5 ms·

On the other hand, most of the best ideas seem like ludicrous ideas at first, so discarding an idea just because it seems ludicrous when glanced at may not be t

by swombat 11y ago

On the other hand, most of the best ideas seem like ludicrous ideas at first, so discarding an idea just because it seems ludicrous when glanced at may not be the smartest thing to do. Getting into the habit of validating ideas is a good thing, but there's also something to be said for sticking with an idea that has a few serious issues and pivoting it until it actually makes sense (e.g. AirBNB).

kristopolous 11y ago
If the idea of "A capitalist version of couchsurfing.com" was pitched to me, I'd think internally "a silly idea I don't want to be involved in. What absurd ideas these buffoons come up with. I hate the valley." The most financially successful ideas to me, quite literally sound like they were produced in a 5-minute writing assignment given to a 3rd grader. I remember talking with the snapchat people a couple years ago when it was just starting up. I thought "another clowncar with some half-baked idea that I could have generated with a perl script". The founders are billionaires now. Having dumb ideas seem to be more communicable and easier to comprehend. Status updates but only 140 characters! Video uploads but only 6 seconds! mms and sms chat, but not archived! Please - these are the hottest ideas? Really? Let's make an email service that limits you to sending 1 email a day or a voicemail service that limits you to 10 second recordings. A shower nozzle that turns off after 5 gallons. A restaurant that kicks you out after 800 calories. Is this where we are now?
- Animats 11y ago
  I was amazed that Facebook succeeded. I thought Myspace had the college student market covered.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    I was not, but only in retrospect. Facebook succeed by keeping the ghetto out. It really was clever to only let in people from high status universities.
    - kristopolous 11y ago
      I strongly believe that facebook succeeded because myspace got bought. Unless the purchasers are really diligent and know the space, being bought seems to be a great way to kill a company.
      - danieltillett 11y ago
        Myspace had a pretty bad reputation long before facebook succeeded. As reddit has discovered maintaining a good community while being open to all is hard. The true name policy was also very influential is stopping facebook sliding down the ghetto path once they opened up to the general public.
        kristopolous 11y ago
        really? I think it's the walled garden that has more to do with it then the true name ... I'm familiar with all the (speculative untested) claims that true name is the secret sauce, but since those arguments come with nothing more than a spiffy domain and a nice stylesheet - I can't really go with it. metafilter, yelp, hacker news, ebay, instagram, twitter, wikipedia, flickr, stackoverflow, github - none of these have true name policies and they work fine. Google insisted that the decorum of youtube comments would skyrocket after instituting it - but of course they're the same as they ever were.
        danieltillett 11y ago
        I find it kind of interesting that the two of us are discussing the value of true names when we both are using our true names voluntarily. You can have a successful site without true names, but it takes much more effort once you open the door to the masses. Almost all the examples you provide have major issues with trolls and spammers - the one exception is HN, but I think this is more to do with the strong community ethos here and it's limited appeal.
        arfar 11y ago
        I guess the counter example to that might be 4chan. It's difficult _to_ be recognized on 4chan, if at all. Obviously it has its "ghetto" parts (weird term, I don't fully get it) but it still manages to be a successful (and I would argue quite influential) site 10 years on. Would you say the true name policy has assisted in them getting bigger too? Or just stopped them from getting "ghetto"?
- billforsternz 11y ago
