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Fair enough. I understand your point and you definitely know the beginnings of Airbnb's business better than I do. I have just seen an inundation of "we are th
by MatthewB 15y ago
Fair enough. I understand your point and you definitely know the beginnings of Airbnb's business better than I do.
I have just seen an inundation of "we are the x of y of z" lately and they all just seem like derivatives of derivatives. Airbnb was always a very interesting and unique idea from the start (at least once they realized to expand past their own apartment).
- paul 15y agoThere's no such thing as a totally unique idea. When Airbnb was in YC, most people saw it as a derivative of couchsurfing.
- nibo 15y agoI see what you mean. As pg points out: "One of the things I always tell startups is a principle I learned from Paul Buchheit: it's better to make a few people really happy than to make a lot of people semi-happy." (http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html http://paulgraham.com/13sentences.html) Regarding the fact that they are all "we are the x of y of z" and seem derivative, pg says: "One good trick for describing a project concisely is to explain it as a variant of something the audience already knows. It's like Wikipedia, but within an organization. It's like an answering service, but for email. It's eBay for jobs. This form of description is wonderfully efficient. Don't worry that it will make your idea seem "derivative." Some of the best ideas in history began by sticking together two existing ideas no one realized could be combined." (http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html http://ycombinator.com/howtoapply.html)