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Absolutely, I've had friends with limited business or tech background pump hard-earned savings into crazy tech startup ideas, precisely because they've read too

Absolutely, I've had friends with limited business or tech background pump hard-earned savings into crazy tech startup ideas, precisely because they've read too many of these success stories. I've been guilty of not trying to talk sense to some of them, so much so that there's one particular marriage break-up related to a stupid tech start up blowing a couples life savings that still haunts me. And for the record, here's some of the ideas that went down in flames... - An application like a geo-fenced Wikipedia for Android devices, except without any content worth using and charging 5 bucks/month for it. - A Flickr/Google maps mash up, again charging customers for a product that's executed much better, and free, elsewhere. - A health start-up targeting a condition that affects 1 in 100k people, usually quite mildly and benignly, but involves surgically implanting a device onto a nerve in the jaw. - A SaaS company, Salmon as a Service, providing next day delivery of fresh salmon, when the same thing can be bought at the local store.

andi999 5y ago
Dont they say you do not invest in the idea but in the team (and hope the succesful pivot makes you rich)?
vkk8 5y ago
> A SaaS company, Salmon as a Service, providing next day delivery of fresh salmon, when the same thing can be bought at the local store. If "fresh" really means caught on the day before, I would use this service. The "fresh" salmon in supermarkets is usually several days old.
- Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
  Nope, this was from the same supplier as used by the supermarket. In fairness to them it might have been one day fresher than the stuff you get in the shop alright.
  - DimitriPetrov 5y ago
    But they sell wild caught salmon and grocery stores sell farmed salmon.There is a significant difference in quality. In fact most farmed salmon are dyed red to more closely resemble wild salmon
risyachka 5y ago
Those crazy ideas are crazy only when they fail. And with great execution even the most crazy idea can become a success - there are tons of examples. Ideas have nothing to do with failures, marriage breakups etc. That's bad planning, no backup plan, etc.
- suriyaG 5y ago
  Ideas, usually have a strong correlation with failure. Irrespective of the execution. Ideas are the base theory within which the execution revolves around. If the premise itself is wrong then no amount of execution would solve it. Think windows Phone OS, Google+ etc. They were pretty incredibly executed products. But never took off because the base premise that another new OS with new APIs and new everything would get developer attention, killed WPos. There was no space for a facebook clone, irrespective of the integration capabilities and good image quality and that killed G+. Crazy ideas are crazy because even great execution wouldn't be able to save it. ideas and execution need to be complimentary. Saying ideas don't matter is just as wrong as saying executions don't matter.
- brabel 5y ago
  > even the most crazy idea can become a success - there are tons of examples. There are multiple orders of magnitude more examples of crazy ideas simply failing (multipl times, as there's only so many crazy ideas but an infinite amount of people thinking they are the first to come across it) than there are of crazy ideas succeeding.
- Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
  Nonsense, a bad foundational idea sets a start-up back so much that it makes a failure so much more likely. Most don't have the runway to pivot away to something that works. And if you think that businesses failing are some abstract concept completely removed from any personal impact then it shows why these success stories are a problem. It's less prevalent and more unwelcome to hear about the marriages breaking up, the homes having to be sold, and the mental issues brought about through the businesses failing. It happens though. And the survivor bias that's reinforced through success stories is a contributing factor.
