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I agree. For consumer startups, it's not that important to solve a problem. As you mentioned, Angry Birds and Pinterest do not solve problems - they give us dop

I agree. For consumer startups, it's not that important to solve a problem. As you mentioned, Angry Birds and Pinterest do not solve problems - they give us dopamine and entertainment instead. Consumer products need to be like crack, and you also need to be a well-networked crack dealer (marketing). Entreprise startups do need to solve problems though, or at least help you make more money.

benjaminwootton 14y ago
But nor do people pay for a lot of the fashionable consumer products such as Pinterest. If people aren't prepared to pay then they do not have a viable sustainable business. They can keep taking VC investment and hope to sell to Google or whatever but thats a different thing. I believe that if you solve a real problem that people are having, consumers will be more likely to open their wallets for it. [Angry Birds is an interesting one. It's obviously a profitable franchise but the pricing model of mobile apps makes is such that they can be sold as a very cheap impulse buy. Micro payments perhaps make the model of building for desire rather than problem solving more viable.