4 ms·

"Delight is seeing your customer’s pupils dilate because they’re so ecstatic about your 10x change." IMO this kind of small-scale and shortsighted focus is hol

"Delight is seeing your customer’s pupils dilate because they’re so ecstatic about your 10x change." IMO this kind of small-scale and shortsighted focus is holding SV-style innovation back. Twitter has no route to profit (last I heard) but it is a key factor in modern global events, for good or bad. We need more Elon Musk-style megaprojects and fewer Facebook killers.

gautamnarula 7y ago
Twitter is currently profitable, and has been since sometime in 2018. To your bigger point, I actually think nowadays we're finally seeing fewer "me too" type companies--fewer knockoff social companies (early 2010s), fewer "Uber/Airbnb for X" companies (mid-2010s), fewer hot air crypto companies (late 2010s), etc. Granted I'm seeing a proliferation of "AI" companies so that isn't to say that hype is dead, but I'm hoping we'll see something new and innovative over the next few years.
- moron4hire 7y ago
  Everyone and their brother is still trying to start their own scooter share.
  - jjeaff 7y ago
    With companies like scooter shares or Groupon, where expansion requires physical presence and manpower, there is actually a decent chance of success, assuming there is a 800lbs gorilla or two that is funded and clamoring for growth. Quite a few smaller, regional Groupon clones were able to sell to either Groupon or living social for very hefty sums when the gold rush was still on.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
scarface74 7y ago
So it’s “shortsighted” for a company and it’s investors to worry about profit? I would say just the opposite, with a very few exceptions, the entire VC startup culture optimized for three outcomes. - create a product without any profit motive but to get acquired by a larger company. The acquiring company kills off the product and bought the company as an acqui-hire. The original company then posts a message on their blog about “Their Amazing Journey” - the company gets acquired by a platform company, and the acquirer either kills off the product for competing platforms (see Apple/TestFlight) or tightly integrates it into another product (see Facebook) or let’s a whither and die a slow death (Google/Yahoo) - it’s a big Ponzi scheme where the initial investors pawn off the company to the public market and the company has little chance of becoming profitable enough (or at all) to warrant its valuation.
- ganzuul 7y ago
  I hope this example helps explain what I'm talking about: In a large integrated business model you can produce expensive services which make no profit on their own, but make it possible for an entire ecosystem of profitable ones to exist. The last couple of generations of game consoles worked like this early in their lifecycle.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Of course. Apple is well known for having one profit and loss statement for their entire business. They supposedly don’t make business decisions based on an individual departments P&L. Well, the retail stores do have a separate P&L.
chrisco255 7y ago
So more PayPals to fund Elon Musk style megaprojects, got it. Step 1) make Facebook killer step 2) build rocket ship to Mars
- jjeaff 7y ago
  PayPal, while it wasn't the only player, was actually innovative for it's time and really made person to person online commerce a lot better.
jariel 7y ago
You don't have to be profitable to have product-market fit. Ironically, if you do things well, and you have product-market fit then you won't be profitable! Why? Because you'll want to take on financing. Suppose you discover a cure for a major disease and don't want to sell to a major drug co. Well, you'll probably have to take on significant financing. You'll be 'losing money' possibly for quite some time. Which is fine as long as it's backed by growth and the right underlying metrics. Also, Twitter is profitable.

gautamnarula 7y ago

Twitter is currently profitable, and has been since sometime in 2018. To your bigger point, I actually think nowadays we're finally seeing fewer "me too" type companies--fewer knockoff social companies (early 2010s), fewer "Uber/Airbnb for X" companies (mid-2010s), fewer hot air crypto companies (late 2010s), etc. Granted I'm seeing a proliferation of "AI" companies so that isn't to say that hype is dead, but I'm hoping we'll see something new and innovative over the next few years.

moron4hire 7y ago
Everyone and their brother is still trying to start their own scooter share.
- jjeaff 7y ago
  With companies like scooter shares or Groupon, where expansion requires physical presence and manpower, there is actually a decent chance of success, assuming there is a 800lbs gorilla or two that is funded and clamoring for growth. Quite a few smaller, regional Groupon clones were able to sell to either Groupon or living social for very hefty sums when the gold rush was still on.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

scarface74 7y ago

So it’s “shortsighted” for a company and it’s investors to worry about profit? I would say just the opposite, with a very few exceptions, the entire VC startup culture optimized for three outcomes. - create a product without any profit motive but to get acquired by a larger company. The acquiring company kills off the product and bought the company as an acqui-hire. The original company then posts a message on their blog about “Their Amazing Journey” - the company gets acquired by a platform company, and the acquirer either kills off the product for competing platforms (see Apple/TestFlight) or tightly integrates it into another product (see Facebook) or let’s a whither and die a slow death (Google/Yahoo) - it’s a big Ponzi scheme where the initial investors pawn off the company to the public market and the company has little chance of becoming profitable enough (or at all) to warrant its valuation.

ganzuul 7y ago
I hope this example helps explain what I'm talking about: In a large integrated business model you can produce expensive services which make no profit on their own, but make it possible for an entire ecosystem of profitable ones to exist. The last couple of generations of game consoles worked like this early in their lifecycle.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Of course. Apple is well known for having one profit and loss statement for their entire business. They supposedly don’t make business decisions based on an individual departments P&L. Well, the retail stores do have a separate P&L.

chrisco255 7y ago

So more PayPals to fund Elon Musk style megaprojects, got it. Step 1) make Facebook killer step 2) build rocket ship to Mars

jjeaff 7y ago
PayPal, while it wasn't the only player, was actually innovative for it's time and really made person to person online commerce a lot better.

jariel 7y ago

You don't have to be profitable to have product-market fit. Ironically, if you do things well, and you have product-market fit then you won't be profitable! Why? Because you'll want to take on financing. Suppose you discover a cure for a major disease and don't want to sell to a major drug co. Well, you'll probably have to take on significant financing. You'll be 'losing money' possibly for quite some time. Which is fine as long as it's backed by growth and the right underlying metrics. Also, Twitter is profitable.