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Ask HN: What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts
Alright, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand the "I made ____ in ___ hours/days" posts. I am completely behind the "Look at this site I made", but the "in X hours" part confuses me.
1) Persistance is one of the most important traits for an entrepreneur. We're in an ADD society, and things do not happen overnight. It's easy to throw together a website, but it's more difficult to stick with it, refine it, get people using it, and most importantly, get them paying for it. These posts often strike me as demonstrating ADD, moreso than anything else.
2) It feels like misplaced gloating. I think it's great that you're smart, entrepreneurial, and able to create prototypes quickly. But it's really not worth gloating about how fast you can put up a prototype, most people on this message board could do the same if they weren't working on their real ventures. If you absolutely insist on gloating, it would be better to do so about how many millions of users you have, how many millions of dollars you made, or how many days you were able spent on a beach last year. If your weekend project can achieve high marks in any of those categories, then I'd definitely want to hear about it.
3) Is it an attempt to demonstrate intelligence/ability? In today's programming landscape, there are so many automated libraries and frameworks that it's pretty easy to put almost anything together (want to put up a site that links satellite images, recent macroeconomic trends, and real time XYZ events, no problem). Combining some subset of available frameworks and libraries doesn't demonstrate intelligence or ability, even if you can do it in a weekend.
4) If it is really that brilliant of an idea, don't rush it. Go in stealth most for at least an additional weekend, and thoroughly plot out how you'll turn this into a feasible product.
5) Is it an attempt to demonstrate how entrepreneurial you are? A better way to do that would be to pick one random idea, have the confidence that it's so good that you are willing to commit yourself to it 100%, pursue it regardless of what other people are telling you, and make it work.
6) Is it an attempt to get into YC? If this works, then maybe I'd understand it more. There seems to have been more of these over the past few weeks, so maybe that's what's going on. Although, it seems to me to make you appear more ADD than entrepreneurial.
I'm completely behind your entrepreneurial aspirations, but I'd rather you really commit yourself to something, work out the kinks, get users using it, then post "Look at my startup". Then I can have faith that you've really thought it through, and it's more worth HN's time to really understand what it is you're trying to do so that we can make some valuable recommendations or questions.
- Zev 17y agoTo me, its showing off how well you know a specific tool (or how quickly you could learn it), rather then a specific market. Nothing wrong with a bit of ego or wanting to show off something that you made.
- epochwolf 17y agoI don't understand this either. I'm currently doing "I made ___ in ___ months/years." This is because 1. This idea has been done before and usually done poorly. (No, I'm not letting on with what I'm doing.) 2. It's a side project. I have a reading list I want to make a dent in and I have school to finish. 3. My audience isn't going anywhere. I have strong incentive to launch with an excellent website because there are plenty of other people in other communities. 4. It's not going to make money until it's large if it ever gets there. I'm in no hurry to support a monster community by myself.
- lotharbot 17y agoA) Inspirational value. If somebody else on HN can make a useful tool to solve their problem in 3 hours, I might be inspired to take a crack at solving a problem I've been putting off dealing with. B) Technical interest. HN isn't just about getting in to YC or proving you're a great entrepreneur; much of what we discuss is simply "interesting". Being assembled quickly is one attribute that can make something interesting. C) It helps us remember that not every problem is of the same scale, and not every solution has to be a multi-year startup-spawning VC-requiring system.
- jeromec 17y agoI don't think it's about gloating at all. I think it's more about showing something but with a warning of how much went into it so those that judge can have some context. I also think there certainly is a bit of pride involved, but it's completely understandable. This is a site by and for hackers for the most part. If it were a site about bicycling enthusiasts then a post about a new bike purchase might be accompanied with how many seconds were shaved off some normal riding route, because others might relate and appreciate it.
- blackswan 17y agoI think one of the causes for the endless stream of "I built a reddit/twitter/[x] clone in [y] hours" stories that pop up regularly is that many people often incorrectly attribute the success of businesses to that which is immediately apparent. They see reddit list stories in a certain way and assume that this is the reason it is so popular. 95% of discussion I have with non-entrepreneurs about my startup relates to things that they can see or grasp intuitively - for instance our design choices. Few understand that the code I write is just one of a myriad factors that will determine eventual success.