onion2k 5y ago
A SaaS company, Salmon as a Service, providing next day delivery of fresh salmon, when the same thing can be bought at the local store. There's a few online fish companies here in the UK. They're doing well. It might be easier because British people are slightly obsessed with Scottish salmon, and the country is much smaller which makes overnight delivery simpler.
sbilstein 5y ago
Yep.... Bootstrapping is for fools. Virtually no founders out there are pouring their personal savings into their company. The issues with bootstrapping: 1) No one to tell you to give up except your own survival instinct. 2) You've already told yourself to ignore that survival instinct because of the success stories you've heard. 3) Even if your idea is fantastic, there is another group of folks out there who have raised enough money to pay themselves working on the same thing. You are now under-resourced and already losing. I about 90% regret bootstrapping my first, failed startup. The other 10% I managed to make into a great opportunity to learn a lot and expand my network but I suppose I could have done that much more cheaply.
- onion2k 5y ago
  Virtually no founders out there are pouring their personal savings into their company. That definitely isn't true. Tens of thousands of companies are bootstrapped every year. Some go on to be quite successful (Github, GoPro, Apple...). You won't find all that many bootstrapped business founders posting on HN (it's run by an investment company...) but that doesn't mean they're not out there. Plus, due to the changing landscape of VC investing, most deals require a bit of traction before you even get a Series A. You have to bootstrap before many VCs will talk to you. There's also angel money, family and friends, etc, but getting that while you're pre-revenue is still much harder than proving the business is at least a bit viable first.
  - dlisboa 5y ago
    Aren’t all those examples “day X profitable” startups? As in startups that had a profitable business model from day 1 and it only took them some share of the market to become profitable after an initial loss (usually operational). GitHub was making money in their very first year. Many startups these days follow the “never profitable” business model in the hopes of being bailed out by angel investors or IPO. I’d say it’s definitely possible to bootstrap when your profit grows along with your business. Not possible when you burn money every single day forever.
    - bluedino 5y ago
mfollert 5y ago
> - A SaaS company, Salmon as a Service, providing next day delivery of fresh salmon, when the same thing can be bought at the local store. Please take my money, where can I sign for this?
ChildOfChaos 5y ago
"Absolutely, I've had friends with limited business or tech background pump hard-earned savings into crazy tech startup ideas, precisely because they've read too many of these success stories." And due to the law of averages one of them will get lucky and be hugely successful from it... then the cycle repeats.
democracy 5y ago
I don't see why Salmon is a crazy idea - they should be selling other seafood as well - it seems like a quite normal business.
- maximus-decimus 5y ago
  who the hell buys a salmon everyday?
- claudiulodro 5y ago
  Agreed. That's how restaurants get their seafood and there are tons of seafood delivery companies! Maybe the flaw was this was b2c salmon delivery instead of b2b! ;)
jmrm 5y ago
The first two ideas are pretty cool, but you cannot start charging people money. You need to use the ol' reliable "deploying an app with ads that can be removed after paying some money", at least at start.
- Rd6n6 5y ago
  That isn’t exactly reliable. You still need to get massive traction
inter_netuser 5y ago
>- A health start-up targeting a condition that affects 1 in 100k people, usually quite mildly and benignly, but involves surgically implanting a device onto a nerve in the jaw. What's the condition? Seems like a serious intervention for a mild condition?

