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Hm, that's interesting. In terms of product development, perhaps Google would be better off implementing a Y-Combinator based model where 2 to 5 people work on
by stevenj 16y ago
Hm, that's interesting.
In terms of product development, perhaps Google would be better off implementing a Y-Combinator based model where 2 to 5 people work on products by themselves -- away from Google's offices. They'd do this anywhere they'd want -- living together in a house/apartment, working from coffee shops, etc. They'd have access to Google's resources if/when they'd need them (kind of like how YC now has significant resources to help out its companies -- e.g. TechCrunch for initial distribution), but would not be required to use them.
The ultimate metric for a web property is getting repeat users at scale, so that's the #1 goal.
But as you say, Google doesn't really suffer from this problem at least initially (they can always get a substantial amount of immediate users for any new product).
The problem is, are they products people want? Are they products that'll generate repeat users at scale?
I wonder if the people building products at Google are building things for themselves, or for what they think people want.
The best products are made with one user in mind, and that user is the maker.
- alastair 16y agoIIRC I think google ran the wave project kind of like this, and look how that turned out.
- stan_rogers 16y agoThe problem with Wave wasn't that it missed its target as much as it was that the folks who "got" what Wave was about were largely the same folks who were already using Lotus Notes/Domino to its full advantage. I've worked in shops where people lived in Notes, and in shops where people lived in email in Notes, and there's a vast difference between using an integrated collaboration environment and messaging links and attachments back and forth. It's funny, in a way, that people have a hard time putting the pieces together. They seem to "get" email, instant messaging, publicly editable documents, wikis, blogs, "related links" sidebars and so on...
- stevenj 16y agoOften times, I think the best products have an objective feel to them. So in the case of Wave, I'd say that its creator didn't have a clear understanding of what they wanted, or they were "commissioned" by Google to make it, in which case Google was the maker and should have been very closely involved in its development.
- megablast 16y agoThat is a pretty silly thing to say. My buddies business failed, and they used computers, so therefore nobody should use any computers to start a business anymore.