5 ms·

Predict Whether a Startup Will Succeed or Fail

38 points by sanj 16y ago

jiaaro 16y ago
sounds like an argument for release early, release often be crappier and cheaper and as you gain marketshare, improve
sanj 16y ago
I'm troubled by this line: * ARM processors are cheaper and worse [than Intel chips] * Beyond the fact that they have a very different profile and are optimized for mobile, I don't think of ARM chips as "worse" in any sense. Their instruction set is beautiful where Intel's is... not.
- 10ren 16y ago
  That sentence continues but they’re getting faster with Moore’s Law. They're worse in terms of speed. They are described as a threat to Intel in terms of Intel's market, the desktop, ie. they may invade the desktop from beneath, which would be a classic disruption.
  - jacquesm 16y ago
    Typical apples & oranges comparison. Arm chips have been optimized for an entirely different use case, the parameters are probably more closely related to stand-by power when idle and mips/watt. To simply use the 'speed' metric when comparing a < 1W CPU with a > 30W cpu is dumb. Arm chips will not enter the desktop market any time soon, the ARM architecture is for the moment solidly stuck in 32 bit address space and then there will be the problem of convincing a company the size of microsoft to bet on a different architecture. This will happen in due course, but not in the next 3 to 5 years.
shalmanese 16y ago
85% on a yes/no decision sounds more impressive than it actually is. The majority of startups fail so the baseline is somewhere above 50%. What would be more interesting is if it could calculate expected value at better than chance.
- acgourley 16y ago
  Right, simply predicting 'no' in every case could be right 80% of the time if you believe someone people's number on startup success. On that note, I wish we had a better data set of attempted startups and general agreement on when a startup 'starts.'
briancooley 16y ago
I would be interested to see exactly what is meant by "worse." One of the common lean startup themes seems to be that a simpler product can be an advantage over incumbents who have succumbed to feature bloat. I surmise that simpler might equate to worse according to the metrics used in the analysis.
- patrickk 16y ago
  I think by "worse" it means sheer performance. Think electric cars being generally underpowered and containing heavy batteries compared to their internal combustion engine counterparts which are powered by millions of years of natural geological processes distilled into a convenient liquid. Naturally, electrics are getting better over time. Ford and GM must have laughed for years at those silly beatniks and their wacko electric vehicles, but now GM is betting it's future on electrics. 37Signals' products deliberately do less than their competitors (less performance? the analogy doesn't really fit here) but are highly successful.
  - 10ren 16y ago
    It can be sheer performance; going by the innovator's dilemma, in general it is whatever attributes are higher-ranked by the market (ie. customers). This makes sense, because that is what incumbents naturally worry about, and what they compete on. So if your startup is worse on those attributes, you don't threaten them, and they leave you alone. So what's the point of your startup, if you're worse for customers? You're better for other people, who aren't customers of the incumbents, and who rank the attributes differently. There's lots of examples. The coup de grâce is when both you and the incumbent improve over time, but the incumbent becomes better than it needs to be for its existing customers on those attributes, and your startup becomes good enough, but you also have those other attributes - then the incumbent's existing customers switch to you, and incumbent dies. It doesn't always go that way, but it does happen, and that's the pattern studied in the innovator's dilemma. Incidentally, electric vehicles were popular at the dawn of the car; even edison was developing batteries for them. They've been overtaking the petrol car for a long time. But they have made inroads in other markets, such as those disability wheelchair carts (I'm not sure exactly why they're a better fit for electric, but they are certainly not a focus of incumbent car manufacturers - and maybe that's the important thing). sorry, I can't help explaining this whenever it comes up, whether it's needed or not. It's such a cool observation.
baguasquirrel 16y ago
Explain Google and Apple then? Google's main selling points were that (1) it was bloody fast, (2) the search results were better than everyone else's back then and (3) there were no banner ads, which helps (1) a lot. Apple's main selling point, in its revival form, was that people are willing to pay more for a product that is a work of art.
alanthonyc 16y ago
The main nugget: But if [this model is] so successful, why haven’t more people—entrepreneurs and investors in particular—adopted disruption theory? Probably because models for predicting how companies will do are a dime a dozen
10ren 16y ago
> better is actually a con because it will invoke a competitive response. Be stealthy, young startup, and non-threatening. SINGLE-PAGE VIEW http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/04/28/how-to-predict-whether-a-startup-will-succeed-or-fail-testing-the-disruptive-innovation-model/?single_page=true http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/04/28/how-to-predict-whe...
ekanes 16y ago
Single-page view: http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/04/28/how-to-predict-whether-a-startup-will-succeed-or-fail-testing-the-disruptive-innovation-model/?single_page=true http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/04/28/how-to-predict-whe...

