printers aren't going to want to dedicate their live to learning the intricacies of 3D CAD. Ideally, I'd think the software would be based on photogammetry [1], which would allow you to take pictures of an object you want to copy, but allowing you to make tweaks (i.e. extend the portion that is missing because it broke off, etc). Think of the MS-Paint for 3D objects. I think it covers the unsexy and schlep aspects, since it seems doable, but would take a lot of tedious work. It seems like it could start out very focused at first, and expand from there.
This! I'm convinced 3D printing will become a lot cheaper, but until I played with tinkercad last weekend I thought the design of objects would be really complex. Here it's quite easy!
Nobody uses MS-paint to actually solving a problem of theirs, its prevalence is only because is the free bitmap editor that it comes pre-installed in Windows; you actually hace to learn Photoshop, Fireworks or other software to be able to solve decently your problem.
Furthermore I think SketchUp[0] is already a solution for this kind of problem, is extremely easy to use; trought I have to admit that it could improve with some tools specifically for photogammetry and 3D printing.
Problem with 3d printing (and one blemish on this otherwise fantastic essay) is that 3d printing related stuff I think is too sexy to be a good startup idea. Much like video games or developer tools, it's too meta and every nerd on the Earth who has read any sci-fi would jump at the chance to work on these types of problems.
That's not to say that being an employee of a company working on these wouldn't be a lot of fun, if that's your thing. But founding a company around sexy technology is more about self-indulgence than trying to create a wealth generating enterprise.
I worked on what I, at the time, called software to do "3D printing" in the late 1990s. CAM - Computer Assisted Machining - software. (It was CNC drilling, not additive sintering).
Sure, it was very expensive (like a mainframe), not cheap (like a PC). However, it definitely wasn't sexy. Nobody, not even sci-fi nerds, was jumping to work on that type of problem.
It's actually quite schlepy, at least the part we did. Lots of maths and problems with floating point rounding errors, and weird edge cases of strange shapes.
Bet there are plenty of schlepy bits in the new, cheap world of 3D printing. We're certainly early enough, it has nowhere near even begun to play out.
My friend had this idea about a year and a half ago. Any programmer who gets involved in 3D printing does, because the software is so primitive. It's like random unmaintained tools you download for Windows only with Windows 95 UIs. Or AutoCAD, which does 1000x more than you need and is hard to learn.
The main problem I see is that development is going to be hugely expensive. It's an inherently complex problem domain. You need people who know hardware and 3D modelling. And you need people who can design UIs. There's a reason AutoCAD costs so much!
Someone will do it eventually. But it will be interesting to see how they are able to make it affordable and still make money. I know about Tinkercad but don't know what their plans are.
I'm curious about this statement that appears at the bottom (and I've see this before obviously):
"Thanks to Sam Altman, Mike Arrington, Paul Buchheit, John Collison, Patrick Collison, Garry Tan, and Harj Taggar for reading drafts of this, and Marc Andreessen, Joe Gebbia, Reid Hoffman, Shel Kaphan, Mike Moritz and Kevin Systrom for answering my questions about startup history."
(my emphasis)
To what extent do these individual contribute and/or suggest corrections of an essay like this?
Getting advice from an essay by PG is like reading a description of a stock market strategy - by the time you read and assimilate it, everyone else has too, and that particular inefficiency has been eliminated.
There will now be a lot more HN readers keeping diaries of all the things that they noticed were inefficient in their day, and they will come up with good, competing startup ideas. However, the founder that is likely to be the most successful was the one that started doing this long before this essay came out. Which is actually the point of a large part of the essay, the one that talks about being "the right type of person".
Relatedly, Blake Masters was publishing notes from Peter Thiel's startup class.
Though they were public, for anyone to see, we were able to read the notes, understand his philosophy, and raise money in an area he'd never invested before.
It's not necessarily a new idea. In fact, I posted a note to myself on Facebook in August that reads "Try hard to recognize problems; then come up with the solution." (Yeah, it's weird to post notes to yourself on FB but I actually see my notes on a daily basis and nobody else does since they're on 'only me').
The thing is, most people will read this essay and go "Yeah, yeah! That's great. I'm going to do that" and then forget about it by next Sunday. So I don't think you need to worry too much.
Stock market investing isn't a zero sum game anymore than VC investing or even Y Combinator.
