8 ms·

Yup, or put a bit differently: Timing is (almost) everything. There's usually only a short window in time where successful new tech companies can be started (ma

by jcfrei 5y ago

Yup, or put a bit differently: Timing is (almost) everything. There's usually only a short window in time where successful new tech companies can be started (maybe 1-3 years). Too early and nobody cares / buys your product, too late and you won't be able to raise enough capital to ever catch up.

arbuge 5y ago
Counterpoint: lots of money can be made if you're late to the party but have a great new spin on it. Assuming the party's big enough to accomodate multiple players, and not a natural winner-takes-all situation.
- ghaff 5y ago
  Not necessarily the same thing, but "fast follower" is absolutely a valid business strategy. Let someone else establish there's a market, make some mistakes, increase awareness--then you can swoop in with a more refined, better targeted product. Apple arguably did this with the iPod.
  - dstick 5y ago
    Or personal computer, for that matter.
    - ghaff 5y ago
      The way the PC market developed is complicated. IBM targeted a business market that hadn't really been seriously targeted by the "hobbyist" systems. The Compaq was really at the spearhead of the clones. (And IBM subsequently whiffed with the PS/2 and OS/2.) And then Dell revolutionized distribution. And even that is a gross over-simplification.
  - Frost1x 5y ago
    Apple has done this with a lot of devices throughout their history. They often don't create a tech, they refine something that's promising into something consumers like, usually with appropriate timing (ignoring the brand loyalty and following effects they also have). The Tile clone, whatever Apple branded it, is yet another recent example of this. The one ingredient missing is that you often also need a pile of capital to strong-arm yourself into the market and become a viable competitor. There's definitely an optimal point to do this as someone else pointed out: too early and you suffer the market exploration costs and failure risks, too late and you may never catch up. I personally don't think these sorts of strategies should exist from a perspective of principals (it encourages capital to copy, not innovative, and further punishes those who take on the real risks who are disproportionately awarded) but they do. This why IP protections like patents came about in the first place, but these systems too have been gamed so far they often make little sense anymore either (e.g. slight derivations of existing patents that mimic the same functional outcomes but are allowed just to name one perverse abuse of the patent system--still allows a high degree of copying). I think the latter (joining late) can often be overcome with more capital though. The issue often isn't that you can't catch up, it's that it's often not worth the investment and risk perceived by investors with sufficient capital to try and split any existing market and innovative over what exists, especially if it's capital intensive. There are usually other lower barrier to entry markets to muscle into and get money out of.
    - sbacic 5y ago
      > I personally don't think these sorts of strategies should exist from a perspective of principals (it encourages capital to copy, not innovative, and further punishes those who take on the real risks who are disproportionately awarded) but they do. To play devil's advocate - what about network effects? There are plenty of examples where a possibly inferior service built a moat around itself through network effects, preventing a potentially better rival from competing.
    - jhugo 5y ago
      > I personally don't think these sorts of strategies should exist from a perspective of principals (it encourages capital to copy, not innovative, and further punishes those who take on the real risks who are disproportionately awarded) but they do. It’s not a binary choice between copy or innovate. Many successful clones made significant innovations atop a basic category defined by a less successful first mover.
  - dctoedt 5y ago