  > A restaurant that kicks you out after 800 calories. That strikes me as being a rather brilliant idea actually. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone made a ton of money from that one.
  - kristopolous 11y ago
    http://www.skynnykitchen.com/ http://www.skynnykitchen.com/ is the execution I know of in this space. There's actually a lot of movement in the gimmicky restaurant space (there's successful franchises that are ONLY cupcakes, ONLY grilled cheese or ONLY milkshakes - it's totally absurd). LA's restaurant culture could have been written by Dr Seuss.
    - collyw 11y ago
      I am curious how the hipster cereal bar in London is doing after the novelty has worn off.
- erikpukinskis 11y ago
  > A restaurant that kicks you out after 800 calories. Is this where we are now? Yup! And a restaurant that kicks you out after 400 calories, and one that kicks you out after 1200 too. And one the gives you a bigger and bigger discount for every calorie you eat. And one that does the opposite. Our purpose as programmers is to build every piece of software anyone will ever want. Just because very few people might want any specific variation doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. If someone is willing to write the code, why not? There's no reason why we have to all huddle a tiny handful of mass-market applications.
- volaski 11y ago
  What you mentioned are all bad ideas only because they have no soul (You're just saying them for the sake of making your point) If someone could tell me with conviction why sending 1 email a day is meaningful for certain reasons and why the rest of the world doesn't realize it yet, then it's a different story. Most people who complain about "I had that idea too" are not lying, they probably did have those ideas, but were not insightful enough or didn't pay enough attention to see the real value in it. (Or maybe just lazy or lack of confidence) The idea came to them, but they didn't deserve the idea so it slipped away.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  Actually a service that lets you send only 1 message a day would be very good - it would certainly cut down on the pointless work emails. An email client or server without cc and bcc would also be great. If you want me to know something write to me directly, don’t cc me along with 200 other people.
danieltillett 11y ago
Can we really stop with the meme that AirBNB was a good idea that sounded like a bad idea. The original idea of AirBNB (having strangers sleep on your couch while you are in your home) was and is a terrible idea. What made AirBNB a success was not providing a way of letting people camp out in your living room, it was paying for professional photography and enabling/encouraging people to run illegal hotels. Both of these are good ideas, but they had nothing to do with the original concept behind AirBNB.
- swombat 11y ago
  I don't think it's fair to say it had nothing to do with the original concept. It's just a couple of steps removed: Idea 1: Allow strangers to sleep in your house on an air mattress. Idea 1b: Allow strangers to sleep in your house. Idea 1c: Allow strangers to sleep in your house and take great photos to promote it well. Two steps from a dumb idea to a multi-billion-dollar idea.
  - danieltillett 11y ago
    I don’t disagree that AirBNB in its current form is a fantastic idea, just that the original idea was dumb. It is great that they were able to pivot out of their original dumb idea (and all credit to them for doing this), but this doesn’t change that the original idea was bad. What I am objecting to is the idea that it was a good idea that just sounded bad. It was simply a bad idea that also sounded bad. If their original idea was we will develop a platform that will allow people to run an illegal hotel with their competitive edge being to send around professional photographers to make the properties look better than all their competitors then I would have said this is a great idea that sounded like a great idea. Edit. I am surprised that someone has not tried the same approach with private car sales (maybe they have). Good photographers are cheap these days so it would be possible to create a car sales site that offered free professional photography of the cars.