Edit: OK, YC adds much more hands on value to businesses, but the investment aspect is exactly the same as it would be if you bought shares over the market.
Ehhh you get into meta when it comes to options and futures, but I would argue they still aren't zero sum. I mean, you could argue almost everything money wise can be looked at as zero sum.
If a VC buys a 10% stake in company ABC for $1 million the trade looks like:
VC: -$1,000,000, +10% equity (worth $1,000,000)
Net = $0
ABC: +$1,000,000, -10% equity (worth $1,000,000)
Net = $0
Now let's say ABC doubles their valuation. Now the trade looks like:
VC: -$1,000,000, +10% equity (worth $2,000,000)
Net = +$1,000,000
ABC: +$1,000,000, -10% equity (worth $2,000,000)
Net = -$1,000,000
Obviously the $1,000,000 helped ABC double their valuation, which means that the transaction was not zero sum. Same could be said about all investments and to a lesser extent, options and futures. You can't ignore the context of the trades such as using put options to hedge a long position, for example.
The reason stock market is considered zero sum is not because it's literally zero sum. It's a well understood and highly competitive market, where most gains come from other players in the market.
Reading and understanding are only one step. Actually assimilating and putting the advice to practical use is another step entirely.
This is why there are so many "obvious" articles that we do not apply. For instance, the blog posts and articles advocating exercise and a good night's sleep.
Except what you have here isn't analogous to a stock market strategy. When I think of a strategy I think of fairly specific things such as "use a portfolio optimizer each month and rebalance between stocks and bonds." PG's essays are more along the lines of Warren Buffet's: a framework for thinking about problems. But the value doesn't come from the essays per se, it comes from you taking them and integrating them into your own unique approach that is based upon their principles.
I'd recently come to the same conclusion that programming is a fantastic secondary skill. Having some other domain expertise - combined with the ability to make your own tools - seems to be the best way to find problems that people are willing to pay money to solve.
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[ 6.2 ms ] story [ 137 ms ] threadI eagerly await for a problem to come into my life to which the solution is only a few weekends of Ruby away.
I once worked on a social network for dog owners. Not pet owners, dog owners. And not actually dog owners, but their dogs. A place for people to have a social network of ... dogs.
But all the features made it an interesting enough project. The guy even came up with enough money to pay the web agency I was working at for the development - yes, outsourcing core product to an agency.
It took a year for the project to go from "I need devs" to "Build this". By then I had already given my notice at the agency with the dream of launching a cool startup.
I don't know that the dog social network ever launched.
Ideas should stem from problems. The "problem" with only solving problems for yourself, however, is that you may not be hitting a real market. The tech niche isn't exactly the norm (it's the .1%).
Lean methodologies behind testing problems and market needs are definitely making it better, but it's still extremely time -consuming, can get costly, and can lead to nothing (which is still better than building a product that doesn't go anywhere).
Landing pages, blog posts, setting controls & changes, analyzing the results and transferring those to actual needs and potential customers.
It's a mess.
If only there was something to solve this "problem" of figuring out which problem-solvers are market viable and which aren't quickly and affordably (without the massive learning curve).
My team and I just may have to give tackling this one a try :)
re the unsexy filter, success can create sexiness. nike sells shoes. amazon sells books. salesforce sells enterprise software. yet these are all considered cool, sexy companies for the most part. if you build something people love, you can make it sexy. worry less about if something is sexy today, and worry more about building something people will love tomorrow. sexiness will follow.
pg's essays are so true and correct that I could practically cry.
If enough people read these essays (especially this and the recent "growth" essay), it could materially boost the economy.
No, it's not because pg is wrong or I disagree with anything he's saying, it's because everything resonates with my startup (Tinj.co, interactive movie ratings) but after 1000+ pitches I still can't succinctly articulate how I know this.
I could probably make a checklist for the criteria of great startup ideas (seems like a toy: check, personal problem: check, inspiration from other fields: check, etc) but I have a hard time imagining that to be persuasive. I guess all we can do is push on towards a beta and let traction speak for itself.
Truly disruptive ideas are difficult to communicate because most people do not have the mental framework to truly grasp them. I guess that's just the catch-22 of disruptive ideas.
