IN GENERAL this is a great frame of mind to come up with ideas for a non-programming mind; I think, however, that as a developer such a perspective would lead to technically interesting stuff that few people would use / pay for. As time remains constant and life becomes more complicated, I suspect people will become more selective and use more of the kinds of services they would actually bother paying for and limiting their interactions with things that are interesting, but not enough if they actually cost something. That said, most non-programmers usually start the "what would I want built for me" process from the perspective of "that would be so useful that I might even consider paying for it" whereas, from my experience with programmers (trying to recruit for my own startup efforts), most programmers start the "what would I wish someone built" process from the perspective of "that I would respect this guy's technical ability a lot."
Case in point: there are tons of ideas that can become good, useful, practical valuable services based on standard, already existing technology reconfigured in different ways. But most programmers, if they're anything like the ones I've come across, would consider that "below them" and instead favor a startup working on some obscure problem that 6 people on the planet could understand and appreciate.
Google aside, that rarely translates into "great business".
AT&T is too broad and I don't know what you mean specifically, but from a common-sense business perpective, the problem Intel works on is "how to keep making smaller faster better processors" and I think again that's another idea that, technical though it may be, captures the interest of way more than 6 people.
Who was the market for the original telephone/telegraph, who was the market for the original transistor or microprocessor?
Whose interest did those things capture initially outside of a small group of technical people? Were they built and people just lined up outside of Walmart to buy them?
Intel was originally in the business of making memory chips, which had a thriving market in minicomputers. They invented the microprocessor because, well, they could. It was the sort of geekish hack that virtually nobody appreciated at the time. They only got big into microprocessors because the Japanese ate the market for memory chips - it was either concentrate on microprocessors, or die.
What does this have to do with programmers? Aside from the fact that I'm talking about programmers and you're extending this to include "all technically-minded people everywhere", in general you're citing exceptions to my observations.
Example:
> Who was the market for the original telephone/telegraph
Gee ... um ... I don't know. Everybody in the world who thought it would be more convenient to get instant verbal communication over a letter that took weeks or months to deliver/respond to?
Let me put it another way. Pierre Omidyar is a technical guy, and more specifically a programmer. Did he choose to develop something that solved an obscure technical challenge, the goal of which was to be published in some computer science journal with a subscription base of 12 people?
No. He had a rare abililty of having both the technical talent and being able to think from the perspective of the general population.
Hence someone like him would be an exception to what I said I've observed.
But for everyone like him that can be cited, I can introduce you to 20 programmers that are trying to start startups around "challenges" so specialized and irrelevant-in-the-scheme-of-things that I know for sure they did zero market research before starting or even during.
Sure, lots of things that seemed like a waste turned out to be very useful with the benefit of an unexpected consequence coupled with unpredictable developments and the benefit of hindsight.
In general, though, I'd prefer to start with "what's needed" and try to come up with a technical solution as simple as possible rather than "what's the coolest thing I could work on technically" and then spend time on that only to find out that 5 people in the world would actually buy it.
I agree with you that most technical people value triumph over technical challenges more than economic worth. I suffered from an acute case of this disease for many years. Perspective is everything when building a startup product. A user doesn't give a damn about a language or methodology, they just want a need solved.
Exactly. And it doesn't even have to be "economic worth" it could be a time/money saving solution that let's some one devote an extra 1 hour to playing with their kids. That's a worthy cause as any. You won't get published in any journal, but I suspect the feedback would be worth it in its own way. I just think there needs to be more of a balance. Google can afford to bankroll people working on problems for their own sake because they got the "value-added" part down pretty well first, for example. No shame in having your feet on the ground while your head looks upward (IMHO).
Apple in my mind = present an OS GUI according to the needs of the human brain. A lot more than 6 people were/are/will be interested in that.
Microsoft = make big business computer functions possible on the home computer (at least originally). Apparently more than 6 people were interested in that.
Yahoo's proposition originally = the world wibe web is taking off exponentially and you need some sort of list or something to keep track of all the interesting stuff that keeps popping up.
Again, more than 6 people were/are interested in that.
So, only Google. And truth be said, even Google doesn't count that much since from my understanding Google was just living off of angel/VC funding for a few years until a biz-dev V.P. came up with the idea to tie search results to paid advertising as text on the side.
Without what became adwords, Google would have just stayed an interesting technical solution.
Had that V.P. kept his mouth shut and left, secured VC backing based on his cred as an exec in a KP/Seq-backed venture and started his own search engine based on his adwords idea, I suspect he'd be the billionaire and "google" would have turned out to be a startup his subesquent company bought and absorbed.
Microsoft, likewise, began not with "business computer functions" but with a Basic interpreter for the Altair.
Yahoo literally grew out of the list of web sites Jerry and Filo compiled for their own use.
