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Totally unique ideas don't make it. You can't build a business on being ten years ahead of the market - you'll have a 0.0001% response rate. To be a successfu

by Vivtek 16y ago

Totally unique ideas don't make it. You can't build a business on being ten years ahead of the market - you'll have a 0.0001% response rate. To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to be fifteen minutes ahead of the market - and that means that, yes, there are other people with ideas very, very close to yours who are working on it at the same time. (Edit as afterthought: sometimes you can be way ahead of people and still make it big, and these quantum leaps make history. It's just that it's poor strategy to assume you're going to win that lottery - and the people who aren't actually ready to start a startup tend to underestimate the length of the odds. Hell, we all do, it's what makes H. sapiens so much fun to watch.) The larger point here is that in starting a startup, you're not really working on an idea so much you're working on assembling a team of people to implement the idea, learning how to build a business, how to manage customers, marketing and sales, technical support - all that stuff. The idea is just the irritant that gets the pearl going.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
NY_USA_Hacker 16y ago
"Totally unique ideas don't make it." Sure they can and do. You didn't read what I wrote. E.g., the first Xerox photocopier is a great example. So is the Hughes Tool drill bit. So was penicillin along with other many other drugs. You are just insisting on your own definition of 'idea' as close to a new 'market' as is clear from your "You can't build a business on being ten years ahead of the market". Just total nonsense: A totally new idea does not have to be with, ahead, or behind "the market". Your "ahead of the market" is nearly a meaningless concept. The crucial core 'secret sauce' can be "totally unique" even if the problem, customers, and market are all old. E.g., carbon fiber parts for airplanes -- lighter and stronger. So, you will refuse to fly on an airplane that has some carbon fiber parts? Why? You likely won't even know where the carbon fiber parts are. Titanium now for some auto parts -- recently titanium got much cheaper. A high bypass turbofan engine with special materials for higher compression ratio and better fuel economy -- you will refuse to fly on such an airplane? A car with fuel injection directly into the cylinder with extremely lean mixtures at low power level -- you'll refuse to drive such a car? Generally if there is a big problem and have the only good solution, then will get a good reception, and your "ahead of the market" is just nonsense. Again, by a "totally unique idea" you mean essentially just what the customer sees on the surface, likely for a new problem, where the customer has to do something really new and different, for a new market, etc. You're just having fun laughing at new ideas.
NY_USA_Hacker 16y ago
Your "ten years ahead of the market" is not very well defined or meaningful. If a business idea is poor, then there have to be better objections than that. If that's the only objection, then it is not very serious. There can be many reasons a business can fail; being "ten years ahead of the market" is not a meaningful description of any of them. Again, for an extreme scenario, if you see how to make a pill so that that one pill taken once will safely cure any cancer, then you will have a very successful business. And, with irony, at this point one might guess that the pill was "50 years ahead" of the state of the art, the rest of medical science, or something or other, maybe your "market", and all that will matter not at all. Instead you will literally have to hire guards to keep the desperate customers from knocking down your door. "Ahead of the market" is just next to irrelevant. The challenge in the one pill is just understanding how to make it. That challenge is similar for many products that would obviously be very valuable to have. The reason we don't have the products is that no one has the understanding to know how to make the product. As soon as someone does understand how to make the product, then they will have a successful business and 'behind, equal, or ahead of the market' will be irrelevant. For your first paragraph, I addressed essentially exactly your content in my: "3.) Totally unique ideas generally don't make it Nonsense. What he means is, say, a new product, of a very different kind in all respects, e.g., one that requires customers to do something quite new, for a new need for new customers in a new market generally doesn't make it. Right. But a one pill cure for cancer, which would be 'totally unique', would have to fight customers off with rings of guards, literally." That a product is "totally unique" is not by itself a handicap. Business history is awash in very successful products that were "totally unique". Home lighting? People used candles made from 'tallow', that is, fat. Next came burning whale oil, then gas lights burning a crude natural gas made from coal, then kerosene made from newly discovered crude oil, then incandescent electric lights, then fluorescent electric lights, and now light emitting diodes. From the first candle to the present, that each advance was "totally unique" was not a handicap. Instead, each advance was better and, thus, warmly welcomed. Electric power for a house? Suppose in 1900 you had a really nice house but without electric power. Now what? It will be a PAIN to run the wires. If the wires are all behind the walls, then there is a lot of carpentry to do. If the wires are, say, in tubes or some such but visible, then you have just made a mess out of possibly some gorgeous construction. Home electric power was "totally unique", but people eagerly did it. In 1950, people who traveled across the Atlantic used steamships. By 1970, there were nearly no such steamships. Why? Boeing made the 707 that was fast, smooth, and quiet and got people across in a few hours instead of a few days. The 707 was "totally unique" and accepted right away. So was the Concorde, for those who could pay for it. The first telegraphs? Definitely "totally unique", and was a rapidly growing business right away. TV? Definitely "totally unique", and soon nearly everyone had to have one, and moderately wealthy people had several. Early on the programming was suckage; the electronics was unreliable; and the signal quality was awful; still people bought them. A large fraction of all the materials now used in small commercial building construction was not even on the market 30 years ago. But each time a good, new "totally unique" product came out, it made good progress. So, want some long floor joists? Want to look for a 20 foot long 2 x 12? F'get about. Instead you will likely have to use a fake wooden I-beam where the interior is plywood and the top and bottom are glued from thin strips of wood. For exterior sheathing? Used to use diagonal 1 x 6 or some such. Then used plywood. Now use 'oriented strand particle board' glued up from wood scraps. Insulation? Now commonly polyurethane foam installed with a special spray gun when the outer sheathing is on but the inner walls are not. "Totally unique" product. A microwave oven? "Totally unique" and caught on right away. FedEx overnight small package delivery? When it came out, it was "totally unique" but caught on quickly. The US does a census each 10 years. By about 1880 or so, it was taking longer than 10 years to process the census data. So the Census Bureau worked with Herman Hollerith who, roughly, borrowed from Jacquard's special loom ("totally unique") and made his "totally unique" punched card equipment; it was used in the next census and was much faster. That the solution was "totally unique" didn't bother the 19th century census people at all. During WWII, the main means of numerical calculations was just mechanical calculators. Looking for something better, von Neumann and others built some "totally unique" electronic digital computers. Caught on right away. Daisy wheel printers? "Totally unique" and caught on right away. I still have one connected to a serial port at 1200 bps with XON/XOFF and use it for typing addresses on envelopes. The dot matrix printer, the laser printer, the ink jet printer? "Totally unique" and caught on right away. In the late 1940s, Bell Labs finally was successful on what they had wanted before WWII -- a solid state electronic amplifier to replace hot, unreliable vacuum tubes. It was called the 'transistor' and was "totally unique" and was very welcome right away. Just what is it you find so difficult to accept about a good, new solution for a serious problem? Somehow you believe that being new is a serious obstacle? You believe that can take some average of what is in the market and then conclude that anything much different has a handicap? Again, the reasons for failure are much more solid than some comparison with some chronology of some average of 'the market', which really is essentially irrelevant. One of the major opportunities for entrepreneurs is just to find such good solutions. For business success, it is in some ways easier if the target customers already know that they want the problem solved. Still sometimes entrepreneurs also find very successful products to solve problems people didn't even realize they had or wanted solved: Apparently examples include iPhone, Twitter, and Facebook.

