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VC money is drying up, and many of these startups are going to fail because they don't have any sort of foundation as a business. They don't have a product peop

VC money is drying up, and many of these startups are going to fail because they don't have any sort of foundation as a business. They don't have a product people are willing to pay for.

aliqot 4y ago
> They don't have a product people are willing to pay for. this resonated with me deeply. use =/= pay for, and that distinction wasn't clear for me at first until I had my first taste of saas ownership.
xani_ 4y ago
Or they do but they have so many people invested in not developing the core product but "growth" that it is unsustainable
robertlagrant 4y ago
Part of the reason people don't want to pay is VCs kept funding new startups that give things away. As that stops happening, paid tiers should start to become normal again, and we can all live happily ever after. But it's bad timing for startups on free tiers who are starting to need money right now.
- TillE 4y ago
  Even if VCs get frustrated, giant companies will still have little difficulty operating free services as a vague loss-leader strategy, like Microsoft with OneNote or whatever. That stuff will still exist as competition for any startup.
  - robertlagrant 4y ago
    True. Although having used OneNote quite a lot, I think free is still too high a price to pay for it.
    - GekkePrutser 4y ago
      Yes especially the web version is terrible. I have to refresh it every day and it can't even search across all notebooks. Of course there's no desktop version for Linux or BSD so I'm stuck with the web one. The only reason I use it is it comes for 'free' with Office 365. I wish there was something open source like it. Most open source notebook options are markdown and I don't like that (because it's not wysiwyg) and electron.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        Intereating. I haven't looked, but I'm surprised there aren't any WYSIWYG Markdown ones.
        GekkePrutser 4y ago
        All the markdown ones I've seen have a two-pane setup with the raw code and the rendered result. I don't like that at all. It wastes screen space. Also, I'm not very familiar with markdown, it seems to be really popular with developers. I guessbecause GitHub uses it for readme pages. But I have no attachment to it at all. It feels like an extra hurdle to learn. I really liked the old tomboy but the development stalled and the later reincarnations didn't have the snappiness of the original. And not having pictures is annoying.

VC money is drying up, and many of these startups are going to fail because they don't have any sort of foundation as a business. They don't have a product people are willing to pay for.

aliqot 4y ago

> They don't have a product people are willing to pay for. this resonated with me deeply. use =/= pay for, and that distinction wasn't clear for me at first until I had my first taste of saas ownership.

xani_ 4y ago

Or they do but they have so many people invested in not developing the core product but "growth" that it is unsustainable

robertlagrant 4y ago

Part of the reason people don't want to pay is VCs kept funding new startups that give things away. As that stops happening, paid tiers should start to become normal again, and we can all live happily ever after. But it's bad timing for startups on free tiers who are starting to need money right now.

TillE 4y ago
Even if VCs get frustrated, giant companies will still have little difficulty operating free services as a vague loss-leader strategy, like Microsoft with OneNote or whatever. That stuff will still exist as competition for any startup.
- robertlagrant 4y ago
  True. Although having used OneNote quite a lot, I think free is still too high a price to pay for it.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Yes especially the web version is terrible. I have to refresh it every day and it can't even search across all notebooks. Of course there's no desktop version for Linux or BSD so I'm stuck with the web one. The only reason I use it is it comes for 'free' with Office 365. I wish there was something open source like it. Most open source notebook options are markdown and I don't like that (because it's not wysiwyg) and electron.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      Intereating. I haven't looked, but I'm surprised there aren't any WYSIWYG Markdown ones.
      - GekkePrutser 4y ago
        All the markdown ones I've seen have a two-pane setup with the raw code and the rendered result. I don't like that at all. It wastes screen space. Also, I'm not very familiar with markdown, it seems to be really popular with developers. I guessbecause GitHub uses it for readme pages. But I have no attachment to it at all. It feels like an extra hurdle to learn. I really liked the old tomboy but the development stalled and the later reincarnations didn't have the snappiness of the original. And not having pictures is annoying.