38 points by sanj 16y ago

sounds like an argument for release early, release often be crappier and cheaper and as you gain marketshare, improve

sanj 16y ago

I'm troubled by this line: * ARM processors are cheaper and worse [than Intel chips] * Beyond the fact that they have a very different profile and are optimized for mobile, I don't think of ARM chips as "worse" in any sense. Their instruction set is beautiful where Intel's is... not.

10ren 16y ago
That sentence continues but they’re getting faster with Moore’s Law. They're worse in terms of speed. They are described as a threat to Intel in terms of Intel's market, the desktop, ie. they may invade the desktop from beneath, which would be a classic disruption.
- jacquesm 16y ago
  Typical apples & oranges comparison. Arm chips have been optimized for an entirely different use case, the parameters are probably more closely related to stand-by power when idle and mips/watt. To simply use the 'speed' metric when comparing a < 1W CPU with a > 30W cpu is dumb. Arm chips will not enter the desktop market any time soon, the ARM architecture is for the moment solidly stuck in 32 bit address space and then there will be the problem of convincing a company the size of microsoft to bet on a different architecture. This will happen in due course, but not in the next 3 to 5 years.

shalmanese 16y ago

85% on a yes/no decision sounds more impressive than it actually is. The majority of startups fail so the baseline is somewhere above 50%. What would be more interesting is if it could calculate expected value at better than chance.

acgourley 16y ago
Right, simply predicting 'no' in every case could be right 80% of the time if you believe someone people's number on startup success. On that note, I wish we had a better data set of attempted startups and general agreement on when a startup 'starts.'

briancooley 16y ago

I would be interested to see exactly what is meant by "worse." One of the common lean startup themes seems to be that a simpler product can be an advantage over incumbents who have succumbed to feature bloat. I surmise that simpler might equate to worse according to the metrics used in the analysis.

patrickk 16y ago
I think by "worse" it means sheer performance. Think electric cars being generally underpowered and containing heavy batteries compared to their internal combustion engine counterparts which are powered by millions of years of natural geological processes distilled into a convenient liquid. Naturally, electrics are getting better over time. Ford and GM must have laughed for years at those silly beatniks and their wacko electric vehicles, but now GM is betting it's future on electrics. 37Signals' products deliberately do less than their competitors (less performance? the analogy doesn't really fit here) but are highly successful.
- 10ren 16y ago
  It can be sheer performance; going by the innovator's dilemma, in general it is whatever attributes are higher-ranked by the market (ie. customers). This makes sense, because that is what incumbents naturally worry about, and what they compete on. So if your startup is worse on those attributes, you don't threaten them, and they leave you alone. So what's the point of your startup, if you're worse for customers? You're better for other people, who aren't customers of the incumbents, and who rank the attributes differently. There's lots of examples. The coup de grâce is when both you and the incumbent improve over time, but the incumbent becomes better than it needs to be for its existing customers on those attributes, and your startup becomes good enough, but you also have those other attributes - then the incumbent's existing customers switch to you, and incumbent dies. It doesn't always go that way, but it does happen, and that's the pattern studied in the innovator's dilemma. Incidentally, electric vehicles were popular at the dawn of the car; even edison was developing batteries for them. They've been overtaking the petrol car for a long time. But they have made inroads in other markets, such as those disability wheelchair carts (I'm not sure exactly why they're a better fit for electric, but they are certainly not a focus of incumbent car manufacturers - and maybe that's the important thing). sorry, I can't help explaining this whenever it comes up, whether it's needed or not. It's such a cool observation.

baguasquirrel 16y ago

Explain Google and Apple then? Google's main selling points were that (1) it was bloody fast, (2) the search results were better than everyone else's back then and (3) there were no banner ads, which helps (1) a lot. Apple's main selling point, in its revival form, was that people are willing to pay more for a product that is a work of art.

alanthonyc 16y ago

The main nugget: But if [this model is] so successful, why haven’t more people—entrepreneurs and investors in particular—adopted disruption theory? Probably because models for predicting how companies will do are a dime a dozen

10ren 16y ago

> better is actually a con because it will invoke a competitive response. Be stealthy, young startup, and non-threatening. SINGLE-PAGE VIEW http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/04/28/how-to-predict-whether-a-startup-will-succeed-or-fail-testing-the-disruptive-innovation-model/?single_page=true http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/04/28/how-to-predict-whe...

ekanes 16y ago

Single-page view: http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/04/28/how-to-predict-whether-a-startup-will-succeed-or-fail-testing-the-disruptive-innovation-model/?single_page=true http://www.xconomy.com/seattle/2010/04/28/how-to-predict-whe...