by Vivtek 16y ago

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

NY_USA_Hacker 16y ago

"Totally unique ideas don't make it." Sure they can and do. You didn't read what I wrote. E.g., the first Xerox photocopier is a great example. So is the Hughes Tool drill bit. So was penicillin along with other many other drugs. You are just insisting on your own definition of 'idea' as close to a new 'market' as is clear from your "You can't build a business on being ten years ahead of the market". Just total nonsense: A totally new idea does not have to be with, ahead, or behind "the market". Your "ahead of the market" is nearly a meaningless concept. The crucial core 'secret sauce' can be "totally unique" even if the problem, customers, and market are all old. E.g., carbon fiber parts for airplanes -- lighter and stronger. So, you will refuse to fly on an airplane that has some carbon fiber parts? Why? You likely won't even know where the carbon fiber parts are. Titanium now for some auto parts -- recently titanium got much cheaper. A high bypass turbofan engine with special materials for higher compression ratio and better fuel economy -- you will refuse to fly on such an airplane? A car with fuel injection directly into the cylinder with extremely lean mixtures at low power level -- you'll refuse to drive such a car? Generally if there is a big problem and have the only good solution, then will get a good reception, and your "ahead of the market" is just nonsense. Again, by a "totally unique idea" you mean essentially just what the customer sees on the surface, likely for a new problem, where the customer has to do something really new and different, for a new market, etc. You're just having fun laughing at new ideas.

