14 ms·

How to get business ideas – remove steps

147 points by nate 12y ago

danso 12y ago
Having worked in an incubator space and constantly overhearing aspiring entrepreneurs' wildly impractical proposals...I've always wondered why it isn't just common sense that you heed the advice mentioned in another article currently on HN's front page: http://fridriksson.tumblr.com/post/86584610871/a-startup-postmortem-with-a-happy-ending-in-thailand http://fridriksson.tumblr.com/post/86584610871/a-startup-pos... > But our biggest self realization was that we were not users of our own product. We didn’t obsess over it and we didn’t love it. We loved the idea of it. That hurt. In a way, the OP is just another re-phrasing of this...if you know the steps of a process pretty well, it's because you're an active user. You know what steps are worth removing, and as an active user, you can maintain a tight feedback loop informing you whether the cost of removing those steps are worth it. And, as a cherry on top, you're actively making something you already do more enjoyable.
- mareofnight 12y ago
  I don't think this is necessarily the case. You do need to understand the idea's domain really well, but that doesn't have to be because it's something you do already. You could try to solve the problem of someone you know well, or have a cofounder who knows the problem domain better than you, or pick a market that seems underserved and learn about it until you get an idea and can make sure it's not a bad one. There are benefits to picking something you don't already do - or rather, something that most people who start startups don't do. People naturally think the most about optimizing things they do often, and when most of them are being told to "scratch your own itch", they do even more of that. So most software startups will be about things that people who write software and found startups do a lot of, and those markets will be the most competitive. If you solve your grandmother's problems instead of your own, there's a lot less competition.
- digikata 12y ago
  The flip side is also sometimes true. When you know the steps of some process well, it means you've internalized all the existing assumptions. That can make it difficult to clearly realize where removing steps is possible.
  - Terr_ 12y ago
    Sort of like why sometimes experts in a field make the worst teachers. They've forgotten the important transitional steps.
    - bryang 12y ago
      I guess this is why I will never teach math. When I was in high school I would always lose points on my tests because I never showed any work. It was always easier for me to imagine formulas in my head like puzzle pieces then writing them down.
maj0rhn 12y ago
The unstated assumption in this blog post is that any [ethical] idea that makes money is worthy. I would hope that persons of talent aspire to higher goals. A better measuring cup is of trivial benefit to humanity. A new dessert is actually a detractor. If all you can do is make new measuring cups and new desserts then, by all means, do it and support your family. But if you think you bring something special to the world, try to improve it in a significant way. If that means investing a few years of your life to go to nursing school (for example) and learn a profession of value, then make the investment. You will then find ample opportunities to innovate, and bring benefit to your fellow man.
- JacobJans 12y ago
  I find this post incredibly off. You are basically saying that it is pointless to be a pastry chef, and that joy in food is not significant. I would be very, very, careful about judging what is significant to humanity and what is not.
  - maj0rhn 12y ago
    You be the judge, but be fair about it. Does the world need more pastry chefs, or does it need more nurses? Does it need more people trying to improve on fresh strawberries, or does it need more water engineers to keep millions of people from dying of water-borne diarrheal diseases every year? It's an easy calculation if you think big (which is what people of talent should do). If you think small, then, indeed, you can get whatever answer you want.
    - Turing_Machine 12y ago
      You're assuming that people are interchangeable cogs. They aren't. Most pastry chefs would be incompetent and unhappy as nurses or engineers, and vice versa.
      - goblin89 12y ago
        > Most pastry chefs would be incompetent and unhappy as nurses or engineers, and vice versa. This, though, is a subjective judgement too—even if presented as fact. Not that I disagree with your point or something. Edit: come to think of it, it seems unlikely that many chefs were given a chance and tried training and working as nurses or engineers. So yes, I disagree with your point as well, not just scorn at subjectivity of the argument.
eduardordm 12y ago
I would also like to add that you need make sure you really understand the whole context when improving something. As someone who actually does the dishes, I cringed when I saw the OXO measuring cup, those small corners are hard to clean if flour gets stuck in there. Maybe the execution could use some work. If you consider washing part of the job, that measuring cup is worse than a common measuring cup.
- dave5104 12y ago
  If you're using it to measure solids like flour, you're actually using it incorrectly. The OXO cup is really for measuring liquids. To measure out solids (flour, sugar, etc.) you should be using solid measuring cups.
  - Turing_Machine 12y ago
    I like to measure solids like flour and sugar by weight whenever possible. Especially with flour, the packing density introduces too much variation to get a good measurement by volume (or so my experience has indicated).
    - dunham 12y ago
      I like to measure things like honey (21g = 1 tbsp) by weight too, because half of it tends to stick to the measuring spoon. Accuracy aside, I find it easier to cook by weight (especially if I'm scaling the recipe). I set the bowl on the scale, dump in an ingredient, press tare, dump in the next one, press tare. No fiddling around with measuring cups and spoons. What weight are you using for a cup of AP flour when converting recipes? (I usually go with 125 g, per the USDA nutrient database, but I've seen numbers as high as 150 g elsewhere.)
      - Turing_Machine 12y ago
        For my most common flour-using recipe (bread machine bread), I use 140 g/cup (the conversion in the recipe book suggests 137 g). Edit: that's for high-gluten bread flour, which may have a different density than AP flour.
wazoox 12y ago
Then you have the problem of selling it. Some people I know made a piece of software that literally destroys half (or more) the jobs among broadcast TV operators. They regularly got shown the door harshly because they presented the solution to the wrong person: either someone who'd lose his job in the process, or someone who'd lose half the team under her orders and therefore her power in the company.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- yasinn 12y ago
  In this case, present to boss.
- michaelbuddy 12y ago
  what is the software? please share a link? Something a small media company could use?
  - wazoox 12y ago
    Definitely what a small media company should use. It combines traffic management, ads insertions, media asset management in a very easy to use, full drag-and-drop web UI, completely customizable and an impressively complete API with full documentation. Really a fantastic product that puts everything from the big names to shame. It's available as both a standalone or cloud-hosted solution. It's so simple that usually only one journalist of graphic artist can manage a set of channels all by him/herself. http://www.chyro.fr/en/ http://www.chyro.fr/en/
ilaksh 12y ago
It is not difficult to come up with new business ideas or ways to improve on businesses that already exist. (As a side point, you don't really need to come up with new ideas or even make an improvement, you can just enter an existing market and be successful at selling.) I come up with new business ideas probably once a week. Maybe several in a day. It is orders of magnitude more difficult to actually effectively execute a business idea. And also often extremely difficult to successfully market it. The reason it is relatively easy to come up with a new idea: you just need to make a loose identification of a product or solution. To actually implement it, you have to fill in all of the details and refine them. A simple concept can encapsulate a huge amount of complexity and engineering work. For example, the OXO cup. Once you have that idea, you need to work out exactly what design to use and where to place the measurement labels. Then you need some kind of manufacturing. Manufacturing a product can be very complex. You need distribution. And then you need marketing. There are many reasons that marketing hard. For one thing, people are bombarded with products. There are so many new options that people have built up a tolerance for amazingness. Even if your product is absolutely incredible it may not break through into someone's consciousness for more than a moment. Also, people are busy and they have a limited capacity for learning new things. Even if your product makes things much easier, it is still a new thing for that person to learn, so they have to make an investment of their time and effort. And unfortunately with status quo bias there is a tendency for everyone to undervalue innovative ideas. And for your product to really become popular then you need to access network effects, i.e. move the entire herd.