I recommend you read Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work, which is specifically about this subject: what actually happened when famous startups were started? It's a common mistake to underestimate the difference between how a startup began and what it later became.
Okay, notice I'm saying "great business", not "startup." There are millions of "startups" working on cool technical challenges, of which almost none will become great businesses.
When all those things you described were happening, almost nobody cared = no business. When they turned to meet needs of a much broader audience then the few technical people who were interested in such a narrow range of issues, they took off as businesses. In my mind, "startup" does not equal a business. Business means lots of people pay you money for selling them your thing. So to a limited extent, for example, Woz had a "business" selling computers through ads to computer enthusiasts in the back fo Scientific American or whatever. But that was nowhere near as successful a business as when Jobs visited PARC and realized the research they were doing on GUIs based on the human mind could be significant for a lot of people.
The Yahoo folks may have started with a list specific to their interests, and students may have found it cool, but that was not a business. It became a business when they broadened to general idea of an organized list to the needs of a larger audience.
I've come across quite a few programmers over the last year who turned me down because they said they were busy working on their own startups, all of which were based on solving a problem only they seemed to care about. They incorporated, had a "company", etc.
But that doesn't equal business. Business means people pay you money. For that to happen you have to broaden your considerations to what those people want, not what you care to/can build. I won't, nor will anybody pay any of your startups a penny because somebody wrote really cool code that everyone on Hacker News agrees is awesome. But I'll pay you money if your code solves my needs. You don't care to solve my needs? Fine. You may have a technically awesome thing. I won't pay you for it, though. And neither will anyone else.
That's my point exactly. They focused on what people wanted more than a challenging technical problem. That makes them the exception to most programmers I've come across who are fascinated with technical challenges so obscure the resolution of which nobody cares about. In academia, that's respectable and commendable. In business ... nobody cares.
"But most programmers, if they're anything like the ones I've come across, would consider that "below them" and instead favor a startup working on some obscure problem that 6 people on the planet could understand and appreciate."
Do you realize you're arguing with yourself?
The 6 people argument was presented by you, and you're challenging other people based on that.
Not sure what you mean. I'm not posting this as an "argument with myself" as you put it. The poster above said that Yahoo wasn't an interesting technical challenge, just a useful approach to a common problem. Then I just acknowledged that. The "argument" is either based on a misunderstading of the 2 posts or a projection of your own self-debating thinking process.
On another note, I just looked at your profile and read some of your articles. Why take issues with "my understanding of Google" when it turns out I'm making a similar point to what you wrote about in terms of being humble enough to put pride aside and find out what people actually want/need/will pay for rather assuming for them only to find out that nobody cares about the brilliant programming of an idea nobody but the programmer appreciates?
Isn't that what you yourself said in one of your posts on your blog, or am I misunderstanding your position?
You're right that startups should be focused on building things that people will want instead of just trying to use cool technology, but you're mistaken in believing that Google wasn't doing that. Google had a strong following of enthusiastic users from very early on. "Make something people want" also happens to be the YC slogan, though I think it should be "Make something people will want", since people don't always know what they want.
Okay, let's leave Google out of this for a moment. My emphasis was that the transition from "startup" to "business" seems to happen when you connect with paying customers.
I even posted a post to this effect where I basically summed up the most interesting part (for me) of a marketing book:
In order to have a clear value proposition to get people to give you their money, you need to answer (according to the book) these questions in succession of difficulty:
Who you are / what you do / for who / because they need what thing that they can't do without you / unlike your competitors / your different in what way / which is a very important distinction (how?) and makes people care (why?).
I'd say most startups start with "who they are" and stop. Some make it to "what they do" although not expressed clearly. The part about "for who" and "why they care" never seems to be spelled out, just implied or something.
The first response is by some guy who took this as both a personal attack and an attack on the whole Y Combinator community!
Then PG comes on and says, "well such and such venture capitalist says he funds business that solve a problem the founders had."
I try to point out that that only holds true as long as that problem is one a huge market of people are also having and are willing to pay for the resolution of.
Then, in a rather futile and pointless exercise, he goes on to systematically knock about 30 points off my all-time high of 80, perhaps under the delusion that I secretly covet a high point tally so I can impress him or something.
It's like, the very mere suggestion that people need to tie their technical ability to practical solution solving for paying customers, especially in this economic climate, seems to meet with rage and fury from programmers who seem to take basic economic reality like a personal insult or something.
> "Make something people will want", since people don't
> always know what they want.
That would need perspective and ability to anticipate possible patterns of future development, ability to assign probabilities to multiple scenarios, etc.
All "right brain stuff". Most programmers I've come across, especially here, couldn't seem to care less as long as they post their startup and score points from peers.
Most programmers I've come across, especially here, couldn't seem to care less as long as they post their startup and score points from peers.
