Ask HN: Solve a problem or build something cool?
However, I've done a lot of reading on the origins of these products. In the early stages of these products, you really couldn't tell if there was a $b future or not. I'm sure the founders had some idea of the problem they were trying to solve, but I doubt any of them validated their ideas outside of a small circle of friends. In short, I don't think they really knew the problem they were solving. They just built it because it seemed cool. Defining and explaining "the problem" is always easier in hindsight.
However, I know that there are thousands of programmers and entrepreneurs who built cool stuff, but whose products failed and never gained any traction.
Thus, on the path to success I am lost. It feels like building something cool and solving a problem are two lines, where the intersection is your brilliant product.
If I want to fulfill my dream of having an app with 100m users, what should I do?
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[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 70.0 ms ] threadYou're suffering from a misconception -- that a commercial success results from a deterministic sequence of choices and events. This isn't true -- there is a large element of chance involved in modern success stories.
If this were not true, people could apply the known laws of success, become successful, and retire, without ever having to think creatively. In fact, a computer could automatically apply the rules of success without brooking human interference.
Success depends on a combination of creativity, hard work, and chance. No amount of creativity and hard work can eliminate the role played by chance.
> I'm looking for ideas ...
With all respect, if you become successful, it will be because of ideas you discovered on your own.
Build something people want, have a co-founder... I don't necessarily need to learn those lessons on my own, yet understanding them gives me a vast advantage over someone who doesn't.
Those patterns are illusions that rely entirely on hindsight. How can I be sure? If there really was a meaningful pattern to success, a computer could carry it out like a recipe, and achieve an automated success each time it was executed.
> Build something people want, have a co-founder... I don't necessarily need to learn those lessons on my own, yet understanding them gives me a vast advantage over someone who doesn't.
Really? "Build something people want" is a lesson? It's a self-evident and self-referential proposition. And the advice to have a co-founder is a silly proposition that's probably wrong more often than it's right. Bill Gates because successful only after getting rid of his co-founder. Steve Jobs because successful only after marginalizing his co-founder. Steve Zuckerberg became successful only after cheating his co-founders. Elon Musk because successful partly by avoiding the advice to have a co-founder.
You don't need the useless advice of sages, you need life experience.
If you were, you'd know that cofounders are important because building a business is difficult, and going the path with a partner has numerous tangible benefits. You'd also know about the pitfalls that kill startups, things people believe to be important but are not, and may get in the way of "building something people want". It is not useless advice, its actually quite good advice that can save you a lot of time and energy. That's why I don't dismiss it, I seek it.
You don't understand what I mean when I say there are no secrets of the winners? That success is what success does? How is that either difficult to grasp or in any way controversial?
> You don't strike me as someone who is particularly well informed with the modern startup, or the principles of turning an idea into a business.
So the fact that I have been a successful software developer for decades doesn't count? That, as one example, I turned my idea for a word processor into a product that became a worldwide best-seller doesn't count? You need to show a little respect, given that you're presuming to pontificate about something you've never accomplished, to someone who has.
> If you were, you'd know that cofounders are important ...
You know what? Thinking is important. A respect for evidence is important. Your belief in the value of co-founders is falsified by the history of successful businesses, and I already provided a list of obvious examples where co-founders only got in the way.
> ... going the path with a partner has numerous tangible benefits.
I guess that would explain why the most successful companies were started by individuals, or teams consisting of a leader and followers (which contradicts the meaning of "co-founder").
> You'd also know about the pitfalls that kill startups, things people believe to be important but are not ...
Like believing there are surefire rules for successful startups? The thesis that there is a winning formula is as true in business as it is in war -- it's proven false over and over again. In business and war, whatever strategy you choose, your enemy will adapt to it, which means you have to ... wait for it ... think original thoughts, thoughts that by definition aren't on a list of surefire ways to succeed. Thoughts your adversaries won't anticipate.
> It is not useless advice ...
It is useless advice simply because it's out there -- everyone has it. What you need is not more canned formulas for success, but more life experience and less respect for formulaic "solutions".
"When we started out, I had six rules and no children. Now I have six children and no rules."
> That's why I don't dismiss it, I seek it.
And eventually you will stop wasting your time trying to find the magic potion.
