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Whenever someone tells me about their amazing new idea that will completely overhaul an industry or transform a marketplace, I usually have one question for the

Whenever someone tells me about their amazing new idea that will completely overhaul an industry or transform a marketplace, I usually have one question for them: What will stop your competitors (established or following) from taking your idea and doing it (or marketing it) better? Answers I tend to accept are: * Because I love this product and even if a competitor tries to compete, I'll remain three steps ahead of them at all times * They won't believe it'll work until it's too late * There's a lot of technology behind this, and it'd take a year to simply replicate the functionality -- let alone understand what parts of it matter * The product benefits (at least in part) from being distanced from an established player * We have a really good patent! Answers I usually get are: * Umm... * Ahh... * Because we're awesome!

Swizec 15y ago
>> There's a lot of technology behind this, and it'd take a year to simply replicate the functionality -- let alone understand what parts of it matter Interesting anecdote: I used to have this answer in a startup of mine, it really impressed everyone, except people who were good technologist. Most of them knew that this is code for "I don't really know what I'm doing it, but it's complicated and looks like it kind of works when you ignore half the variables" The problem was that even I didn't realize this until much later when one day I looked at the tech I produced and thought "What the fuck is wrong with me!? This is much too complex. Why would I ever do this to myself?" When talking to a tech person, the only answer you should look for is "Y'know, I'm really worried. This tech is so simple, ten year olds could code this in their sleep ...". tl;dr -> a tech guy who describes their tech as "complex/advanced/superawesome" is out of their depth. It should feel scarily trivial to them.
- paraschopra 15y ago
  Right, I have never believed that technology per se can be a competitive advantage. If a technically competent company (say Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) decides to replicate your technology, they can. But the key question here is "if" they decide to. Many companies are usually so consumed by their own problems, that they seldom care about copying your new startup's technology. But in any case, as a startup you need to have differentiators apart from technology. It can be your maniacal customer support, your ability to persuade bloggers to write about you, your ninja like SEO skills or even your geographical/vertical focus in market.
  - tensor 15y ago
    Google is a perfect example of technology being a competitive advantage. The PageRank algorithm is both simple and elegant in its domain, yet the numerical methods to compute it efficiently are much more complicated than your typical social startup's. They had a patent on the technique from day one and the competition took years to catch up. You can similarly point to the big database companies. Building a good acid compliant SQL database is hard and the big database companies had the market cornered for a very long time. More recently, we have companies like Palantir which provide very sophisticated algorithms to their clients. Some algorithms are not just complicated from a software point of view, but you also need to understand the math to replicate them. It's not possible to reproduce them over the weekend even for an expert the domain. The other things you listed are also very important, of course. But technology itself can certainly be a very competitive advantage. You simply don't see that many examples of it because this sort of technology is hard.
- pedalpete 15y ago
  I would say I'm half-way with you Swizec. I often feel the same way about my code. The strange thing I find is how many big companies don't even attempt to make what many would consider simple technology because at the beginning it can always seem so daunting. This I find keeps people building twitter/groupon/start-up-of-the-day clones, rather than getting started in more complicated projects where they may actually learn something and create something of value.
johngalt 15y ago
* Because there is more than one competitor. Some may be able to follow, but at least one will opt to buy me instead of follow me.

Swizec 15y ago

>> There's a lot of technology behind this, and it'd take a year to simply replicate the functionality -- let alone understand what parts of it matter Interesting anecdote: I used to have this answer in a startup of mine, it really impressed everyone, except people who were good technologist. Most of them knew that this is code for "I don't really know what I'm doing it, but it's complicated and looks like it kind of works when you ignore half the variables" The problem was that even I didn't realize this until much later when one day I looked at the tech I produced and thought "What the fuck is wrong with me!? This is much too complex. Why would I ever do this to myself?" When talking to a tech person, the only answer you should look for is "Y'know, I'm really worried. This tech is so simple, ten year olds could code this in their sleep ...". tl;dr -> a tech guy who describes their tech as "complex/advanced/superawesome" is out of their depth. It should feel scarily trivial to them.

paraschopra 15y ago
Right, I have never believed that technology per se can be a competitive advantage. If a technically competent company (say Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.) decides to replicate your technology, they can. But the key question here is "if" they decide to. Many companies are usually so consumed by their own problems, that they seldom care about copying your new startup's technology. But in any case, as a startup you need to have differentiators apart from technology. It can be your maniacal customer support, your ability to persuade bloggers to write about you, your ninja like SEO skills or even your geographical/vertical focus in market.
- tensor 15y ago
  Google is a perfect example of technology being a competitive advantage. The PageRank algorithm is both simple and elegant in its domain, yet the numerical methods to compute it efficiently are much more complicated than your typical social startup's. They had a patent on the technique from day one and the competition took years to catch up. You can similarly point to the big database companies. Building a good acid compliant SQL database is hard and the big database companies had the market cornered for a very long time. More recently, we have companies like Palantir which provide very sophisticated algorithms to their clients. Some algorithms are not just complicated from a software point of view, but you also need to understand the math to replicate them. It's not possible to reproduce them over the weekend even for an expert the domain. The other things you listed are also very important, of course. But technology itself can certainly be a very competitive advantage. You simply don't see that many examples of it because this sort of technology is hard.
pedalpete 15y ago
I would say I'm half-way with you Swizec. I often feel the same way about my code. The strange thing I find is how many big companies don't even attempt to make what many would consider simple technology because at the beginning it can always seem so daunting. This I find keeps people building twitter/groupon/start-up-of-the-day clones, rather than getting started in more complicated projects where they may actually learn something and create something of value.

johngalt 15y ago

* Because there is more than one competitor. Some may be able to follow, but at least one will opt to buy me instead of follow me.