4 ms·
Was Facebook a derivative idea when it started?
In his first lecture with the startup school @sama said that "the most successful startups are not derivatives, they are not a copy of something else that was working pretty well". Then gave an example of FB and its clones.
That got me thinking of the time when FB started. Wouldn't you say that market very saturated for social apps then?
I am not sure if I misinterpreted what he said but it looked like he was advocating for first-mover advantage as opposed to second-mover advantage.
What do you think?
- vgy7ujm 10y agoFB was definitively both a clone and stolen idea. Being first is not enough to succeed. Timing, marketing, sheer luck etc. is just as important.
- bediger4000 10y agoEverything has been thought of before, but the problem is to think of it again. http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/42217.html http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/42217.html Th USA has a false narrative around originality, good ideas, and success in the market. The entire notion of "Intellectual Property" is almost certainly false, and at the very least is hindering all of us.
- brudgers 10y agoFacebook was a social networking website for Harvard undergraduates. It predates the iPhone and what we mean by apps today. It predates the existence of an 'industry best practice' of targeting software at young adults -- a strategy the current incarnation of Facebook has long since pivoted away from as generation Y has entered the market for SUV's with third row seating. Now its for grandparents to see photos of their grandchildren -- also not derivative except from email. What Facebook (and Youtube) leveraged is rapidly increasing network capacity. MySpace was built on the idea that people would share HTML and text with the occasional image or sound.
- joshteng 10y agoI had the exact same question. I found what he said a little contradictory. Before using Facebook, I was using Friendster. Instead of taking him word for word, I'm taking it as building a product 10x better than any other solutions for the same problem.