6 ms·

There are two places where it is possible to see early, "lame" work. One is YouTube - most channels with well-made videos would retain their earliest works, and

by jasim 6y ago

There are two places where it is possible to see early, "lame" work. One is YouTube - most channels with well-made videos would retain their earliest works, and the first few dozen can be quite instructive. Second is GitHub - the first few hundred commits of many successful open-source projects. It is a wonder to see sprawling codebases starting at its first commit, and plodding its way over years before gathering momentum.

CrazyStat 6y ago
One of my favorite podcasts [1] is a great example of this. A friend recommended it to me and told me to start at the beginning (already a couple years of back catalog at that point). I almost stopped after the first few episodes, which were interesting but not very well produced. The creator stuck with it though and the quality improved dramatically and pretty quickly. [1] https://www.philosophizethis.org/ https://www.philosophizethis.org/
- postcynical 6y ago
  And Joe Rogans podcast #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWBCnvOuXK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWBCnvOuXK8
  - chubot 6y ago
    Funny comment: "This Guy Pulled Off Making 2013 Look Like 1997" I think it's actually from 2009 though, since wikipedia says that was the first episode? It was just uploaded later I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joe_Rogan_Experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joe_Rogan_Experience Still, it's crazy how much video has improved in quality, and exploded in popularity, since just 2009 or 2013 ... damn. I guess this is a little like early bloggers in the early 2000's who were already writers in other mediums. The people who are really successful are the ones involved in the old paradigm (multiple TV shows in Rogan's case), AND who actually embrace the new paradigm.
PeterisP 6y ago
Webcomics work that way - quite a few webcomics have been written over the course of many years, and you can see the art style slowly changing and the artist's skill improving. You don't notice it if you're subscribing/following the comic, until you jump back to an earlier strip and see how much less skilled the early work was.
- ultrasaurus 6y ago
  https://xkcd.com/1/ https://xkcd.com/1/ is a great example of exactly that phenomenon.
  - teddyh 6y ago
    If you want examples, here are a couple: Compare this: (https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3 https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3) to this version of the same strip, drawn much later: (https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1601 https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1601). That’s the same artist. There was no abrupt change in style, either, the artist’s style just slowly changed over time. Almost as large an improvement can be seen by comparing this first strip: (https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-06-12 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-06-12) with the same strip, redrawn much later: (https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2020-07-27 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2020-07-27). Same thing there; same artist, no abrupt change in style, just slow improvements over time.
njarboe 6y ago
Foot note number 8 of the essay notes that Michael Nielsen made the same two observations when reading an early version of the essay. For some reason Paul Graham has decided to make the footnote labels almost invisible in the text of the essay. I agree that it is best that in short essay reading that skipping the footnotes until reading the whole essay is usually the best way to approach them, but I like when they were more visable. In the spirit of the essay though, it is nice he has not changed older essays to fit this new style and one can go back and see the footnote indicators get lighter over time.
mauriziocalo 6y ago
Two other great examples where you can get a peek of early versions of companies/products that ended up being huge: Wayback Machine and Show HN. e.g. Wayback machine: - Airbnb (2008): https://web.archive.org/web/20080310025433/http://www.airbedandbreakfast.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080310025433/http://www.airbed... - Uber (2010): https://web.archive.org/web/20101126114649/http://www.uberapp.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20101126114649/http://www.uberap... - Twitter (2006): https://web.archive.org/web/20061127012643/http://twitter.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20061127012643/http://twitter.co... Show HN: - Analytics.js / Segment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076 - Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Those websites are so cute, particularly Airbnb's :) It's always great to see fledgling companies distinguish their business proposition to a market that doesn't even know about them yet.
- wenc 6y ago
  I'm curious though: the AirBnB website is often presented as how unprofessional-looking an MVP can be, but contextually, it didn't look super horrible compared to the websites of the time. Here's a bunch of "professional websites" in 2008. https://www.wolfstad.com/2008/12/my-top-5-websites-of-2008/ https://www.wolfstad.com/2008/12/my-top-5-websites-of-2008/ I think expectations have evolved and the minimum standards of aesthetics in 2020 presents a higher bar. I wonder if an MVP that looked like that would work in 2020? I'm guessing the bar these days is at least a Bootstrap UI.

