4 ms·

In my opinion, one good business strategy is "fast follow." * Find a business that's getting good traction. * Copy it mercilessly. * Think of how you would i

by ojbyrne 18y ago

In my opinion, one good business strategy is "fast follow." * Find a business that's getting good traction. * Copy it mercilessly. * Think of how you would improve it and implement the improvements. * Profit! Even if the final step might not be a monetary profit, you've accomplished something, and learned from the experience.

fbbwsa 18y ago
i hate to endorse that behavior, but i actually tend to agree. the pie is huge. taking small crumbs of marketshare as an individual is plenty. might not be the model for your million dollar idea, but there's a subtle, guilty fun in beating people at their own game.
paraschopra 18y ago
Can you give an example of a business that is presently getting good traction? I somehow find it hard to recognize trends. I guess I am a hard core skeptical when it comes to noise v/s signal.
- eru 18y ago
  Not presently, but a good example: Facebook was copied by the German Studivz quite succesful some time ago. Setting up a Mechanical Turk for non-US markets might work. (As of today you can work on mturk as a foreigner, but you can not commision tasks.)
  - streety 18y ago
    I hadn't realised that mturk requests could only be made in the US. I was planning on using it to save myself a little time in a side project I'm working on. A quick google search turns up ways around this though. http://www.hit-builder.com/ http://www.hit-builder.com/ offers a way around this problem for a $25 setup fee and 5% of use. I'm not familiar with mturk or this service but I suspect operating costs aren't that high. A barebones / follow on competitor could be a nice side project if you aren't concerned about amazon destroying your business model at some point in the future.
    - eru 18y ago
      I was in the same position as you: I wanted to try mturk myself. That way I noticed that you have to be in the US. I did not investigate the matter further. Thanks for finding hit-builder!

by ojbyrne 18y ago

fbbwsa 18y ago

i hate to endorse that behavior, but i actually tend to agree. the pie is huge. taking small crumbs of marketshare as an individual is plenty. might not be the model for your million dollar idea, but there's a subtle, guilty fun in beating people at their own game.

paraschopra 18y ago

Can you give an example of a business that is presently getting good traction? I somehow find it hard to recognize trends. I guess I am a hard core skeptical when it comes to noise v/s signal.

eru 18y ago
Not presently, but a good example: Facebook was copied by the German Studivz quite succesful some time ago. Setting up a Mechanical Turk for non-US markets might work. (As of today you can work on mturk as a foreigner, but you can not commision tasks.)
- streety 18y ago
  I hadn't realised that mturk requests could only be made in the US. I was planning on using it to save myself a little time in a side project I'm working on. A quick google search turns up ways around this though. http://www.hit-builder.com/ http://www.hit-builder.com/ offers a way around this problem for a $25 setup fee and 5% of use. I'm not familiar with mturk or this service but I suspect operating costs aren't that high. A barebones / follow on competitor could be a nice side project if you aren't concerned about amazon destroying your business model at some point in the future.
  - eru 18y ago
    I was in the same position as you: I wanted to try mturk myself. That way I noticed that you have to be in the US. I did not investigate the matter further. Thanks for finding hit-builder!