147 points by nate 12y ago

danso 12y ago

Having worked in an incubator space and constantly overhearing aspiring entrepreneurs' wildly impractical proposals...I've always wondered why it isn't just common sense that you heed the advice mentioned in another article currently on HN's front page: http://fridriksson.tumblr.com/post/86584610871/a-startup-postmortem-with-a-happy-ending-in-thailand http://fridriksson.tumblr.com/post/86584610871/a-startup-pos... > But our biggest self realization was that we were not users of our own product. We didn’t obsess over it and we didn’t love it. We loved the idea of it. That hurt. In a way, the OP is just another re-phrasing of this...if you know the steps of a process pretty well, it's because you're an active user. You know what steps are worth removing, and as an active user, you can maintain a tight feedback loop informing you whether the cost of removing those steps are worth it. And, as a cherry on top, you're actively making something you already do more enjoyable.

mareofnight 12y ago
I don't think this is necessarily the case. You do need to understand the idea's domain really well, but that doesn't have to be because it's something you do already. You could try to solve the problem of someone you know well, or have a cofounder who knows the problem domain better than you, or pick a market that seems underserved and learn about it until you get an idea and can make sure it's not a bad one. There are benefits to picking something you don't already do - or rather, something that most people who start startups don't do. People naturally think the most about optimizing things they do often, and when most of them are being told to "scratch your own itch", they do even more of that. So most software startups will be about things that people who write software and found startups do a lot of, and those markets will be the most competitive. If you solve your grandmother's problems instead of your own, there's a lot less competition.
digikata 12y ago
The flip side is also sometimes true. When you know the steps of some process well, it means you've internalized all the existing assumptions. That can make it difficult to clearly realize where removing steps is possible.
- Terr_ 12y ago
  Sort of like why sometimes experts in a field make the worst teachers. They've forgotten the important transitional steps.
  - bryang 12y ago
    I guess this is why I will never teach math. When I was in high school I would always lose points on my tests because I never showed any work. It was always easier for me to imagine formulas in my head like puzzle pieces then writing them down.

maj0rhn 12y ago

The unstated assumption in this blog post is that any [ethical] idea that makes money is worthy. I would hope that persons of talent aspire to higher goals. A better measuring cup is of trivial benefit to humanity. A new dessert is actually a detractor. If all you can do is make new measuring cups and new desserts then, by all means, do it and support your family. But if you think you bring something special to the world, try to improve it in a significant way. If that means investing a few years of your life to go to nursing school (for example) and learn a profession of value, then make the investment. You will then find ample opportunities to innovate, and bring benefit to your fellow man.