NY_USA_Hacker 16y ago

Your "ten years ahead of the market" is not very well defined or meaningful. If a business idea is poor, then there have to be better objections than that. If that's the only objection, then it is not very serious. There can be many reasons a business can fail; being "ten years ahead of the market" is not a meaningful description of any of them. Again, for an extreme scenario, if you see how to make a pill so that that one pill taken once will safely cure any cancer, then you will have a very successful business. And, with irony, at this point one might guess that the pill was "50 years ahead" of the state of the art, the rest of medical science, or something or other, maybe your "market", and all that will matter not at all. Instead you will literally have to hire guards to keep the desperate customers from knocking down your door. "Ahead of the market" is just next to irrelevant. The challenge in the one pill is just understanding how to make it. That challenge is similar for many products that would obviously be very valuable to have. The reason we don't have the products is that no one has the understanding to know how to make the product. As soon as someone does understand how to make the product, then they will have a successful business and 'behind, equal, or ahead of the market' will be irrelevant. For your first paragraph, I addressed essentially exactly your content in my: "3.) Totally unique ideas generally don't make it Nonsense. What he means is, say, a new product, of a very different kind in all respects, e.g., one that requires customers to do something quite new, for a new need for new customers in a new market generally doesn't make it. Right. But a one pill cure for cancer, which would be 'totally unique', would have to fight customers off with rings of guards, literally." That a product is "totally unique" is not by itself a handicap. Business history is awash in very successful products that were "totally unique". Home lighting? People used candles made from 'tallow', that is, fat. Next came burning whale oil, then gas lights burning a crude natural gas made from coal, then kerosene made from newly discovered crude oil, then incandescent electric lights, then fluorescent electric lights, and now light emitting diodes. From the first candle to the present, that each advance was "totally unique" was not a handicap. Instead, each advance was better and, thus, warmly welcomed. Electric power for a house? Suppose in 1900 you had a really nice house but without electric power. Now what? It will be a PAIN to run the wires. If the wires are all behind the walls, then there is a lot of carpentry to do. If the wires are, say, in tubes or some such but visible, then you have just made a mess out of possibly some gorgeous construction. Home electric power was "totally unique", but people eagerly did it. In 1950, people who traveled across the Atlantic used steamships. By 1970, there were nearly no such steamships. Why? Boeing made the 707 that was fast, smooth, and quiet and got people across in a few hours instead of a few days. The 707 was "totally unique" and accepted right away. So was the Concorde, for those who could pay for it. The first telegraphs? Definitely "totally unique", and was a rapidly growing business right away. TV? Definitely "totally unique", and soon nearly everyone had to have one, and moderately wealthy people had several. Early on the programming was suckage; the electronics was unreliable; and the signal quality was awful; still people bought them. A large fraction of all the materials now used in small commercial building construction was not even on the market 30 years ago. But each time a good, new "totally unique" product came out, it made good progress. So, want some long floor joists? Want to look for a 20 foot long 2 x 12? F'get about. Instead you will likely have to use a fake wooden I-beam where the interior is plywood and the top and bottom are glued from thin strips of wood. For exterior sheathing? Used to use diagonal 1 x 6 or some such. Then used plywood. Now use 'oriented strand particle board' glued up from wood scraps. Insulation? Now commonly polyurethane foam installed with a special spray gun when the outer sheathing is on but the inner walls are not. "Totally unique" product. A microwave oven? "Totally unique" and caught on right away. FedEx overnight small package delivery? When it came out, it was "totally unique" but caught on quickly. The US does a census each 10 years. By about 1880 or so, it was taking longer than 10 years to process the census data. So the Census Bureau worked with Herman Hollerith who, roughly, borrowed from Jacquard's special loom ("totally unique") and made his "totally unique" punched card equipment; it was used in the next census and was much faster. That the solution was "totally unique" didn't bother the 19th century census people at all. During WWII, the main means of numerical calculations was just mechanical calculators. Looking for something better, von Neumann and others built some "totally unique" electronic digital computers. Caught on right away. Daisy wheel printers? "Totally unique" and caught on right away. I still have one connected to a serial port at 1200 bps with XON/XOFF and use it for typing addresses on envelopes. The dot matrix printer, the laser printer, the ink jet printer? "Totally unique" and caught on right away. In the late 1940s, Bell Labs finally was successful on what they had wanted before WWII -- a solid state electronic amplifier to replace hot, unreliable vacuum tubes. It was called the 'transistor' and was "totally unique" and was very welcome right away. Just what is it you find so difficult to accept about a good, new solution for a serious problem? Somehow you believe that being new is a serious obstacle? You believe that can take some average of what is in the market and then conclude that anything much different has a handicap? Again, the reasons for failure are much more solid than some comparison with some chronology of some average of 'the market', which really is essentially irrelevant. One of the major opportunities for entrepreneurs is just to find such good solutions. For business success, it is in some ways easier if the target customers already know that they want the problem solved. Still sometimes entrepreneurs also find very successful products to solve problems people didn't even realize they had or wanted solved: Apparently examples include iPhone, Twitter, and Facebook.