Perhaps you could stop being so nice to us. Just kidding. Believe me, most of the programmers here understand this completely. We also understand that things like quantitative market analysis, business plans, etc are for the most part useless because no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. In this regard, I think we are more right-brained, or at the least more honest, in terms of what we think users want. We put out a rough approximation of what we think they want and let them guide us. What could be more empathetic than that?
From my understanding, Y has so far been involved in about 80 startups or so.
Name 1 that provides a benefit people care enough to pay for.
... ... ... ...
But if what you said is true, ie, that programmers are "more honest in terms of what we think users want", shouldn't you be able to point to a lot of things?
If it's true that "We put out a rough approximation of what we think they want and let them guide us", how come nobody seems to be guiding anybody towards an offering people are willing to pay for?
Or do you guys just think you're "more honest" and "empathetic" when in reality you may be very, very far from the reality of what people actually want enough to pay for?
I could see adpinion and clickfacts possibly going somewhere to an extent ... though only because I don't know enough about advertising to figure out if they won't be able to get lots of customers
I can't help but notice, though, that clickfact's management team seems to be around PG's age so I wouldn't call it a pure Y Combinator thing based on the premise of Y Combinator as I understand it.
My understanding of Google may not be accurate, but my understanding of why people hand their money over to Google is probably as accurate as it is possible to be.
Misunderstandings of any details you have in mind aside, in general Google too fits into the general idea: before Google started thinking about how to channel its technology to meet the needs of people with money, it was an interesting startup, but not a great business. The second it took the needs of customers with money into account, then those people handed over their money and that made Google a great business.
My point is that in my mind there is a simple distinction that most startups seem to either accidentally or purposely ignore: startup = bunch of guys working on a cool technical thing / business = bunch of guys working on a thing that makes life better for paying customers.
Having not seen Benny Hill since childhood, I assumed that the reason people were starting startups were to transition to businesses which made life better for paying customers.
Apparently I was wrong. People here, for the most part, as well as just about every programmer I've run into over the last year or so trying to start my own thing, seem to be more interested in starting a startup so they could post "Hey guys, check out my cool thing" type of posts.
I don't know where I'm going wrong here, but unless somebody finds a way to transform positive feedback from Hacker News into cold hard cash, that's not a business. At least not IMHO.
But judging by the feedback I get on other posts, not too many people seem to care about starting a business, just starting "startups" where "startup" = somebody pays me money to sit around writing code and drinking Mountain Dew.
I can't see how that's different from a job where you happen to be working on a cool project.
I've met a lot of developers that would think that something wasn't worth doing because it was easy to do. But hard doesn't mean that more people will want it. Look at all the dating sites out there: Simple to do, but absolutely something people want.
Sometimes speaking with some of the programmers I have I suspect they think they're doing a startup, but in reality they're doing an extension of their academic programme and just secretly hoping that somehow they'll wind up making money off it.
I just can't understand why programmers are so reluctant to work on challenges with people from different perspectives.
My background is in economics. I can't stand lawyers and I can't stand psychiatrists and I don't care enough about neurologists and neuro-scientists to figure out what the difference is.
And yet over the last 10 years, the mixing of people of these seemingly unrelated backgrounds has given the world 2 of the most useful applications of economics: Law & Economics and Neuro-Economics. Fascinating and practical. Who knew?
Why can't all fields be like that, faster?
That's why ultimately I can't respect the programming ethos, as I've seen it, too much. Any true professional ... or academic "seeker of knowledge" ... should, IMHO seek continous improvement - bot vertical in terms of skill in their own field AND horizontal in terms of different perspectives.
Why does everyone respect Da Vinci so much, but nobody seems to want to emulate his methods?
Actually I taught myself how to program to a limited extent as an undergrad when I needed help from a professor to complete an independent study course and he agreed to help me if I learned enough MatLab and Mathematica to manipulate data as he suggested.
Our computer lab had nothing other than this mammoth book of "examples of code of stuff some people have figured out to do" ... but with no actual explanation of what code did what - just result, and accompanying code.
I learned enough to get what I wanted done.
From that experience I learned that:
(1) I barely have the temperment to review my own code, let alone rework other people's work, so as a career choice it was not for me to be a programmer and
(2) coupled with my economic background I learned that, intellectual stimulation aside, as a practical matter there was no way I could ever teach myself everything I needed to know in a timely manner to do everything myself, so it would be more useful if I could learn to put my ego aside and seek different people with different skills sets and work together to solve problems.
So, from an intellectual point, yes. From a practical point, that would be a waste of time.
Case in point: there are tons of ideas that can become good, useful, practical valuable services based on standard, already existing technology reconfigured in different ways. But most programmers, if they're anything like the ones I've come across, would consider that "below them" and instead favor a startup working on some obscure problem that 6 people on the planet could understand and appreciate.
Google aside, that rarely translates into "great business".