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>I don't really understand why they need to grow quickly. You only need to grow quickly if you take millions of dollars and need to distribute a profit to your

>I don't really understand why they need to grow quickly. You only need to grow quickly if you take millions of dollars and need to distribute a profit to your investors before too long. You need to grow quickly because the world is a big place and technology concepts unfold more or less sequentially, with each iteration building on the past. As a result, the world is full of people who are going to have similar ideas to you and similar opportunities to take advantage of them, around the time you do, and whoever gets established first will get to take most, if not almost all, of the pie.

edgyswingset 11y ago
I don't think it's really about that, especially because getting most of the pie doesn't really matter if your business collapses a year later, or users move on because they got bored with the product or service. I think it's really just the nature of so many startups acting in the consumer space, where you need to have tons of users otherwise your business has no purpose.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  If you customers 'get bored' with your product or service, it won't matter whether you go fast or slow: you aren't chasing a real opportunity.
Aqueous 11y ago
I guess I get that but the marketplace is also a big place and often times there is room for more than one player. Apple and Samsung, Gillette and Schick, Pepsi and Coke. You don't need to totally wipe out competition in order to be a successful company. Furthermore, when there are totalizing effects, it's because the technology benefitted from massive built-in network effects (i.e. Facebook, Uber.) Many (possibly even most) start-ups don't rely on those.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  > Apple and Samsung, Gillette and Schick, Pepsi and Coke. None of which got started during the current technology cycle. >Many (possibly even most) start-ups don't rely on those. I disagree. In fact, IMHO, the overwhelming majority of startups benefit from organic methods of growth that come from word-of-mouth and reputation. Any startup with more than one customer, pretty much. Owning the market means owning that, in your respective field of business.
  - Aqueous 11y ago
    > None of which got started during the current technology cycle. Then I need to understand why the current technology cycle is fundamentally, essentially different from previous ones. A business needed to bring in more money than it spent 30 years ago just the same as it does today. > I disagree. In fact, IMHO, the overwhelming majority of startups benefit from organic methods of growth that come from word-of-mouth and reputation. Any startup with more than one customer, pretty much. Owning the market means owning that, in your respective field of business. Start-ups rely on networking but by network effects I'm referring to a very specific phenemenon whereby the value of the product itself increases with each user / car driver / payee / node, etc. This in turn leads to this kind of run-away virality that the Facebooks and Twitters and Ubers of the world experienced. Plenty of start-ups achieve virality in other ways, merely by selling the product over and over to people, and having people sell it to each other through as you point out word-of-mouth. But in the case of network effects that process is compounded exponentially, making it very difficult to scale (without capital) because often times revenue lags behind user growth.
    - WalterSear 11y ago
      > Then I need to understand why the current technology cycle is fundamentally, essentially different from previous ones. A business needed to bring in more money than it spent 30 years ago just the same as it does today. The barriers to entry and growth are radically different. As a result, there is more competition and faster growth at all company scales. So businesses have to scale their velocity accordingly. >Start-ups rely on networking but by network effects I'm referring to a very specific phenemenon Which is moot: the competitive effects of brand awareness and economies of scale don't disappear because one chooses not to consider them.
- WalterSear 11y ago
  > Apple and Samsung, Gillette and Schick, Pepsi and Coke. None of which got started during the current technology cycle. >Many (possibly even most) start-ups don't rely on those. I disagree. In fact, IMHO, the overwhelming majority of startups benefit from organic methods of growth that come from word-of-mouth and reputation. Any startup with more than one customer, pretty much. Owning the market means owning that, in your respective field of business.
baq 11y ago
except the world and san francisco/bay area are about the same thing around here. if you're coming from a normal place, your first ride through SF will be an eye opener: instead of ads for shoes, tvs and toothpaste you've got iphones, tech conferences and cloud services. hiking around national parks in the area you can listen in to people chatting about service stacks and investors instead of movies and books. it's a world within a world.

edgyswingset 11y ago

I don't think it's really about that, especially because getting most of the pie doesn't really matter if your business collapses a year later, or users move on because they got bored with the product or service. I think it's really just the nature of so many startups acting in the consumer space, where you need to have tons of users otherwise your business has no purpose.

WalterSear 11y ago
If you customers 'get bored' with your product or service, it won't matter whether you go fast or slow: you aren't chasing a real opportunity.

Aqueous 11y ago

I guess I get that but the marketplace is also a big place and often times there is room for more than one player. Apple and Samsung, Gillette and Schick, Pepsi and Coke. You don't need to totally wipe out competition in order to be a successful company. Furthermore, when there are totalizing effects, it's because the technology benefitted from massive built-in network effects (i.e. Facebook, Uber.) Many (possibly even most) start-ups don't rely on those.

WalterSear 11y ago
> Apple and Samsung, Gillette and Schick, Pepsi and Coke. None of which got started during the current technology cycle. >Many (possibly even most) start-ups don't rely on those. I disagree. In fact, IMHO, the overwhelming majority of startups benefit from organic methods of growth that come from word-of-mouth and reputation. Any startup with more than one customer, pretty much. Owning the market means owning that, in your respective field of business.
- Aqueous 11y ago
  > None of which got started during the current technology cycle. Then I need to understand why the current technology cycle is fundamentally, essentially different from previous ones. A business needed to bring in more money than it spent 30 years ago just the same as it does today. > I disagree. In fact, IMHO, the overwhelming majority of startups benefit from organic methods of growth that come from word-of-mouth and reputation. Any startup with more than one customer, pretty much. Owning the market means owning that, in your respective field of business. Start-ups rely on networking but by network effects I'm referring to a very specific phenemenon whereby the value of the product itself increases with each user / car driver / payee / node, etc. This in turn leads to this kind of run-away virality that the Facebooks and Twitters and Ubers of the world experienced. Plenty of start-ups achieve virality in other ways, merely by selling the product over and over to people, and having people sell it to each other through as you point out word-of-mouth. But in the case of network effects that process is compounded exponentially, making it very difficult to scale (without capital) because often times revenue lags behind user growth.
  - WalterSear 11y ago
    > Then I need to understand why the current technology cycle is fundamentally, essentially different from previous ones. A business needed to bring in more money than it spent 30 years ago just the same as it does today. The barriers to entry and growth are radically different. As a result, there is more competition and faster growth at all company scales. So businesses have to scale their velocity accordingly. >Start-ups rely on networking but by network effects I'm referring to a very specific phenemenon Which is moot: the competitive effects of brand awareness and economies of scale don't disappear because one chooses not to consider them.
WalterSear 11y ago
> Apple and Samsung, Gillette and Schick, Pepsi and Coke. None of which got started during the current technology cycle. >Many (possibly even most) start-ups don't rely on those. I disagree. In fact, IMHO, the overwhelming majority of startups benefit from organic methods of growth that come from word-of-mouth and reputation. Any startup with more than one customer, pretty much. Owning the market means owning that, in your respective field of business.

baq 11y ago

except the world and san francisco/bay area are about the same thing around here. if you're coming from a normal place, your first ride through SF will be an eye opener: instead of ads for shoes, tvs and toothpaste you've got iphones, tech conferences and cloud services. hiking around national parks in the area you can listen in to people chatting about service stacks and investors instead of movies and books. it's a world within a world.