1. Does it help people address their fears? For example, are they afraid of not being heard? Or missing the next great movie?
2. Does it help people feel loved? For example, giving them an opportunity to warn people away from bad movies, or to offer unique insights?
3. Does it help people create or curate beauty? Movie ratings themselves are not very beautiful, but perhaps the personal curation piece is important to some.
4. Does it help people to eliminate ugliness?
...and I wrote this before checking your site. After seeing it, I have this sinking feeling that you are not really serious about your startup, as the homepage makes absolutely no attempt to describe what it is. Cold sign-ups are very 2004. honestly if I had checked first I wouldn't have bothered replying, but since it's already written, here you go. Hope it helps.
1. A big reason more people don't rate movies is because it's unclear how or if it actually helps others (my vote doesn't matter syndrome) or themselves (black box recommendations).
2. Validation is a big motivator, seeing that others agree with you or trust your judgement is huge.
3. Funny you should mention curating beauty, individuals will be able to share and discover based on people that share the same taste in "beauty" in the context of movies.
4. Reading tons of reviews or trying to decide if 79% on RottenTomatoes or a 3.8 stars from something else means you'll actually enjoy a movie is a painful (or ugly) experience to most people I've talked with.
I assure you, @javajosh, we are taking this very seriously as a startup. The launchrock signup page is not the primary way we're finding beta testers, it's merely sufficient before we start a closed beta.
Getting back to the bigger picture though, we're really building a system to efficiently share opinions and see what other people think.
This isn't a huge pain point.
To make a (hopefully apt) comparison, what pain point did twitter initially solve? Sharing what you had for lunch?
Medical diagnostics, OTOH, could avoid a painpoint involving death - so that's an easier pitch.
Ratings are a form of feedback.
Feedback helps people learn.
Therefore, if we can build a better rating system that lets people share more and better feedback, then we can speed up learning and improve the flow and evolution of ideas.
Also, this system wasn't designed for movies, it was designed for answers on Quora. Movies are just a better beachhead.
Feel free to discount my opinion though, I haven't seen a movie in a theater in probably 5 years and basically think movies are a complete waste of time and money.
It never hurts to think bigger, too. If they do somehow achieve a big advance in selecting movies, it could probably be applied to books and movies too, right?
It's hard to think of a more impactful problem for the entire entertainment industry than better matching of products to consumers.
Listening to stories (or watching them, as the case may be) is a usually enjoyable experience - which is why we choose to listen and even pay for the opportunity to listen to a really good story from a really good storyteller. All of the "pain points" around this process have been thoroughly addressed: it's easy to discover movies, buy tickets, download to your computer, get reviews, write reviews. Even the watching experience itself has been improved with 3D (although this is open to debate) and better sound, even things like IMAX and more experimental experiences e.g. Star Tours at Disneyland. There are some places in the world where they even serve food and drink during the movie (or at least during an intermission).
The biggest pain people feel about movies is dealing with the proliferation of choice. It doesn't seem to me that there is an underserved market of people who would see more movies if only they knew about the good ones.
Imagine, if you will, your own personal Heaven. Presumably storytelling and movies are still happening. What is the heavenly, perfect movie-going experience? Does the movie take over your visual cortex? Are movies recommended by God - or indeed, created by Him to perfectly stimulate your mind in the way He knows you like? Does your reaction telepathically propagate to everyone else in Heaven? (Is telepathic propagation connectionless? I suppose that's another thread).
This is exactly it - well said. And as you said, "movies are your beachhead".
All you need is why what you do is different and/or better (which is still not exactly clear, unless it's finding peers).
It's sometimes tough for engineers to be focused less on being precise in description, and more inspirational to goals. I have to work at it every day.
http://www.jwz.org/doc/groupware.html famously boils it down to one question: Your "use case" should be, there's a 22 year old college student living in the dorms. How will this software get him laid?
Not exactly how we'd track it but the number of people that get laid after using our system would be a fascinating statistic.
Here's hoping pg writes that essay next.
The best material I've found about this kind of stuff is: Robert Cialdini's "Influence", and some of the less creepy pickup material, particularly to do with "inner game". Also, this new book by Australian business journo Valerie Khoo looks interesting:
http://www.amazon.com/Power-Stories-Build-Business-ebook/dp/...