    > "fast follower" is absolutely a valid business strategy. ... Apple arguably did this with the iPod. So did Google — remember AltaVista? [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I was actually listening to a podcast that went into AltaVista a few months back. One of the folks involved in AltaVista originally hired me into my current role but the public episode hasn't dropped yet. https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes
  - jandrese 5y ago
    The killer feature of the iPod wasn't the iPod itself so much as the iTunes Music Store. Apple solved the "how do the record labels make money" problem that was at the heart of the previous failures of portable digital music players. The micro-HDD that let you carry an actually useful amount of music was the other big feature. They weren't the first to have a big drive, but they were the first that had a big drive and a useable music store.
  - kbos87 5y ago
    Yup. This is unashamedly the strategy of many mid-sized and larger businesses - let the venture funded startups spend the huge amount of time and energy it takes to ferret out product market fit, then we’ll come in and do it right.
- capiki 5y ago
  Absolutely. Bumble is my go-to example for this sort of business. Essentially a clone of Tinder with one small (but clearly important) change.
  - arbuge 5y ago
    That's a good one - in a market which I would have thought was indeed a winner-takes-all one. The founder obviously knew better.
    - alisonkisk 5y ago
      Tinder was the millionth of a billion dating apps.
  - golemiprague 5y ago
    The interesting bit is that the "important" change is just a marketing fad, it doesn't really change anything about the interaction since you need to match first anyways so who cares who says the first Hi, which is what most women write. The onus to impress is still on the men, the matching patterns are still the same as Tinder. I think bumble and other similiar apps that came after that are catering more for the need of people to form tribes and it is true for many other products or even computer languages usage, the "commmunity" and who is using it is more important than the product itself.
  - querez 5y ago
    As someone not in the know: what's the important change that Bumble introduced? Also: is it that successful? I was under the impression that tinder is still the leader in that market.
    - mikeryan 5y ago
      On Bumble both people select, match like Tinder but on Bumble only women can initiate a conversation. (In heterosexual matches)
    - bsder 5y ago
johbjo 5y ago
Not really. Early/immature tech causes early movers to overspend and be invested in the wrong things. Early, usually the tech is expensive so it's perceived to be valuable on its own. Later, when the tech has diffused and is ubiquitous, it's clear that various secondary things create the actual value. Successful early movers realize how the value-creation is going to happen once the tech is mature, and focus on that.
tediousdemise 5y ago
Just yesterday, I was looking at a PlayStation Vita that my girlfriend’s brother scored off eBay. Released in 2011, it was Sony’s last handheld console. Wow, looks like a smaller Nintendo Switch, I thought. He told me there’s homebrew to connect it to a larger screen. Timing is everything.
- sombremesa 5y ago
  > He told me there’s homebrew to connect it to a larger screen. > Timing is everything. Yeesh. I assume you know what homebrew means. Perhaps putting features in your product is what mattered more than timing here.
  - tediousdemise 5y ago
    Yeah, it’s sad they didn’t make it an official feature. Apple adds common jailbreak tweaks to official iOS releases all the time. You would think Sony could at least iterate on their product with features the gaming community wants instead of shuttering the product line permanently.
- redisman 5y ago
  iPhone and Android killed the handheld market. The switch works because it’s a portable console rather than a handheld
  - kbelder 5y ago
    I disagree. The DS only stopped selling because the Switch replaced it. IPhone and Android only service part of the gaming market, and they aren't making any inroads into the remaining balance. Or to put it another way, they've done a good job expanding the gaming market, but haven't stolen gamers away from PC and console.

