6 ms·

Doing It Right, Not First

67 points by andrewdumont 14y ago

binspace 14y ago
Or be the first to do it right...
- agumonkey 14y ago
  and thus the last
  - Aftershock21 14y ago
    there is no such thing
toddnessa 14y ago
Something anyone working on a startup idea should bear in mind. You may find similarities out there to what you have vision to do once you get started working with your idea. However, it is helpful to realize that just because something is similar to you does not mean that it has to be the same. Adding your own personality, twists to the product that differentiate yourself, and your own insight as well can set you apart from others. That's getting it right by focusing less on what others do with their ideas and more on what you want to do with yours. Focusing more on innovation & less on the competition is a much better way to succeed in the long-run.
- rmATinnovafy 14y ago
  I agree. Everyone is focused on finding the latest hot niche. They never realise that the old boring stuff still has a lot of potential. The older a segment/market/product/service is the easier it is to innovate. People call me crazy when I tell them my first product is about email marketing. But I'm convinced that my take on it is an improvement. PG's startups we'd like to fund talks about this in an amazingly simple way.
chexton 14y ago
The best example of this theory is, for me, Dropbox.
- trustfundbaby 14y ago
  Apple iphone for me ... people had been doing smart phones/pdas for donkey years ... and they came along and simply blew everything else away. It was uncanny because it seemed like such a mature space, but they just made everything else look like bricks. I still remember my first time playing with one ...
bigiain 14y ago
Keep in mind too, that "doing it right" involves much more than "just" solving the problem. It's at least as important to let people know that you've solved a problem that they have. It wasn't Instagram's software that Facebook paid $1B for, it was the people using the software. "Doing it right" involves doing the marketing right, and doing the customer acquisition right, and doing the customer support right, as well as getting the UX/UI right and choosing the right scalable backend and using elegant algorithms. Often the customer acquisition and marketing are _way_ more important than elegant algorithms and scalable software stacks (cue Facebook and PHP discussions…).
phil 14y ago
It's not even clear that you have to do it right.
- its_so_on 14y ago
  Agreed. Like I always tell my men and women when we're trying to build something: "It's not going to be the first one. It sure as hell can't be the best one. But I promise you, it will be another one." People are missing that the options aren't "Doing it {first|best}.", they're "Doing it{ first.| best.|.}"
- bigiain 14y ago
  I think a lot of people would point at Facebook and PHP and say "yr doin' it wrong!" I think Zuck got very lucky with that one, php happened to be available when he was first "playing around" with social websites, and available hosting was just getting fast enough cpu for it to become practical to run larger and larger systems with it. These days they've pretty much painted themselves into a corner with it, and their HipHop work is a probably very carefully chosen alternative to a ground-up rewrite in scalable-serverside-tenchiques-de-jour… But no-one can argue that they're not the 800lb gorilla of the social network vertical today. There might well be other people out-competing Facebook in the "fine dining" markets, but Facebook certainly have the "fast food" social network space sewn up pretty tight. (And when the value is the size and connectedness of the social graph, that's the bit I'd want to own first too)
sparknlaunch12 14y ago
Given we live in the 'everything has been done' world, being first doesn't mean anything. Many of the big names were not first (google, facebook, twitter etc). So 'doing it right' has a lot of benefit. But in context probably of most value is just the 'doing'. Getting out there, speaking to potential customers and showing off your MVP.
- jamesrcole 14y ago
  I don't speak from knowing, but FWIW doing it right + doing first, if possible, may be an advantage.
ratzinho87 14y ago
Do you know any companies that "did it first" and are still in the lead after a number of years? To my surprise, I cannot seem to think of any.
- jkn 14y ago
  Yes to the extent that we accept as "did it first" the companies that were the first to do it right. Not the first in the field, that would be almost impossible, there's always some kind of prior art. For example there were many search engines before Google, so they were definitely not the first in the field. Then PageRank was "doing it right" I guess and maybe they were the first to deploy that kind of algorithm?
- kristopolous 14y ago
  Ford, Kellogg, Seagate, Monsanto, McDonalds and Intel have plenty of notches on this belt.
  - endersshadow 14y ago
    ebay, PayPal, and Amazon are good examples in the digital world.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
borlak 14y ago
do it better, not do it right "right" is always changing