If they were a "yes", they would take out their wallet and offer you money. "Something like that" means "not what you are offering".
"Maybe I could see using something like that" is what people say when they want to be nice to you. Even "I would use that" is basically a "no".
Try this template: "it's like Rotten Tomatoes, except ..."
It's like Rotten Tomatoes, except you rate on 3 axes instead of just 1.
It's like Rotten Tomatoes, except you rate the movie by answering questions about what parts you liked.
It's like Rotten Tomatoes, except your ratings are automatically posted to Facebook.
What are you building? If you can't say in one sentence, I would suggest the problem is with your pitch rather than with the listeners.
Describing what we're doing and illustrating the pain points aren't the same thing.
How about this: Tinj is a rating system that lets people externalize opinions about movies in context so they can receive comprehensive recommendations.
See? Told you I still suck at this.
Here's a problem we're solving: Given that opinions are complex, how do you figure out what other people think about a movie?
Read reviews? That's biased to critics and writers (less than 1% of the population).
Look at star ratings? What does 4-stars even mean?
Check out social media? How many tweets and blogs would you have to read?
Ask your friends? Which ones actually share your tastes and have seen the movie?
Unfortunately, complicated problems tend to have complicated answers.
"Quickly and easily decide which movie to see."
Simple, to the point, and yes, it's still an unsolved problem.
If you've come across this before, forgive the pestering, I just thought it was fair to point out before you've launched.
You should be putting those blocks in place now. Good SEO takes time, and day-before-launch is not the time.
Seriously, start executing your strategy now.
This is what I suggest you do. It might cost you ~$50 or so. Go to a coffee shop like Starbucks and offer someone to buy them their coffee in exchange for some feedback on the "new website you're building". Try to find normals (not super technical folks, unless that's your target audience). Explain to them what you're building, let them play with the site (hey this is also a nice UX test), take your notes whatever but in the end, ask them to explain to you what your site does. Maybe if you do this with 10 or so people you might see a pattern emerging (bonus: get pretty good feedback on product too).
I am not saying this will work, but this will not be a waste if the people you talk to are anything close to your target audience.
P.S. What Emmett is saying above is to give him a one sentence description that brings him as close as possible to cloning your site. Also, do you really need "externalize opinions"?
I've more or less mastered the 1-minute demo, hard not to since I've done it a thousand times (and a thousand different ways too). Trust me, I used to suck a lot more.
As for the "externalize opinions" line, just trying something new.
I'm not even sure what that means. Target your pitch to an 8th grade reading level. Yours sounds like the abstract for a research paper. And these days, your core value proposition should be able to be expressed in a tweet.
>How about this: Tinj is a rating system that lets people externalize opinions about movies in context so they can receive comprehensive recommendations.
What does "externalize opinions" mean? As someone who has never seen your service, I know what an opinion is, but "externalize" is a complex word with multiple nuanced meanings. As a prospective user I assume you mean "voice".
What does "in context" mean? Again, as a prospect I have zero idea what you mean by that, so I will assume you mean "on my site".
What does "receive comprehensive recommendations" mean? I guess it can be my FB friends (if I give another service access to mytriends list) or strangers or (worse) friends I have to make on your site before it brcomes useful. I'll assume "strangers or FB friends".
Put it together, and the pitch becomes (to me, a prospective user who had zero context about your srvice beyond this sentence and who you are trying to convince to visit your site): "Tinj is a rating system that lets people voice opinions about movies on the Tinj website so they can receive recommendations from strangers or FB friends.". This may be totally wrong, but it's the picture I got. To which as a user I say: "Big deal. I don't need this site when I have FB and RottenTomatoes."
I hope hearing some feedback from a stranger will help you refine your pitch.
I think you're talking about Yahoo and the J-curve, couldn't find anything by Bezos.
Thanks for the vote of confidence, we went through a phase of pitching ourselves as "Disqus for ratings" but the problem was it's hit or miss with people.
Ratings in general is a different story though.
It's difficult problem to solve, you need lots of users and a good algorithm to improve on what IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes provide. In general I find that I'm happy with the ratings on IMDB and generally I will like the high rated films on that site - though I can imagine there are a lot of people that doesn't work for.
It would take a lot to convince me that someone had solved this problem (many have tried and failed), like a bit of hype from everyone or some rave reviews. However, in absence of that and seeing that you had done 1000+ pitches, I looked at your site and it has an invite form on it - so really you haven't even started yet.
