4 ms·

This article both inspires and scares the hell out of me. If you've decided to create a startup, you are in the same boat he was in 1991: ‘Yes. This is my care

• kranner 16y ago
  If you've read too many success stories that go through a phase of extreme hardship, you might be self-selecting to only remember such stories. Not to detract from his achievement, but Ostwal could have come up with the plan to use standard cellphones to communicate sooner than he did. He would have saved the time and money he lost fighting the insane Department of Telecommunication (or whatever other Ministry it was). Now there's no guaranteed method to always think of a shortcut like that, but it is plausible and would probably have gotten him at the same place with less hardship.
  • chime 16y ago
    > Ostwal could have come up with the plan to use standard cellphones to communicate sooner than he did Probably not. He decided to use cellphones in 2003. See this graph: http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&ctype=l&strail=false&nselm=h&met_y=it_cel_sets_p2&scale_y=lin&ind_y=false&rdim=country&idim=country:IND:USA&tstart=441763200000&tunit=Y&tlen=24&hl=en&dl=en http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=wb-wdi&ctype=l&s... Only 3 in 100 people had cellphones in India in 2003 and I suspect that number was even lower for rural, poor farming areas. My family is quite well off, lives in a big city, and I know for sure they didn't have cellphones till 2004 because the cost was too high. > If you've read too many success stories that go through a phase of extreme hardship, you might be self-selecting to only remember such stories. Maybe journalists/editors select these stories about fighting against all odds or give the "struggled very hard" angle to every inventor's story. Sounds much more endearing than "he had a cushy job, kickass life, and helped changed the world on the side."
    • kranner 16y ago
      Fair point about the cellphone hack, but there are always other things that might have worked out faster or cheaper in retrospect. My point was that it is plausible that in other universes, the other Ostwals did come across these hacks, by chance, and therefore it does not seem necessary to undergo x units of hardship to obtain y units of success.
      • khafra 16y ago
        And there were a vastly larger number of Ostwals that suffered the same amount, and never succeeded. Successful revolutionaries are statistical outliers, almost by definition.
        • kranner 16y ago
          This is an unfalsifiable platitude unless you have data to back it up. And do you have to be a revolutionary to be successful? Is it impossible to go about things in a calm and rational manner that minimizes damage to self, and succeed? I'm not knocking Ostwal because I do not know his circumstances, but surely this is not true for all possible cases. This founder-as-martyr syndrome probably discourages a lot of possible inventors from trying things in cheap, accessible ways that may lead to something big.
          • skmurphy 16y ago
            "All reform comes from below. No man with four aces howls for a new deal." John F. Parker in "If Elected I Promise" "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw Two other models for fostering change are "Appreciative Inquiry" and "Amplify Positive Deviance" See http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2009/12/15/early-customer-conversations-use-appreciative-inquiry-and-amplify-positive-deviance/ http://www.skmurphy.com/blog/2009/12/15/early-customer-conve...
• Retric 16y ago
  Just because someone hit a bad patch does not mean they needed to. The obvious solution to me would be a pico controller connected to the pump with a stopwatch battery backup. Basically it turns on for an hour starting at say 2AM but ignores the time when the power is out. Total cost per unit should run between 1$ and 5$ depending on build quality and interface. You could even add pressure, flow, and or temperature sensors to notice if something was wrong and or use more water when it's hot etc. But that's probably overkill 90% of the time. PS: Texting a cell phone is not a bad idea, but it requires someone to be awake at 3am when you want to turn it on and adds several failure modes it also costs more money.
  • deskamess 16y ago
    Your points are valid and your solution would work (especially the part about watering for a total of an hour by automatically taking into consideration power cuts, etc). I wonder if there may have been an 'environmental' reason for his solution (and hence his bad patches). I lived in a couple of third world countries in the 1980s (in Asia and Africa) and came over to the US in the early 90's for studies. One of the stores that my electronics class prof introduced me to was Radio Shack. I could not believe it - for an electronics tinkerer there was nothing better. Everything you needed to build your (small) dream device seemed to be there (tools like soldering irons, bread boards, capacitors, etc). And they were pretty cheap to boot. That ease of access to equipment is not available in third world countries. So the solutions you come up use the accessible 'raw materials' available in your environment. It may not be the most simple, or elegant, but it is something that works. To the farmer the underlying technology is understandable and accessible. And testable with a phone call!
  • deleted 16y ago
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• erikstarck 16y ago
  "What are you prepared to sacrifice?" is one of the toughest questions to ask oneself. "Which relations are you prepared to sacrifice?" is even harder.