by jasim 6y ago

CrazyStat 6y ago

One of my favorite podcasts [1] is a great example of this. A friend recommended it to me and told me to start at the beginning (already a couple years of back catalog at that point). I almost stopped after the first few episodes, which were interesting but not very well produced. The creator stuck with it though and the quality improved dramatically and pretty quickly. [1] https://www.philosophizethis.org/ https://www.philosophizethis.org/

postcynical 6y ago
And Joe Rogans podcast #1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWBCnvOuXK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWBCnvOuXK8
- chubot 6y ago
  Funny comment: "This Guy Pulled Off Making 2013 Look Like 1997" I think it's actually from 2009 though, since wikipedia says that was the first episode? It was just uploaded later I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joe_Rogan_Experience https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Joe_Rogan_Experience Still, it's crazy how much video has improved in quality, and exploded in popularity, since just 2009 or 2013 ... damn. I guess this is a little like early bloggers in the early 2000's who were already writers in other mediums. The people who are really successful are the ones involved in the old paradigm (multiple TV shows in Rogan's case), AND who actually embrace the new paradigm.

PeterisP 6y ago

Webcomics work that way - quite a few webcomics have been written over the course of many years, and you can see the art style slowly changing and the artist's skill improving. You don't notice it if you're subscribing/following the comic, until you jump back to an earlier strip and see how much less skilled the early work was.

ultrasaurus 6y ago
https://xkcd.com/1/ https://xkcd.com/1/ is a great example of exactly that phenomenon.
- teddyh 6y ago
  If you want examples, here are a couple: Compare this: (https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3 https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=3) to this version of the same strip, drawn much later: (https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1601 https://www.questionablecontent.net/view.php?comic=1601). That’s the same artist. There was no abrupt change in style, either, the artist’s style just slowly changed over time. Almost as large an improvement can be seen by comparing this first strip: (https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-06-12 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2000-06-12) with the same strip, redrawn much later: (https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2020-07-27 https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2020-07-27). Same thing there; same artist, no abrupt change in style, just slow improvements over time.

njarboe 6y ago

Foot note number 8 of the essay notes that Michael Nielsen made the same two observations when reading an early version of the essay. For some reason Paul Graham has decided to make the footnote labels almost invisible in the text of the essay. I agree that it is best that in short essay reading that skipping the footnotes until reading the whole essay is usually the best way to approach them, but I like when they were more visable. In the spirit of the essay though, it is nice he has not changed older essays to fit this new style and one can go back and see the footnote indicators get lighter over time.

mauriziocalo 6y ago

Two other great examples where you can get a peek of early versions of companies/products that ended up being huge: Wayback Machine and Show HN. e.g. Wayback machine: - Airbnb (2008): https://web.archive.org/web/20080310025433/http://www.airbedandbreakfast.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20080310025433/http://www.airbed... - Uber (2010): https://web.archive.org/web/20101126114649/http://www.uberapp.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20101126114649/http://www.uberap... - Twitter (2006): https://web.archive.org/web/20061127012643/http://twitter.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20061127012643/http://twitter.co... Show HN: - Analytics.js / Segment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4912076 - Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

saagarjha 6y ago
Those websites are so cute, particularly Airbnb's :) It's always great to see fledgling companies distinguish their business proposition to a market that doesn't even know about them yet.
wenc 6y ago
I'm curious though: the AirBnB website is often presented as how unprofessional-looking an MVP can be, but contextually, it didn't look super horrible compared to the websites of the time. Here's a bunch of "professional websites" in 2008. https://www.wolfstad.com/2008/12/my-top-5-websites-of-2008/ https://www.wolfstad.com/2008/12/my-top-5-websites-of-2008/ I think expectations have evolved and the minimum standards of aesthetics in 2020 presents a higher bar. I wonder if an MVP that looked like that would work in 2020? I'm guessing the bar these days is at least a Bootstrap UI.