- some people enjoy movies and are always looking for new stuff.
- their joy is watching movies, not rating them. like / not like right after the movie is ok. some disconnected process is not, this is work, not joy.
- what are the major, simple factors leading to the next good movie?
1., Same personnel involved. director, screenwriter, main actors.
2., I liked their previous work.
3., The major outliers are found by chance or word of mouth. then 1 and 2 are in play.
Now, does a web page solve this nicely? No. Much smarter would something akin to what Netflix is attempting. A XBMC/Plex/VLC plugin maybe that tracks HABITS. No effort involved. The plugin tracks the movie history and maybe, maybe asks at the end if you like the movie.
You can apply the same to songs, etc.
And yes, Netflix, Amazon, all prior art. But actually working.
Convenience is key for consumers. Seamless. Easy. Valuable. Instagram hooked itself into the photo making process. Flickr did not.
Good luck.
--note: I know nothing more than my rottweiler sitting next to me. The difference between me and most people is that I will tell you I know nothing. So just take the advice and do with it what you want.
...On the other hand, I suppose for some ideas you would never know unless you tried to execute it...
As an example: in a hospital, we have the "sign out sheet" which is a list of the current patients and all of their important data. These sheets are usually manually updated and it's a very, very tedious task; you've got to make sure all the dosages are current, and they're already in the system! Anyway, I kept noticing the residents would ask one another if they had updated the sheet and realized this was a pain-point that's become an accepted part of the day-to-day medical routine. That's just one example.
Good problems don't have to elicit noticeable frustration. In fact, I'd say many of the best problems around are ones that have pushed people past frustration and into acceptance.
This. Seriously, the Institute of Medicine has implicitly decided that this is the problem that it wants the world's entrepreneurs to solve.
The IOM observed that there were many errors made in medicine. Errors in medicine harm and kill people.
Many people believe that doctors (residents) who sleep too little are more liable to commit errors. They believe that a lack of sleep is dangerous to patients; therefore, the ACGME instituted duty hour restrictions on residents.
As a consequence of this, residents work for fewer consecutive hours. Necessarily, they "hand off" their patients to one another more frequently than they did in the past. As you can imagine, there is also risk in the handoff process.
The IOM and the ACGME, via their pronouncements and policies, have decided that long shifts are too dangerous to try to solve. Instead, they are willing to throw all of their eggs into the "handoffs must be safer than long shifts" basket. Handoffs are dangerous, hard, annoying, and they happen at least twice per shift per attending, resident, and midlevel provider every day. I don't mean to tell you how to solve handoff problems, but I do want to underscore the problem that kyro has identified.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus11.pdf - Health, United States, 2011
http://wps.pearsoneducation.nl/wps/media/objects/13902/14236... - To Err Is Human
- http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=192842 - JAMA: Institute of Medicine Medical Error Figures Are Not Exaggerated (Context for To Err Is Human)
- http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=192908#RE... - JAMA: Is US Health Really the Best in the World? (More context for To Err Is Human)
http://www.innovationlabs.com/summit/summit3/readings/Schust... - How good is the quality of health care in the United States?
http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/F... - Why Not The Best (Commonwealth Fund)
http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309091179 - Health Literacy: A Prescription To End Confusion (IOM)
http://books.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6121 - IOM Workshop: Antiomicrobrial Resistance - Issues and Options
Books:
Anatomy of an Epidemic (Mental health)
The Emperor's New Drugs (Mental health)
Crazy Like Us (Mental health)
The Truth About Drug Companies (Pharma)
Overdosed America (Pharma)
Health Behavior Change and Treatment Adherence: Evidence-based Guidelines for Improving Healthcare (Medical adherence)
This list doesn't do a great job of covering certain niche problems like current issues in drug discovery or electronic records, but I think it provides enough context to understand whatever issues aren't covered directly. One of the quirks about medicine is that a lot of the data we have on even the most important issues (e.g. antibiotic resistance) is either 10+ years old or else woefully incomplete, which is extremely unfortunate but on the plus side it makes it actually fairly easy to learn about what would otherwise be way too complicated for anyone not in the industry to understand.
