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What a myopic question. There's 30 companies registered to do the annual backflow inspections that the city requires on my property. When I get the list, I don'

What a myopic question. There's 30 companies registered to do the annual backflow inspections that the city requires on my property. When I get the list, I don't think to myself "Man, there's at least 30 companies making buck inspecting people's pipes. I better start a backflow inspection company! How can I disrupt these people who've managed to scrape together some profit?" Yes, yes - Slack gets all the news and chicks and is probably bigger. But it's the entire mindset. You wouldn't start an HVAC repair company after hearing that an HVAC repair company is doing well, even if they're the biggest one in the region and even if they're making millions; similarly, you shouldn't start a chat app just because you hear Fortune magazine writing about a chat app. There's another part to this too: With the word 'disrupt' I'm hearing "Slack is doing well; I'm jealous of Slack; how can I hurt Slack?" I used to have a neighbor that would get jealous of people and key their car if it was nicer than his. Nobody liked him and eventually they arrested him for unrelated reasons. Don't phrase your business plan as being the equivalent of keying Slack's car.

bossx 11y ago
First of all, I never said I wanted to disrupt Slack, I simply posed the question to the community to start an intelligent debate about how they might be displaced in the future. If you lack the foresight to look that far head, that's okay, you can say you don't know how they can be disrupted. There have been multi-million (and billion) dollar businesses started by disrupting major players in their space, by solving the problem they are trying to solve, with much better technology and approaching the problem from new angles. If you think tech companies aren't started with the intent of disrupting other companies, you are living in a bubble. http://www.claytonchristensen.com/books/the-innovators-dilemma/ http://www.claytonchristensen.com/books/the-innovators-dilem...

bossx 11y ago

First of all, I never said I wanted to disrupt Slack, I simply posed the question to the community to start an intelligent debate about how they might be displaced in the future. If you lack the foresight to look that far head, that's okay, you can say you don't know how they can be disrupted. There have been multi-million (and billion) dollar businesses started by disrupting major players in their space, by solving the problem they are trying to solve, with much better technology and approaching the problem from new angles. If you think tech companies aren't started with the intent of disrupting other companies, you are living in a bubble. http://www.claytonchristensen.com/books/the-innovators-dilemma/ http://www.claytonchristensen.com/books/the-innovators-dilem...