But, contrary to what you say, your writing so far only proves that you are incredibly rigid in your thinking, incapable of hearing anyone's advice, and you already have your mind made up about what constitutes a successful business strategy. You are neither flexible nor open to new ideas. You can't be bothered to listen to the advice of people who've had successes you can only dream of.
If you presented any worthwhile ideas, I could discuss them. But all you've presented is that success is unmeasurable chaos and therefore any discussion is pointless and awash.
You have such a strong disposition, you even call it magic potions and canned formulas. Your last paragraph describes you as much as me, think about that.
Translation: "In my search for surefire rules to success, I am going to avoid any advice from successful people." Sadly noted.
> But all you've presented is that success is unmeasurable chaos ...
And? That's correct. The only problem is that you have the modern equivalent of a religious outlook, i.e. there are rules that, if followed, assure success. It's false, but you can't accept that.
The fact that life is unmeasurable chaos doesn't mean people can't be successful. Those who are successful accept life as it is, not as they would like it to be.
> You have such a strong disposition ...
Just like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, an a thousand other successful people. But you have a belief in authority, in the power of rules, so you don't need to learn anything from successful people. Dream on, pilgrim.
There is no mystery, no magic sauce, no secret recipe. When your product (or idea) inevitably sucks, it's okay to be depressed. And after you're done with that, try again. You might get lucky. Or you might not. You might be the next Zuckerberg. Or you might not. The only way to find out is to get off Hacker News, Facebook, Reddit, etc. and give it a shot.
In any set of ideas, some are more obvious in their usefulness. Some just seem cool. If you look at the biggest consumer apps in their earliest stages, they almost all were ideas that "seemed cool" and lacked obvious usefulness (it was hard to see what problem they solved).
The problem is that way more of those apps fail vs ones that have utility. Hope that clarifies what I'm confused on.
You're over-thinking things. Easiest actionable advice is to build whatever excites you. A great way to do this is to build something that would have at least one user: you. Maybe it's "just" something "cool" or maybe it solves a pressing problem.
Don't get caught up in all of this up-front analysis where you try to build the perfect thing timed with some magical market moment. Instead, build a quick prototype if and when you feel excited about an idea. If your enthusiasm wanes early or you finish it and you realize it's not going to work out, it's OK ... wrap a bow around it and move on to the next thing.
edit: You seem to be looking for a magic bullet in the form of a Paul Graham essay. If so, this may be your best hope: http://www.paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
You need to wake up to the fact that no one is going to reveal specific steps to personal success. At least, not ones that work. If someone knew a surefire way to achieve success, he would do it himself and leave you out.
They are the closest thing you can get to a guideline to success. They make complete sense, and they are insanely valuable. His essays on wealth and startup ideas are absolutely true.
I don't think you understand what I'm asking for.
If they were a guideline to success, he would practice them instead of writing about them, and he would be richer than Bill Gates. There are no guidelines to success.
Success isn't about guidelines, it's about a mixture of chance and a prepared mind. And you prepare your mind by gathering life experience.
> His essays on wealth and startup ideas are absolutely true.
Whoever "PG" is (you don't say), his advice is either useless or is based on a success that owes more to chance than to a winning system.
Do you really think top business executives make 100 million dollars a year by applying deterministic success recipes they read in a book?
> I don't think you understand what I'm asking for.
No, believe me, as a successful programmer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Writer), I can tell you that it is you who don't understand what you're asking for.
Paul Graham of Y Combinator (i.e. the accelerator that runs this site). :)
This is just plain wrong. I can't think of a single major consumer app that lacked obvious usefulness. There was absolutely nothing cool about Facebook aside from it's ability to solve a problem more effectively than it's predecessors.
If one of your readers knew that, why would he tell you? Why wouldn't he instead fulfill his own dream?
> However, I know that there are thousands of programmers and entrepreneurs who built cool stuff, but whose products failed and never gained any traction.
Yes, and the difference between those stories and that of Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg is ... to a large extent chance.
Well, chance and persistence. Successful people try hundreds or thousands of things until one of them works.
“We now know a thousand ways not to build a light bulb” -- Thomas Alva Edison
Above leads to an unprepared development of a product because you don't know whether there is a need/problem out there.
I think that's why it's so important to know the market + customers.
I think if you do find a problem to solve, then you can build something "cool" to solve that problem.
But if you have to compare the two, "solving a problem" seems objective, whereas "cool" is... just... too relative + subjective.