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> Many of the applications we get are imitations of some existing company. That's one source of ideas, but not the best. If you look at the origins of successfu
by adrianmsmith 7y ago
> Many of the applications we get are imitations of some existing company. That's one source of ideas, but not the best. If you look at the origins of successful startups, few were started in imitation of some other startup. Where did they get their ideas? Usually from some specific, unsolved problem the founders identified.
I’m not sure if I’d agree with that point. Google were not the first search engine, Facebook was not the first social network, etc.
I mean, for a user perspective, Google literally worked like other search engines at the time. You enter your phrase, see results.
Of course the results were better than Yahoo, the user-interface cleaner, etc. But that’s definitely incremental value for the user, not a whole new category of product.
- hn_throwaway_99 7y agoMeh, I kind of think you're both right. I mean, while Google was just the evolution of a search engine, they did solve a very specific unsolved problem that the founders identified (namely, how to rank results in a manner that was a much better indicator of relevance and quality). When it comes to Facebook, people forget that before them, using your real name and identity online in a social network was extremely rare. Similarly, there were loads of dating apps before Tinder, but they solved a very specific problem: how to let either partner indicate interest withOUT letting the other partner know unless there was a match, in an intuitive way. So yes, there are not many startups that are bold ideas that are completely new (for exceptions see Elon Musk), but they mostly DO bring something fundamentally new to the table.
- TheGrassyKnoll 7y agoI think their best feature was speed. The internet in those days was clunky, but Google was impressively fast along with the clean interface.