3 ms·

No I'm sorry. I don't mean "growth" as in infinite and unsustainable growth like VC-founded startups. I mean "growth" as in adopting a bigger market share.

eszed 3y ago
But, again, do they need to? It seems to me like "market share" is a metric relevant to companies pursuing VC-founded, unicorn lottery-ticket scale. If they generate enough revenue to pay competive wages, cover their operating costs, and make a reasonable (real-world, not VC-world) return on investment, they're a gosh-darn success. It's only within tech, where valuations and evaluations sailed off into ZIRP-ified bizarro-world, that people think of that as a failure of ambition or execution. I think it's time to re-assess our mental models.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > do they need to? I don’t know what Kagi’s minimum sustainable size might be, but it’s probably bigger than what it is now. Particularly if they want to stay competitive with LLMs.
  - eszed 3y ago
    I suspect you're correct, and am rooting for them to hit sustainable, as soon as possible. I don't know what their maximum sustainable size is, either - that's equally important, though always a moving target. I only wanted to point out that neither inflection point, for a paid-service business model, has to do with "market share" - that's a VC thing, to which I'm increasingly allergic.
  - internet101010 3y ago
    I use Kagi for finding things and LLM for asking questions. Two different use cases. I want them stay separate but I am probably in the minority.
- carlosjobim 3y ago
  > But, again, do they need to? Why not? There are tens of millions of people who need/want a high quality search engine and can pay for it. Kagi deserves to be successful for having made a better search engine than Google. And their success can inspire other entrepreneurs to start delivering quality information products, so that maybe we can get out of this ad/scam fuelled quagmire once and for all. Good products and ideas should be successful, that's progress.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    That is a complete non-sequitur from the question of if Kagi will die if it doesn't grow. This is orthogonal to questions of morality and justice.
    - carlosjobim 3y ago
      > This is orthogonal to questions of morality and justice. What? If Kagi doesn't grow, I fully expect the owner to eventually shut it down and move on to more fruitful ventures. Nobody owes anybody to keep a business running. So yes, it would die.
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Sorry If I wasn't clear. But I think the question is pretty clearly stated in the post you responded to. The question is: Does Kagi needs to grow to be sustainable, and if so, how much. >If Kagi doesn't grow, I fully expect the owner to eventually shut it down and move on to more fruitful ventures. If you had a business that made you a $1 million per year profit, would you shut it down just because it wasnt growing? Companies need to make a profit or they go out of business. However, most businesses don't need to continually increase users/ revenue to stay afloat. The coffee shop down my street is 100 years old, and didn't need to double in size every year. I agree that nobody is owed anything. I also think that Kagi is "owed" or "deserves" tells us nothing about how many users they need to keep staff paid and the lights on.
        3y ago

eszed 3y ago

But, again, do they need to? It seems to me like "market share" is a metric relevant to companies pursuing VC-founded, unicorn lottery-ticket scale. If they generate enough revenue to pay competive wages, cover their operating costs, and make a reasonable (real-world, not VC-world) return on investment, they're a gosh-darn success. It's only within tech, where valuations and evaluations sailed off into ZIRP-ified bizarro-world, that people think of that as a failure of ambition or execution. I think it's time to re-assess our mental models.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> do they need to? I don’t know what Kagi’s minimum sustainable size might be, but it’s probably bigger than what it is now. Particularly if they want to stay competitive with LLMs.
- eszed 3y ago
  I suspect you're correct, and am rooting for them to hit sustainable, as soon as possible. I don't know what their maximum sustainable size is, either - that's equally important, though always a moving target. I only wanted to point out that neither inflection point, for a paid-service business model, has to do with "market share" - that's a VC thing, to which I'm increasingly allergic.
- internet101010 3y ago
  I use Kagi for finding things and LLM for asking questions. Two different use cases. I want them stay separate but I am probably in the minority.
carlosjobim 3y ago
> But, again, do they need to? Why not? There are tens of millions of people who need/want a high quality search engine and can pay for it. Kagi deserves to be successful for having made a better search engine than Google. And their success can inspire other entrepreneurs to start delivering quality information products, so that maybe we can get out of this ad/scam fuelled quagmire once and for all. Good products and ideas should be successful, that's progress.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  That is a complete non-sequitur from the question of if Kagi will die if it doesn't grow. This is orthogonal to questions of morality and justice.
  - carlosjobim 3y ago
    > This is orthogonal to questions of morality and justice. What? If Kagi doesn't grow, I fully expect the owner to eventually shut it down and move on to more fruitful ventures. Nobody owes anybody to keep a business running. So yes, it would die.
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Sorry If I wasn't clear. But I think the question is pretty clearly stated in the post you responded to. The question is: Does Kagi needs to grow to be sustainable, and if so, how much. >If Kagi doesn't grow, I fully expect the owner to eventually shut it down and move on to more fruitful ventures. If you had a business that made you a $1 million per year profit, would you shut it down just because it wasnt growing? Companies need to make a profit or they go out of business. However, most businesses don't need to continually increase users/ revenue to stay afloat. The coffee shop down my street is 100 years old, and didn't need to double in size every year. I agree that nobody is owed anything. I also think that Kagi is "owed" or "deserves" tells us nothing about how many users they need to keep staff paid and the lights on.
      - 3y ago