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(a) building something people want, but just not from you, e.g. because there are too many indistinguishable competitors and you don't win the crapshoot; Do yo

• epi0Bauqu 19y ago
  No, whether you yourself want it doesn't enter into it, although I do agree with the premise that it is easier to build something people want if you yourself want it too. What I meant was that you built something people wanted, but 100 other startups built it too, and in such a way that they all are indistinguishable from the user's perspective. In this case, the users may indeed want what you built, but they just may end up getting it from someone else, i.e. "not from you." Generally, I think a reasonable amount of competition actually helps a startup. But if you are essentially identical to 100 other startups, I think you have entered into a crap shoot trap. Perhaps a few of the 100 will ultimately be successful, perhaps none. The way I look at it, I think it is a real trap when the likes of Yahoo and Google are falling into it and shutting down services they had previously created for lack of "traction in the marketplace." If their kind of seed traffic and press edge can't push them to the forefront, you can bet the standard marketing plan--submit to press/blogs/whatever and get some buzz with the early adopting tech-crowd and then raise advertising money to "cross the chasm" into the mass market--is equivalent to a lottery.
  • myoung8 19y ago
    This is true to a certain extent, but on the flipside, Google does have to optimize. What may be a "bottom-of-the-list" revenue generating opportunity for them may be a cash cow for a one or two person team.