andi999 5y ago

Dont they say you do not invest in the idea but in the team (and hope the succesful pivot makes you rich)?

vkk8 5y ago

> A SaaS company, Salmon as a Service, providing next day delivery of fresh salmon, when the same thing can be bought at the local store. If "fresh" really means caught on the day before, I would use this service. The "fresh" salmon in supermarkets is usually several days old.

Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
Nope, this was from the same supplier as used by the supermarket. In fairness to them it might have been one day fresher than the stuff you get in the shop alright.
- DimitriPetrov 5y ago
  But they sell wild caught salmon and grocery stores sell farmed salmon.There is a significant difference in quality. In fact most farmed salmon are dyed red to more closely resemble wild salmon

risyachka 5y ago

Those crazy ideas are crazy only when they fail. And with great execution even the most crazy idea can become a success - there are tons of examples. Ideas have nothing to do with failures, marriage breakups etc. That's bad planning, no backup plan, etc.

suriyaG 5y ago
Ideas, usually have a strong correlation with failure. Irrespective of the execution. Ideas are the base theory within which the execution revolves around. If the premise itself is wrong then no amount of execution would solve it. Think windows Phone OS, Google+ etc. They were pretty incredibly executed products. But never took off because the base premise that another new OS with new APIs and new everything would get developer attention, killed WPos. There was no space for a facebook clone, irrespective of the integration capabilities and good image quality and that killed G+. Crazy ideas are crazy because even great execution wouldn't be able to save it. ideas and execution need to be complimentary. Saying ideas don't matter is just as wrong as saying executions don't matter.
brabel 5y ago
> even the most crazy idea can become a success - there are tons of examples. There are multiple orders of magnitude more examples of crazy ideas simply failing (multipl times, as there's only so many crazy ideas but an infinite amount of people thinking they are the first to come across it) than there are of crazy ideas succeeding.
Simon_O_Rourke 5y ago
Nonsense, a bad foundational idea sets a start-up back so much that it makes a failure so much more likely. Most don't have the runway to pivot away to something that works. And if you think that businesses failing are some abstract concept completely removed from any personal impact then it shows why these success stories are a problem. It's less prevalent and more unwelcome to hear about the marriages breaking up, the homes having to be sold, and the mental issues brought about through the businesses failing. It happens though. And the survivor bias that's reinforced through success stories is a contributing factor.

onion2k 5y ago

A SaaS company, Salmon as a Service, providing next day delivery of fresh salmon, when the same thing can be bought at the local store. There's a few online fish companies here in the UK. They're doing well. It might be easier because British people are slightly obsessed with Scottish salmon, and the country is much smaller which makes overnight delivery simpler.

sbilstein 5y ago

Yep.... Bootstrapping is for fools. Virtually no founders out there are pouring their personal savings into their company. The issues with bootstrapping: 1) No one to tell you to give up except your own survival instinct. 2) You've already told yourself to ignore that survival instinct because of the success stories you've heard. 3) Even if your idea is fantastic, there is another group of folks out there who have raised enough money to pay themselves working on the same thing. You are now under-resourced and already losing. I about 90% regret bootstrapping my first, failed startup. The other 10% I managed to make into a great opportunity to learn a lot and expand my network but I suppose I could have done that much more cheaply.

onion2k 5y ago
Virtually no founders out there are pouring their personal savings into their company. That definitely isn't true. Tens of thousands of companies are bootstrapped every year. Some go on to be quite successful (Github, GoPro, Apple...). You won't find all that many bootstrapped business founders posting on HN (it's run by an investment company...) but that doesn't mean they're not out there. Plus, due to the changing landscape of VC investing, most deals require a bit of traction before you even get a Series A. You have to bootstrap before many VCs will talk to you. There's also angel money, family and friends, etc, but getting that while you're pre-revenue is still much harder than proving the business is at least a bit viable first.
- dlisboa 5y ago
  Aren’t all those examples “day X profitable” startups? As in startups that had a profitable business model from day 1 and it only took them some share of the market to become profitable after an initial loss (usually operational). GitHub was making money in their very first year. Many startups these days follow the “never profitable” business model in the hopes of being bailed out by angel investors or IPO. I’d say it’s definitely possible to bootstrap when your profit grows along with your business. Not possible when you burn money every single day forever.
  - bluedino 5y ago

mfollert 5y ago

> - A SaaS company, Salmon as a Service, providing next day delivery of fresh salmon, when the same thing can be bought at the local store. Please take my money, where can I sign for this?

ChildOfChaos 5y ago

"Absolutely, I've had friends with limited business or tech background pump hard-earned savings into crazy tech startup ideas, precisely because they've read too many of these success stories." And due to the law of averages one of them will get lucky and be hugely successful from it... then the cycle repeats.

democracy 5y ago

I don't see why Salmon is a crazy idea - they should be selling other seafood as well - it seems like a quite normal business.

maximus-decimus 5y ago
who the hell buys a salmon everyday?
claudiulodro 5y ago
Agreed. That's how restaurants get their seafood and there are tons of seafood delivery companies! Maybe the flaw was this was b2c salmon delivery instead of b2b! ;)

jmrm 5y ago

The first two ideas are pretty cool, but you cannot start charging people money. You need to use the ol' reliable "deploying an app with ads that can be removed after paying some money", at least at start.

Rd6n6 5y ago
That isn’t exactly reliable. You still need to get massive traction

inter_netuser 5y ago

>- A health start-up targeting a condition that affects 1 in 100k people, usually quite mildly and benignly, but involves surgically implanting a device onto a nerve in the jaw. What's the condition? Seems like a serious intervention for a mild condition?