by jcfrei 5y ago

arbuge 5y ago

Counterpoint: lots of money can be made if you're late to the party but have a great new spin on it. Assuming the party's big enough to accomodate multiple players, and not a natural winner-takes-all situation.

ghaff 5y ago
Not necessarily the same thing, but "fast follower" is absolutely a valid business strategy. Let someone else establish there's a market, make some mistakes, increase awareness--then you can swoop in with a more refined, better targeted product. Apple arguably did this with the iPod.
- dstick 5y ago
  Or personal computer, for that matter.
  - ghaff 5y ago
    The way the PC market developed is complicated. IBM targeted a business market that hadn't really been seriously targeted by the "hobbyist" systems. The Compaq was really at the spearhead of the clones. (And IBM subsequently whiffed with the PS/2 and OS/2.) And then Dell revolutionized distribution. And even that is a gross over-simplification.
- Frost1x 5y ago
  Apple has done this with a lot of devices throughout their history. They often don't create a tech, they refine something that's promising into something consumers like, usually with appropriate timing (ignoring the brand loyalty and following effects they also have). The Tile clone, whatever Apple branded it, is yet another recent example of this. The one ingredient missing is that you often also need a pile of capital to strong-arm yourself into the market and become a viable competitor. There's definitely an optimal point to do this as someone else pointed out: too early and you suffer the market exploration costs and failure risks, too late and you may never catch up. I personally don't think these sorts of strategies should exist from a perspective of principals (it encourages capital to copy, not innovative, and further punishes those who take on the real risks who are disproportionately awarded) but they do. This why IP protections like patents came about in the first place, but these systems too have been gamed so far they often make little sense anymore either (e.g. slight derivations of existing patents that mimic the same functional outcomes but are allowed just to name one perverse abuse of the patent system--still allows a high degree of copying). I think the latter (joining late) can often be overcome with more capital though. The issue often isn't that you can't catch up, it's that it's often not worth the investment and risk perceived by investors with sufficient capital to try and split any existing market and innovative over what exists, especially if it's capital intensive. There are usually other lower barrier to entry markets to muscle into and get money out of.
  - sbacic 5y ago
    > I personally don't think these sorts of strategies should exist from a perspective of principals (it encourages capital to copy, not innovative, and further punishes those who take on the real risks who are disproportionately awarded) but they do. To play devil's advocate - what about network effects? There are plenty of examples where a possibly inferior service built a moat around itself through network effects, preventing a potentially better rival from competing.
  - jhugo 5y ago
    > I personally don't think these sorts of strategies should exist from a perspective of principals (it encourages capital to copy, not innovative, and further punishes those who take on the real risks who are disproportionately awarded) but they do. It’s not a binary choice between copy or innovate. Many successful clones made significant innovations atop a basic category defined by a less successful first mover.
- dctoedt 5y ago
  > "fast follower" is absolutely a valid business strategy. ... Apple arguably did this with the iPod. So did Google — remember AltaVista? [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AltaVista
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I was actually listening to a podcast that went into AltaVista a few months back. One of the folks involved in AltaVista originally hired me into my current role but the public episode hasn't dropped yet. https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes https://www.redhat.com/en/command-line-heroes
- jandrese 5y ago
  The killer feature of the iPod wasn't the iPod itself so much as the iTunes Music Store. Apple solved the "how do the record labels make money" problem that was at the heart of the previous failures of portable digital music players. The micro-HDD that let you carry an actually useful amount of music was the other big feature. They weren't the first to have a big drive, but they were the first that had a big drive and a useable music store.
- kbos87 5y ago
  Yup. This is unashamedly the strategy of many mid-sized and larger businesses - let the venture funded startups spend the huge amount of time and energy it takes to ferret out product market fit, then we’ll come in and do it right.
capiki 5y ago
Absolutely. Bumble is my go-to example for this sort of business. Essentially a clone of Tinder with one small (but clearly important) change.
- arbuge 5y ago
  That's a good one - in a market which I would have thought was indeed a winner-takes-all one. The founder obviously knew better.
  - alisonkisk 5y ago
    Tinder was the millionth of a billion dating apps.
- golemiprague 5y ago
  The interesting bit is that the "important" change is just a marketing fad, it doesn't really change anything about the interaction since you need to match first anyways so who cares who says the first Hi, which is what most women write. The onus to impress is still on the men, the matching patterns are still the same as Tinder. I think bumble and other similiar apps that came after that are catering more for the need of people to form tribes and it is true for many other products or even computer languages usage, the "commmunity" and who is using it is more important than the product itself.
- querez 5y ago
  As someone not in the know: what's the important change that Bumble introduced? Also: is it that successful? I was under the impression that tinder is still the leader in that market.
  - mikeryan 5y ago
    On Bumble both people select, match like Tinder but on Bumble only women can initiate a conversation. (In heterosexual matches)
  - bsder 5y ago

johbjo 5y ago

Not really. Early/immature tech causes early movers to overspend and be invested in the wrong things. Early, usually the tech is expensive so it's perceived to be valuable on its own. Later, when the tech has diffused and is ubiquitous, it's clear that various secondary things create the actual value. Successful early movers realize how the value-creation is going to happen once the tech is mature, and focus on that.

tediousdemise 5y ago

Just yesterday, I was looking at a PlayStation Vita that my girlfriend’s brother scored off eBay. Released in 2011, it was Sony’s last handheld console. Wow, looks like a smaller Nintendo Switch, I thought. He told me there’s homebrew to connect it to a larger screen. Timing is everything.

sombremesa 5y ago
> He told me there’s homebrew to connect it to a larger screen. > Timing is everything. Yeesh. I assume you know what homebrew means. Perhaps putting features in your product is what mattered more than timing here.
- tediousdemise 5y ago
  Yeah, it’s sad they didn’t make it an official feature. Apple adds common jailbreak tweaks to official iOS releases all the time. You would think Sony could at least iterate on their product with features the gaming community wants instead of shuttering the product line permanently.
redisman 5y ago
iPhone and Android killed the handheld market. The switch works because it’s a portable console rather than a handheld
- kbelder 5y ago
  I disagree. The DS only stopped selling because the Switch replaced it. IPhone and Android only service part of the gaming market, and they aren't making any inroads into the remaining balance. Or to put it another way, they've done a good job expanding the gaming market, but haven't stolen gamers away from PC and console.