by swombat 11y ago

kristopolous 11y ago

If the idea of "A capitalist version of couchsurfing.com" was pitched to me, I'd think internally "a silly idea I don't want to be involved in. What absurd ideas these buffoons come up with. I hate the valley." The most financially successful ideas to me, quite literally sound like they were produced in a 5-minute writing assignment given to a 3rd grader. I remember talking with the snapchat people a couple years ago when it was just starting up. I thought "another clowncar with some half-baked idea that I could have generated with a perl script". The founders are billionaires now. Having dumb ideas seem to be more communicable and easier to comprehend. Status updates but only 140 characters! Video uploads but only 6 seconds! mms and sms chat, but not archived! Please - these are the hottest ideas? Really? Let's make an email service that limits you to sending 1 email a day or a voicemail service that limits you to 10 second recordings. A shower nozzle that turns off after 5 gallons. A restaurant that kicks you out after 800 calories. Is this where we are now?

Animats 11y ago
I was amazed that Facebook succeeded. I thought Myspace had the college student market covered.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I was not, but only in retrospect. Facebook succeed by keeping the ghetto out. It really was clever to only let in people from high status universities.
  - kristopolous 11y ago
    I strongly believe that facebook succeeded because myspace got bought. Unless the purchasers are really diligent and know the space, being bought seems to be a great way to kill a company.
    - danieltillett 11y ago
      Myspace had a pretty bad reputation long before facebook succeeded. As reddit has discovered maintaining a good community while being open to all is hard. The true name policy was also very influential is stopping facebook sliding down the ghetto path once they opened up to the general public.
      - kristopolous 11y ago
        really? I think it's the walled garden that has more to do with it then the true name ... I'm familiar with all the (speculative untested) claims that true name is the secret sauce, but since those arguments come with nothing more than a spiffy domain and a nice stylesheet - I can't really go with it. metafilter, yelp, hacker news, ebay, instagram, twitter, wikipedia, flickr, stackoverflow, github - none of these have true name policies and they work fine. Google insisted that the decorum of youtube comments would skyrocket after instituting it - but of course they're the same as they ever were.
        danieltillett 11y ago
        I find it kind of interesting that the two of us are discussing the value of true names when we both are using our true names voluntarily. You can have a successful site without true names, but it takes much more effort once you open the door to the masses. Almost all the examples you provide have major issues with trolls and spammers - the one exception is HN, but I think this is more to do with the strong community ethos here and it's limited appeal.
      - arfar 11y ago
        I guess the counter example to that might be 4chan. It's difficult _to_ be recognized on 4chan, if at all. Obviously it has its "ghetto" parts (weird term, I don't fully get it) but it still manages to be a successful (and I would argue quite influential) site 10 years on. Would you say the true name policy has assisted in them getting bigger too? Or just stopped them from getting "ghetto"?
billforsternz 11y ago
> A restaurant that kicks you out after 800 calories. That strikes me as being a rather brilliant idea actually. I wouldn't be at all surprised if someone made a ton of money from that one.
- kristopolous 11y ago
  http://www.skynnykitchen.com/ http://www.skynnykitchen.com/ is the execution I know of in this space. There's actually a lot of movement in the gimmicky restaurant space (there's successful franchises that are ONLY cupcakes, ONLY grilled cheese or ONLY milkshakes - it's totally absurd). LA's restaurant culture could have been written by Dr Seuss.
  - collyw 11y ago
    I am curious how the hipster cereal bar in London is doing after the novelty has worn off.
erikpukinskis 11y ago
> A restaurant that kicks you out after 800 calories. Is this where we are now? Yup! And a restaurant that kicks you out after 400 calories, and one that kicks you out after 1200 too. And one the gives you a bigger and bigger discount for every calorie you eat. And one that does the opposite. Our purpose as programmers is to build every piece of software anyone will ever want. Just because very few people might want any specific variation doesn't mean it shouldn't exist. If someone is willing to write the code, why not? There's no reason why we have to all huddle a tiny handful of mass-market applications.
volaski 11y ago
What you mentioned are all bad ideas only because they have no soul (You're just saying them for the sake of making your point) If someone could tell me with conviction why sending 1 email a day is meaningful for certain reasons and why the rest of the world doesn't realize it yet, then it's a different story. Most people who complain about "I had that idea too" are not lying, they probably did have those ideas, but were not insightful enough or didn't pay enough attention to see the real value in it. (Or maybe just lazy or lack of confidence) The idea came to them, but they didn't deserve the idea so it slipped away.
danieltillett 11y ago
Actually a service that lets you send only 1 message a day would be very good - it would certainly cut down on the pointless work emails. An email client or server without cc and bcc would also be great. If you want me to know something write to me directly, don’t cc me along with 200 other people.

danieltillett 11y ago

Can we really stop with the meme that AirBNB was a good idea that sounded like a bad idea. The original idea of AirBNB (having strangers sleep on your couch while you are in your home) was and is a terrible idea. What made AirBNB a success was not providing a way of letting people camp out in your living room, it was paying for professional photography and enabling/encouraging people to run illegal hotels. Both of these are good ideas, but they had nothing to do with the original concept behind AirBNB.

swombat 11y ago
I don't think it's fair to say it had nothing to do with the original concept. It's just a couple of steps removed: Idea 1: Allow strangers to sleep in your house on an air mattress. Idea 1b: Allow strangers to sleep in your house. Idea 1c: Allow strangers to sleep in your house and take great photos to promote it well. Two steps from a dumb idea to a multi-billion-dollar idea.
- danieltillett 11y ago
  I don’t disagree that AirBNB in its current form is a fantastic idea, just that the original idea was dumb. It is great that they were able to pivot out of their original dumb idea (and all credit to them for doing this), but this doesn’t change that the original idea was bad. What I am objecting to is the idea that it was a good idea that just sounded bad. It was simply a bad idea that also sounded bad. If their original idea was we will develop a platform that will allow people to run an illegal hotel with their competitive edge being to send around professional photographers to make the properties look better than all their competitors then I would have said this is a great idea that sounded like a great idea. Edit. I am surprised that someone has not tried the same approach with private car sales (maybe they have). Good photographers are cheap these days so it would be possible to create a car sales site that offered free professional photography of the cars.