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Why would it not be worth it then? Cuz if I was presented with some compelling evidence at to why I should not pursue mobile wireless. I will be more than willi

Why would it not be worth it then? Cuz if I was presented with some compelling evidence at to why I should not pursue mobile wireless. I will be more than willing to change the direction of my start up.

Alex3917 20y ago
1) There are hundreds of different cellphone models. You need to alter your product to work on each one. Even the cellphone companies aren't able to do this. Nokia tried to make a software program that would let you find your friends, and they could only make it work on seven or eight of their OWN phones. Yahoo has search software that works on many models of phones, but they also have 100 hackers employed to work full time on just that. You won't have 100 people. 2) The cell phone carriers turn off parts of the bluetooth spectrum to prevent people from downloading their own ringtones. This also prevents people from using your software if it needs bluetooth. 3) Cell phone carriers will never partner with you. At least not on terms that allow you to make a profit. 4) Even if one cell phone carrier partners with you, the rest won't. 5) Any software that takes advantage of the phone feature will drain the battery very fast. If you need to ping the cell tower ever five minutes, that means you have to recharge the phone every two hours. Which essentially means the phone is now worthless for making calls. 6) Most people don't know how to load software onto their cellphone, even if they were willing to pay for it. 7) Even if you can get some people using your software on their phone, to everyone else it will just look like they are sending text messages. If no one can see others using your software then it isn't viral and it won't spread. 8) Cell phones don't fit into the pockets of girls pants. (This is actually a serious problems) 9) There have been hundreds of entrepreneurs who have gone into mobile, and they have all failed. I can name two dozen companies that have tried to do social networking over cell phones. It's clearly something people want, but none have been able to release a decent product for the reasons above. 10) The next generation of WiFi will make probably make your product obsolete in two years anyway.
- jamongkad 20y ago
  And yet YCombinator is funding Loopt. Care to explain this? Does this mean you think Loopt will fail as well?
  - Alex3917 20y ago
    I don't know if Loopt will fail or not because I don't know how close they are to partnering with other carriers. I do know that if they can't expand beyond Boost then they have zero chance of succeeding, and publicly we haven't seen much evidence of progress in nearly a year. I also know that their CEO said if he had to do it again, he wouldn't do a business that relied on partnering with the carriers. As for YCombinator, PG described it as being a difficult problem to solve, but noted that the job of a startup is to solve difficult problems. Certainly you can get rich solving a problem that's too hard for everyone else. But there are a lot of other problems with fairly easy answers, it's just that no one else has figured out that answer yet. I'm not saying definitely don't do it, but certainly be aware of the issues. If your business manages to avoid these central issues, then maybe it's feasible. But if you're going to try to pull a Ulysses S. Grant style meat-grinder approach, then, well, good luck because you'll need it.
    - jamongkad 20y ago
      Hmmm something to think about indeed, anyways good points on the issues it actually gave me a "Don't do-avoid" list for future plans and ideas.

Alex3917 20y ago

1) There are hundreds of different cellphone models. You need to alter your product to work on each one. Even the cellphone companies aren't able to do this. Nokia tried to make a software program that would let you find your friends, and they could only make it work on seven or eight of their OWN phones. Yahoo has search software that works on many models of phones, but they also have 100 hackers employed to work full time on just that. You won't have 100 people. 2) The cell phone carriers turn off parts of the bluetooth spectrum to prevent people from downloading their own ringtones. This also prevents people from using your software if it needs bluetooth. 3) Cell phone carriers will never partner with you. At least not on terms that allow you to make a profit. 4) Even if one cell phone carrier partners with you, the rest won't. 5) Any software that takes advantage of the phone feature will drain the battery very fast. If you need to ping the cell tower ever five minutes, that means you have to recharge the phone every two hours. Which essentially means the phone is now worthless for making calls. 6) Most people don't know how to load software onto their cellphone, even if they were willing to pay for it. 7) Even if you can get some people using your software on their phone, to everyone else it will just look like they are sending text messages. If no one can see others using your software then it isn't viral and it won't spread. 8) Cell phones don't fit into the pockets of girls pants. (This is actually a serious problems) 9) There have been hundreds of entrepreneurs who have gone into mobile, and they have all failed. I can name two dozen companies that have tried to do social networking over cell phones. It's clearly something people want, but none have been able to release a decent product for the reasons above. 10) The next generation of WiFi will make probably make your product obsolete in two years anyway.

jamongkad 20y ago
And yet YCombinator is funding Loopt. Care to explain this? Does this mean you think Loopt will fail as well?
- Alex3917 20y ago
  I don't know if Loopt will fail or not because I don't know how close they are to partnering with other carriers. I do know that if they can't expand beyond Boost then they have zero chance of succeeding, and publicly we haven't seen much evidence of progress in nearly a year. I also know that their CEO said if he had to do it again, he wouldn't do a business that relied on partnering with the carriers. As for YCombinator, PG described it as being a difficult problem to solve, but noted that the job of a startup is to solve difficult problems. Certainly you can get rich solving a problem that's too hard for everyone else. But there are a lot of other problems with fairly easy answers, it's just that no one else has figured out that answer yet. I'm not saying definitely don't do it, but certainly be aware of the issues. If your business manages to avoid these central issues, then maybe it's feasible. But if you're going to try to pull a Ulysses S. Grant style meat-grinder approach, then, well, good luck because you'll need it.
  - jamongkad 20y ago
    Hmmm something to think about indeed, anyways good points on the issues it actually gave me a "Don't do-avoid" list for future plans and ideas.