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This truth was one of the first things I learned in the School of Hard Knocks. If you've identified a need that nobody else is addressing, the odds are very hig

This truth was one of the first things I learned in the School of Hard Knocks. If you've identified a need that nobody else is addressing, the odds are very high that there's a solid reason nobody else is addressing it. That doesn't automatically mean that your idea can't be successful, but it does mean that you should take a step back and do a hard rethink. Maybe you can identify the reason everyone else is avoiding it and can eliminate or bypass the problem, for instance. But there almost certainly is a problem that you haven't spotted. Further, it's probably a hard problem to solve, since nobody else has managed it. This kind of thing is one of the several reasons why you don't want to be the first to enter a product category ("the pioneers get the arrows"). The sweet spot to aim for is to be second or third. Then the market is already validated, and you can also learn how to make your product better by learning from the mistakes of your competition.

meysamazad 1y ago
thank you john your comments are very well put and I will take it to heart for now and any future attempts at building my own product have a wonderful day ahead
cnity 1y ago
I think you sort of have to learn things this way. What else are you going to do? Trust random blogs and comments online so much that you'll ignore your inner compass, which drives you to build a product?
ivape 1y ago
You can say the same thing about a stock with low volume and low price. There must be a reason why no one is buying it right? Well, one of the reasons could be that everyone is completely wrong about it. I would avoid believing that since I shifted my strategy into Google (where everyone is) that that is where all the success is. If I told a ML researcher they were better off focusing on web development in the 2010s because that’s where the money is, I would have been hopelessly wrong. Several things can be true at the same time. Why do some people 10x their money? They have a certain amount of time, money and risk tolerance. Not everyone can sit around and stay invested in certain convictions. A truly industrial entrepreneur will be like a good investor. Buy the obvious, bet on the not so obvious, and be prepared to keep working on both.
bob1029 1y ago
2nd+ mover is the best kind of advantage for technology markets. One of the most expensive things is educating the average consumer. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to obtain customers with more specific propositions after they've already drank someone else's koolaid. For example, if someone created an adversarial/rude variant of OpenAI's offerings I would be very interested. Taking the existing "what works" and targeting segments of that market that are underserved is less risky than direct competition or forging new markets.

meysamazad 1y ago

thank you john your comments are very well put and I will take it to heart for now and any future attempts at building my own product have a wonderful day ahead

cnity 1y ago

I think you sort of have to learn things this way. What else are you going to do? Trust random blogs and comments online so much that you'll ignore your inner compass, which drives you to build a product?

ivape 1y ago

You can say the same thing about a stock with low volume and low price. There must be a reason why no one is buying it right? Well, one of the reasons could be that everyone is completely wrong about it. I would avoid believing that since I shifted my strategy into Google (where everyone is) that that is where all the success is. If I told a ML researcher they were better off focusing on web development in the 2010s because that’s where the money is, I would have been hopelessly wrong. Several things can be true at the same time. Why do some people 10x their money? They have a certain amount of time, money and risk tolerance. Not everyone can sit around and stay invested in certain convictions. A truly industrial entrepreneur will be like a good investor. Buy the obvious, bet on the not so obvious, and be prepared to keep working on both.

bob1029 1y ago

2nd+ mover is the best kind of advantage for technology markets. One of the most expensive things is educating the average consumer. It's a hell of a lot cheaper to obtain customers with more specific propositions after they've already drank someone else's koolaid. For example, if someone created an adversarial/rude variant of OpenAI's offerings I would be very interested. Taking the existing "what works" and targeting segments of that market that are underserved is less risky than direct competition or forging new markets.