Short of scratching your own itch, a great way to come up with startup ideas is through careful observation of others, and particularly those who could be defined as a "market" of sorts (e.g., those in a hospital setting, business, etc.). Observing behaviors and the language people use when they are trying to accomplish a task is an amazing way of developing new ideas, which can easily lead to new startup ideas.
I've been in qualitative market research for about 10 years now and by far the most effective studies I have run for my clients has been through observational and ethnographic research methods where we just follow along as people try to perform a task. This is the best way to uncover unmet needs and ideas for new products.
If you're stuck for a startup idea, just ask someone in an industry you're personally interested in if you can watch them do their job for a day. Just sit there and observe - ask questions only at the end.
If you really watch carefully, that will produce more ideas than you know how to handle (although I still agree with pg's original point - solving your own problems is the best way to go because you'll be more likely to stick with it through the inevitable ups and downs of startup life).
In healthcare, checklists improve safety, but so do other procedural changes. If a pilot has a mishap, the FAA/NTSB always investigates. Hospitals rarely investigate patient mishaps (deaths, malpractice etc.) unless there is a lawsuit filed, and state medical boards rarely investigate either.
http://www.amazon.com/E-Myth-Revisited-Small-Businesses-Abou...
And this doesn't just apply to tech startups...
The business I currently run (an exotic car rental company) started out precisely as described -- it was an idea I had to solve a problem I was facing (I wanted to rent a super-fancy car to drive across the country. Nobody in NYC offered that service). The business started as a fun side-project - a toy. I figured it would be a hobby business - something I could do in my spare time while I figured out what business I "really" wanted to start. I built it myself - did the deliveries, threw a website together, learned SEO, etc.
And sure enough, I was surprised by how much other folks also wanted this service. So when I went live - the calls kept coming. That was 8.5 years ago, and the business now employs over 20 people and is about to open in its 3rd city.
So take PG's words to heart - they're some of the best I've read.
wow, it sounds like an awesome business. drop a link so I can take a look at those babies.
//edit: got it http://www.gothamdreamcars.com/our-fleet.htm holy crap, nice collection (although I was hoping for some more diversity and vintages :)).
If you don't mind me asking, I was always curious: who is the common clientele for these kind of services? People who own such cars at home and want something similar while travelling?
I guess you pay a lot of insurance. have you had any problems like 'spoiled kid rents a murcielago, wrecks on the first corner?' or some fun/weird stories? (needless to say the whole business of owning such cars must be fun :) maybe you could do an AMA on reddit)
http://imgur.com/fV4Ph
I recall someone did a similar AMA a few years ago, but indeed, maybe it's time for another one.
This is a perfect example of a sustainable niche business, and one of the reasons I love this particular PG essay more than most. I find that a lot of PG essays (especially his recent "growth") exhibit an obvious VC / Silicon Valley bias, but this one is globally applicable to everything from an exotics rental company to a rapidly-growing IPO-targeted hot startup.
Both your business and the PG essay also triggered "why has nobody written/created this in such a simple way before?" thought processes, which in my mind is another good indicator that the concept behind both is quite sound.
Had I known prior to my current trip to NYC, I'd probably be a customer right now - as it stands a Phantom for the day tomorrow is really appealing but I'm not sure I want to drop the cash :)
I'd love to hear more about your early days. I'm guessing you had to convince a bank to loan you money to buy a Ferrari, but you were a new business with no established credit history. How did that go?
I'm also very interested in learning about determining pricing for a service leasing out assets on a short term basis. I've had an idea that involves renting on a monthly basis (no, not exotic cars!) but I'm not able to figure out a pricing model to see if my target (low) prices are feasible.
Specifically: " Drew Houston realizes he's forgotten his USB stick and thinks "I really need to make my files live online." Lots of people heard about the Altair. Lots forgot USB sticks. The reason those stimuli caused those founders to start companies was that their experiences had prepared them to notice the opportunities they represented."
Also the section about "wells" and attacking a problem at least some people care deeply about, instead of a shallow 'hole' is one that has just allowed me to clarify and refine some of my thoughts and ideas about where I'm at right now.
This was a massive help.
Thanks for the great article pg.
I came across the following quote by William S. Burroughs recently:
Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.
Replace "Happiness" with "a start-up idea", and I think you get what pg is getting at:
A Start-up idea is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek a start-up idea for itself seek victory without war.