67 points by andrewdumont 14y ago

binspace 14y ago

Or be the first to do it right...

agumonkey 14y ago
and thus the last
- Aftershock21 14y ago
  there is no such thing

toddnessa 14y ago

Something anyone working on a startup idea should bear in mind. You may find similarities out there to what you have vision to do once you get started working with your idea. However, it is helpful to realize that just because something is similar to you does not mean that it has to be the same. Adding your own personality, twists to the product that differentiate yourself, and your own insight as well can set you apart from others. That's getting it right by focusing less on what others do with their ideas and more on what you want to do with yours. Focusing more on innovation & less on the competition is a much better way to succeed in the long-run.

rmATinnovafy 14y ago
I agree. Everyone is focused on finding the latest hot niche. They never realise that the old boring stuff still has a lot of potential. The older a segment/market/product/service is the easier it is to innovate. People call me crazy when I tell them my first product is about email marketing. But I'm convinced that my take on it is an improvement. PG's startups we'd like to fund talks about this in an amazingly simple way.

chexton 14y ago

The best example of this theory is, for me, Dropbox.

trustfundbaby 14y ago
Apple iphone for me ... people had been doing smart phones/pdas for donkey years ... and they came along and simply blew everything else away. It was uncanny because it seemed like such a mature space, but they just made everything else look like bricks. I still remember my first time playing with one ...

bigiain 14y ago

Keep in mind too, that "doing it right" involves much more than "just" solving the problem. It's at least as important to let people know that you've solved a problem that they have. It wasn't Instagram's software that Facebook paid $1B for, it was the people using the software. "Doing it right" involves doing the marketing right, and doing the customer acquisition right, and doing the customer support right, as well as getting the UX/UI right and choosing the right scalable backend and using elegant algorithms. Often the customer acquisition and marketing are _way_ more important than elegant algorithms and scalable software stacks (cue Facebook and PHP discussions…).

phil 14y ago

It's not even clear that you have to do it right.

its_so_on 14y ago
Agreed. Like I always tell my men and women when we're trying to build something: "It's not going to be the first one. It sure as hell can't be the best one. But I promise you, it will be another one." People are missing that the options aren't "Doing it {first|best}.", they're "Doing it{ first.| best.|.}"
bigiain 14y ago
I think a lot of people would point at Facebook and PHP and say "yr doin' it wrong!" I think Zuck got very lucky with that one, php happened to be available when he was first "playing around" with social websites, and available hosting was just getting fast enough cpu for it to become practical to run larger and larger systems with it. These days they've pretty much painted themselves into a corner with it, and their HipHop work is a probably very carefully chosen alternative to a ground-up rewrite in scalable-serverside-tenchiques-de-jour… But no-one can argue that they're not the 800lb gorilla of the social network vertical today. There might well be other people out-competing Facebook in the "fine dining" markets, but Facebook certainly have the "fast food" social network space sewn up pretty tight. (And when the value is the size and connectedness of the social graph, that's the bit I'd want to own first too)

sparknlaunch12 14y ago

Given we live in the 'everything has been done' world, being first doesn't mean anything. Many of the big names were not first (google, facebook, twitter etc). So 'doing it right' has a lot of benefit. But in context probably of most value is just the 'doing'. Getting out there, speaking to potential customers and showing off your MVP.

jamesrcole 14y ago
I don't speak from knowing, but FWIW doing it right + doing first, if possible, may be an advantage.

ratzinho87 14y ago

Do you know any companies that "did it first" and are still in the lead after a number of years? To my surprise, I cannot seem to think of any.

jkn 14y ago
Yes to the extent that we accept as "did it first" the companies that were the first to do it right. Not the first in the field, that would be almost impossible, there's always some kind of prior art. For example there were many search engines before Google, so they were definitely not the first in the field. Then PageRank was "doing it right" I guess and maybe they were the first to deploy that kind of algorithm?
kristopolous 14y ago
Ford, Kellogg, Seagate, Monsanto, McDonalds and Intel have plenty of notches on this belt.
- endersshadow 14y ago
  ebay, PayPal, and Amazon are good examples in the digital world.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

borlak 14y ago

do it better, not do it right "right" is always changing