JacobJans 12y ago
I find this post incredibly off. You are basically saying that it is pointless to be a pastry chef, and that joy in food is not significant. I would be very, very, careful about judging what is significant to humanity and what is not.
- maj0rhn 12y ago
  You be the judge, but be fair about it. Does the world need more pastry chefs, or does it need more nurses? Does it need more people trying to improve on fresh strawberries, or does it need more water engineers to keep millions of people from dying of water-borne diarrheal diseases every year? It's an easy calculation if you think big (which is what people of talent should do). If you think small, then, indeed, you can get whatever answer you want.
  - Turing_Machine 12y ago
    You're assuming that people are interchangeable cogs. They aren't. Most pastry chefs would be incompetent and unhappy as nurses or engineers, and vice versa.
    - goblin89 12y ago
      > Most pastry chefs would be incompetent and unhappy as nurses or engineers, and vice versa. This, though, is a subjective judgement too—even if presented as fact. Not that I disagree with your point or something. Edit: come to think of it, it seems unlikely that many chefs were given a chance and tried training and working as nurses or engineers. So yes, I disagree with your point as well, not just scorn at subjectivity of the argument.

eduardordm 12y ago

I would also like to add that you need make sure you really understand the whole context when improving something. As someone who actually does the dishes, I cringed when I saw the OXO measuring cup, those small corners are hard to clean if flour gets stuck in there. Maybe the execution could use some work. If you consider washing part of the job, that measuring cup is worse than a common measuring cup.

dave5104 12y ago
If you're using it to measure solids like flour, you're actually using it incorrectly. The OXO cup is really for measuring liquids. To measure out solids (flour, sugar, etc.) you should be using solid measuring cups.
- Turing_Machine 12y ago
  I like to measure solids like flour and sugar by weight whenever possible. Especially with flour, the packing density introduces too much variation to get a good measurement by volume (or so my experience has indicated).
  - dunham 12y ago
    I like to measure things like honey (21g = 1 tbsp) by weight too, because half of it tends to stick to the measuring spoon. Accuracy aside, I find it easier to cook by weight (especially if I'm scaling the recipe). I set the bowl on the scale, dump in an ingredient, press tare, dump in the next one, press tare. No fiddling around with measuring cups and spoons. What weight are you using for a cup of AP flour when converting recipes? (I usually go with 125 g, per the USDA nutrient database, but I've seen numbers as high as 150 g elsewhere.)
    - Turing_Machine 12y ago
      For my most common flour-using recipe (bread machine bread), I use 140 g/cup (the conversion in the recipe book suggests 137 g). Edit: that's for high-gluten bread flour, which may have a different density than AP flour.

wazoox 12y ago

Then you have the problem of selling it. Some people I know made a piece of software that literally destroys half (or more) the jobs among broadcast TV operators. They regularly got shown the door harshly because they presented the solution to the wrong person: either someone who'd lose his job in the process, or someone who'd lose half the team under her orders and therefore her power in the company.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
yasinn 12y ago
In this case, present to boss.
michaelbuddy 12y ago
what is the software? please share a link? Something a small media company could use?
- wazoox 12y ago
  Definitely what a small media company should use. It combines traffic management, ads insertions, media asset management in a very easy to use, full drag-and-drop web UI, completely customizable and an impressively complete API with full documentation. Really a fantastic product that puts everything from the big names to shame. It's available as both a standalone or cloud-hosted solution. It's so simple that usually only one journalist of graphic artist can manage a set of channels all by him/herself. http://www.chyro.fr/en/ http://www.chyro.fr/en/

ilaksh 12y ago

It is not difficult to come up with new business ideas or ways to improve on businesses that already exist. (As a side point, you don't really need to come up with new ideas or even make an improvement, you can just enter an existing market and be successful at selling.) I come up with new business ideas probably once a week. Maybe several in a day. It is orders of magnitude more difficult to actually effectively execute a business idea. And also often extremely difficult to successfully market it. The reason it is relatively easy to come up with a new idea: you just need to make a loose identification of a product or solution. To actually implement it, you have to fill in all of the details and refine them. A simple concept can encapsulate a huge amount of complexity and engineering work. For example, the OXO cup. Once you have that idea, you need to work out exactly what design to use and where to place the measurement labels. Then you need some kind of manufacturing. Manufacturing a product can be very complex. You need distribution. And then you need marketing. There are many reasons that marketing hard. For one thing, people are bombarded with products. There are so many new options that people have built up a tolerance for amazingness. Even if your product is absolutely incredible it may not break through into someone's consciousness for more than a moment. Also, people are busy and they have a limited capacity for learning new things. Even if your product makes things much easier, it is still a new thing for that person to learn, so they have to make an investment of their time and effort. And unfortunately with status quo bias there is a tendency for everyone to undervalue innovative ideas. And for your product to really become popular then you need to access network effects, i.e. move the entire herd.