I also came across a great post on the relationship between serendipity and success, and is it well worth the read: http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/10/when_success_is_born_out_of_...
I especially enjoyed this bit:
Our mind abhors these serendipitous explanations, and searches for convenient patterns instead. Ask for the keys to career success and you'll get logical explanations, recommendations, pathways and approaches. Then ask someone how he or she became successful and suddenly it becomes a story of serendipitous encounters, unexpected changes in plans, and random consequences. It does not make sense to ignore this basic fact about success any longer.
Similar to the advice you read on "creating your own luck", you need to put yourself in situations where "serendipity" can happen more easily. In other words, if you want to become an actor, move to L.A. If you want to work in Finance, hang out in Wall Street, etc. There are of course no guarantees, and of course you can become an actor without living in L.A., and a financial analyst without being on wall street.
If you walk through a bad neighborhood by yourself late at night with a George Costanza like wallet bulging in your back pocket, you increase your chances of being mugged. It won't happen every time, but you are certainly "tempting fate".
So, "walk" in "neighborhoods" where you tempt fate in your favor. Go to meetups. Volunteer at organizations where people are trying to solve important problems. Ask people you find interesting to go for a coffee. Socialize with small business owners. Contribute to open source projects.
There is an interesting Forbes article on "The Four Essential Personality Traits Of Every Entrepreneur", one of which is "Luck-Dominant":
"...luck-dominant founders—which make up more than 25% of founders in the authors’ studies—are men and women whose positivity and intellectual curiosity create circumstances where a positive outcome is more likely. In other words, “they’re lucky by attitude, not by fate.”
(link to article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/10/11/the-fo...)
Another good trick is to write down those ideas on your blog at a fixed interval. This has two side effects: it forces you to either execute on an idea or let it go and it gets you feedback from your visitors. Here's my most recent idea dump: http://syskall.com/some-crazy-and-not-so-crazy-startup-and-p...
Anyone else have other methods?
Sounds like start with a niche. Which is great advice.
I like how in this essay pg managed to balance the idea of building something you really want (but may have a market size of 1) vs a problem that everyone has but is only a small itch-to-scratch problem
I ran and failed a number of startups for a number of reasons, and I think this essay resonated the most with me as the idea fountain never stops. Choosing the ideas were in fact the difficult parts, and I know a few months down the track, I'd be reading it again.
They inadvertently solved the need of microblogging. No need to maintain blogs; no need to write long posts. Just a simple, short way to keep people informed with what you are doing. But that's not what made them big either.
What made them big is celebrities took to it and used it as their main form of communication with their fans. That's why I made an account a few years back and I'd venture to say over half of the active users did the exact same. Twitter has since evolved past that, at least for me, but it was definitely the initial reason for the boom. Would they have been successful without that? Probably not.
So is Twitter a good idea? I don't know. I really don't know.
Sometimes ideas play out in interesting, new ways. I very much doubt that the originators of Twitter thought of even half the ways their service is being used today.
Just because no one (including the Twitter guys) could see the direction it would grow in doesn't mean that it wasn't a great place to start. In retrospect, clearly it was.
If celebrities didn't take to Twitter I very much doubt they would have hundreds of millions of users now. You could argue the idea is what drove celebrities to use the service, but did it? If another service came out before or around the same time that celebrities used instead, would we say "Twitter is obviously a great idea that just didn't catch on?"
Delivery of celebrity gossip, information, photos to fans is big business. It was also gate-kept by an industry who decided who was cool and who was not.
Celebrities quickly worked out they could by-pass this channel and go direct to their fans. The broadcast and print media no longer were the gatekeepers, and the celebrities could build their own direct channel to their fans.
Now celebrities make money just by having a direct link to their fans and have an incredibly effective marketing channel. And now they often accept money for posting something on twitter.
I think it's one of those examples where the media-replacement is coming in along an axis that nobody expected.
The future of media is less in the masthead but more in the individually branded producer. To achieve this requires a lightweight direct channel. Which twitter has achieved without really setting out to.
[1] - http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v...
