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If you have doubts about what he means, he is essentially saying this: The state of mobile and social has come to such an advantageous point for startups that i

by robot 14y ago

If you have doubts about what he means, he is essentially saying this: The state of mobile and social has come to such an advantageous point for startups that it is not feasible for investors to go for the hard, truly disruptive things. And he is very right. Thanks to Apple products, now you can reach millions of people by writing an app. Due to the viral nature of social apps, you can now expect a useful app to reach for the masses without spending on marketing and advertisement. Can we say the same for anything other than mobile/web and social? No. Until the social/mobile market matures, we will see each potential founder working on a mobile phone application instead of attacking a non-viral problem with a doubtful market/new technology.

AznHisoka 14y ago
Have you ever launched an app that reached the masses? What do you even mean by viral nature?
- robot 14y ago
  A social app has a potential to go viral, e.g. spread by word of mouth or via means built into the application. Spreading to all social contacts for example. You can't do that with a startup involving hardware or anything non-social.
  - AznHisoka 14y ago
    Apps that have gone viral usually have gone viral because of tremendous effort put into marketing before the app was released. You can't expect to just release something in the App Store, have it spam your friend's FB wall, and contacts and expect a million users by next month. It doesn't work that way, though the guys at Techcrunch, and Mashable may give that appearance.
    - robot 14y ago
      I agree with how hard it is to get traction in any application. Let's assume it is an application whose value is increased with the number of people interacting. Then if you are past the initial chicken-egg problem, you can grow exponentially. You cannot do that in any other business. Usually your marketing and sales efforts would remain linearly parallel with your growth.
    - saraid216 14y ago
      The key perception is that VCs and entrepreneurs believe apps are easier to go big relative to hardware. It's not about whether it's easy to go big with apps at all. I think we can agree that it's easier to build and distribute an app than it is to build an distribute a novel piece of studded silicon.

by robot 14y ago

AznHisoka 14y ago

Have you ever launched an app that reached the masses? What do you even mean by viral nature?

robot 14y ago
A social app has a potential to go viral, e.g. spread by word of mouth or via means built into the application. Spreading to all social contacts for example. You can't do that with a startup involving hardware or anything non-social.
- AznHisoka 14y ago
  Apps that have gone viral usually have gone viral because of tremendous effort put into marketing before the app was released. You can't expect to just release something in the App Store, have it spam your friend's FB wall, and contacts and expect a million users by next month. It doesn't work that way, though the guys at Techcrunch, and Mashable may give that appearance.
  - robot 14y ago
    I agree with how hard it is to get traction in any application. Let's assume it is an application whose value is increased with the number of people interacting. Then if you are past the initial chicken-egg problem, you can grow exponentially. You cannot do that in any other business. Usually your marketing and sales efforts would remain linearly parallel with your growth.
  - saraid216 14y ago
    The key perception is that VCs and entrepreneurs believe apps are easier to go big relative to hardware. It's not about whether it's easy to go big with apps at all. I think we can agree that it's easier to build and distribute an app than it is to build an distribute a novel piece of studded silicon.