4 ms·

I wonder what the numbers look like when restricted to 'companies that sound like good ideas'. Not that that's a requirement. Some ideas famously sounded bad (

by ajkjk 2y ago

I wonder what the numbers look like when restricted to 'companies that sound like good ideas'. Not that that's a requirement. Some ideas famously sounded bad (Google had plenty of doubters?). But a lot of these AI and wearable things seem.. silly. I guess I'm getting old.

throwup238 2y ago
They all sound like good ideas, otherwise why would anyone waste their time?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- ajkjk 2y ago
  Well they sound like good ideas to somebody but often bad ideas to me oO
- chrsig 2y ago
  Have you seen....people? Quality of an idea has marginal influence on people's decision to execute on it.
- vundercind 2y ago
  Acquaint yourself with the “coaching” industry (think: life coaching) Almost all the money in it comes from milking people who’ve been sold on the idea of launching their own life coaching business, not from people with other careers seeking life coaching. Whatever tiny legitimate side of that market exists is very-obviously saturated to the tune of a large multiple over what’s sustainable, and it’s pretty clear the real money remaining is in selling people the idea that they too can launch their own coaching business (“be your own boss! You don’t want a boring corporate job forever, do you? That may be fine for some people, I guess, but not for you!”) and have an easy, lucrative career, then charging them money to (supposedly) teach them how (“well of course coaches need coaches, too!”). And yet, despite all this being pretty damn obvious, lots of people get sucked into the scam-vortex anyway. Similar things happen all over the place. Starting restaurants without a solid path to success even on paper, et c. Folks deceive themselves really well when dreams get involved. So, lots of people waste both time and money on clearly-bad business ideas.
- KapKap66 2y ago
  There's thousands of video games for instance that are just blatantly obviously bad ideas but nevertheless get years of work put into them. This goes for any tier too, indies, AA, AAA, etc. Why? Still haven't figured that out, but I've seen way too much effort put into games that are destined to fail. I don't know where that drive comes from particularly in the indie space but I really wish I had it. Point is, the quality of an idea does not seem to be a major factor that constrains people from committing a ton of resources bringing it into reality.
metacritic12 2y ago
According to Paul Graham, successful startups (weighted by eventual market cap) are ideas that: 1) Sound bad 2) But are actually good. So by selecting on ideas that sound good on first glance, you're already selecting for startups that won't comprise the majority of the success mass.
- marcinzm 2y ago
  Obviously good ideas are ones that a large company department will also easily get funding for. That increases the competition a lot.
  - api 2y ago
    Yeah but large companies often execute badly or develop solutions that are many many orders of magnitude more complex and expensive than needed. Large companies also generally push for all their products to work together, limiting their ability to build clean standalone things.
  - bcrosby95 2y ago
    Not true when it comes to new tech. That's why anytime there's a new piece of tech there's a gold rush of new companies born. Internet, smart phones, social platforms, etc.
- jszymborski 2y ago
  In fairness, I think pg mostly concerns himself with start-ups whose goals are to become a unicorn or be acquired by one. I think there are plenty of boring, sustainable businesses built on good, logical sounding ideas that have found their niche in the industries they find themselves in.
- nprateem 2y ago
  Ah so post-hoc categorisation. That's really useful. I suppose it's blindingly obvious to VCs the bad ideas that are bad vs the bad ideas that are good, which is why they never lose money.
- IshKebab 2y ago

by ajkjk 2y ago

throwup238 2y ago

They all sound like good ideas, otherwise why would anyone waste their time?

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
ajkjk 2y ago
Well they sound like good ideas to somebody but often bad ideas to me oO
chrsig 2y ago
Have you seen....people? Quality of an idea has marginal influence on people's decision to execute on it.
vundercind 2y ago
Acquaint yourself with the “coaching” industry (think: life coaching) Almost all the money in it comes from milking people who’ve been sold on the idea of launching their own life coaching business, not from people with other careers seeking life coaching. Whatever tiny legitimate side of that market exists is very-obviously saturated to the tune of a large multiple over what’s sustainable, and it’s pretty clear the real money remaining is in selling people the idea that they too can launch their own coaching business (“be your own boss! You don’t want a boring corporate job forever, do you? That may be fine for some people, I guess, but not for you!”) and have an easy, lucrative career, then charging them money to (supposedly) teach them how (“well of course coaches need coaches, too!”). And yet, despite all this being pretty damn obvious, lots of people get sucked into the scam-vortex anyway. Similar things happen all over the place. Starting restaurants without a solid path to success even on paper, et c. Folks deceive themselves really well when dreams get involved. So, lots of people waste both time and money on clearly-bad business ideas.
KapKap66 2y ago
There's thousands of video games for instance that are just blatantly obviously bad ideas but nevertheless get years of work put into them. This goes for any tier too, indies, AA, AAA, etc. Why? Still haven't figured that out, but I've seen way too much effort put into games that are destined to fail. I don't know where that drive comes from particularly in the indie space but I really wish I had it. Point is, the quality of an idea does not seem to be a major factor that constrains people from committing a ton of resources bringing it into reality.

metacritic12 2y ago

According to Paul Graham, successful startups (weighted by eventual market cap) are ideas that: 1) Sound bad 2) But are actually good. So by selecting on ideas that sound good on first glance, you're already selecting for startups that won't comprise the majority of the success mass.

marcinzm 2y ago
Obviously good ideas are ones that a large company department will also easily get funding for. That increases the competition a lot.
- api 2y ago
  Yeah but large companies often execute badly or develop solutions that are many many orders of magnitude more complex and expensive than needed. Large companies also generally push for all their products to work together, limiting their ability to build clean standalone things.
- bcrosby95 2y ago
  Not true when it comes to new tech. That's why anytime there's a new piece of tech there's a gold rush of new companies born. Internet, smart phones, social platforms, etc.
jszymborski 2y ago
In fairness, I think pg mostly concerns himself with start-ups whose goals are to become a unicorn or be acquired by one. I think there are plenty of boring, sustainable businesses built on good, logical sounding ideas that have found their niche in the industries they find themselves in.
nprateem 2y ago
Ah so post-hoc categorisation. That's really useful. I suppose it's blindingly obvious to VCs the bad ideas that are bad vs the bad ideas that are good, which is why they never lose money.
IshKebab 2y ago