Strangely (or perhaps not) getting married made me better at noticing. I could sit in a room and watch TV because there was 'nothing else to do' when my wife sat in the exact same room she saw all sorts of things that needed doing. And when she pointed them out they became obvious to me too. Perhaps I'm an inveterate slacker but those things were deeply camouflaged against the patina of knik-knacks that couldn't hide from her. Oh there is the radio that needs the knob glued to work again, that corner needs a light fixture. The top speakers are covered in dust, the board games have started tumbling out of the AV cabinet and are threatening the dog cushion.
I had invested way too much time as a youth trying not to see things I didn't have time to do or want to do, that I perfected my non-vision vision. She helped switch that off which made my marriage better (fewer arguments) and suddenly seeing things that could be better but weren't yet. One of those 'benched' (sort of ideas was a computer system for teaching computer science. The Raspberry Pi helps wonderfully in that regard. So sometimes even when I don't make progress things get better :-).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photogrammetry
https://tinkercad.com/
Furthermore I think SketchUp[0] is already a solution for this kind of problem, is extremely easy to use; trought I have to admit that it could improve with some tools specifically for photogammetry and 3D printing.
[0] http://www.sketchup.com/intl/en/index.html
That's not to say that being an employee of a company working on these wouldn't be a lot of fun, if that's your thing. But founding a company around sexy technology is more about self-indulgence than trying to create a wealth generating enterprise.
I worked on what I, at the time, called software to do "3D printing" in the late 1990s. CAM - Computer Assisted Machining - software. (It was CNC drilling, not additive sintering).
Sure, it was very expensive (like a mainframe), not cheap (like a PC). However, it definitely wasn't sexy. Nobody, not even sci-fi nerds, was jumping to work on that type of problem.
It's actually quite schlepy, at least the part we did. Lots of maths and problems with floating point rounding errors, and weird edge cases of strange shapes.
Bet there are plenty of schlepy bits in the new, cheap world of 3D printing. We're certainly early enough, it has nowhere near even begun to play out.
The main problem I see is that development is going to be hugely expensive. It's an inherently complex problem domain. You need people who know hardware and 3D modelling. And you need people who can design UIs. There's a reason AutoCAD costs so much!
Someone will do it eventually. But it will be interesting to see how they are able to make it affordable and still make money. I know about Tinkercad but don't know what their plans are.
"Thanks to Sam Altman, Mike Arrington, Paul Buchheit, John Collison, Patrick Collison, Garry Tan, and Harj Taggar for reading drafts of this, and Marc Andreessen, Joe Gebbia, Reid Hoffman, Shel Kaphan, Mike Moritz and Kevin Systrom for answering my questions about startup history."
(my emphasis)
To what extent do these individual contribute and/or suggest corrections of an essay like this?
There will now be a lot more HN readers keeping diaries of all the things that they noticed were inefficient in their day, and they will come up with good, competing startup ideas. However, the founder that is likely to be the most successful was the one that started doing this long before this essay came out. Which is actually the point of a large part of the essay, the one that talks about being "the right type of person".
Though they were public, for anyone to see, we were able to read the notes, understand his philosophy, and raise money in an area he'd never invested before.
The thing is, most people will read this essay and go "Yeah, yeah! That's great. I'm going to do that" and then forget about it by next Sunday. So I don't think you need to worry too much.
Edit: OK, YC adds much more hands on value to businesses, but the investment aspect is exactly the same as it would be if you bought shares over the market.
If a VC buys a 10% stake in company ABC for $1 million the trade looks like:
VC: -$1,000,000, +10% equity (worth $1,000,000)
Net = $0
ABC: +$1,000,000, -10% equity (worth $1,000,000)
Net = $0
Now let's say ABC doubles their valuation. Now the trade looks like:
VC: -$1,000,000, +10% equity (worth $2,000,000)
Net = +$1,000,000
ABC: +$1,000,000, -10% equity (worth $2,000,000)
Net = -$1,000,000
Obviously the $1,000,000 helped ABC double their valuation, which means that the transaction was not zero sum. Same could be said about all investments and to a lesser extent, options and futures. You can't ignore the context of the trades such as using put options to hedge a long position, for example.
Reading and understanding are only one step. Actually assimilating and putting the advice to practical use is another step entirely.
This is why there are so many "obvious" articles that we do not apply. For instance, the blog posts and articles advocating exercise and a good night's sleep.
And yet, here I am, posting on HN at 1:20 AM.