avichal

13 ms·

61.
by avichal 15y ago
Agreed. I think thinking about "Why now?" is essential to picking a good problem
62.
by avichal 15y ago
Thanks much :) (Obviously) I don't think asking why now is the right time for your idea is premature. I think it's orthogonal to the product building piece. I think a lot of YC companies could avoid a lot of pain if they asked this question
63.
"Build something people want" is not enough(avichal.wordpress.com)
195 points by avichal 15y ago|57 comments
64.
by avichal 15y ago
That's the point of the post. There's lots of money out there. But it gets spent in ways that are different from what the typical entrepreneur and VC expect it to be spent on. The dynamics of how purchasing decisions are made are around cos
65.
by avichal 15y ago
Khan Academy - I point out the demographics in my post. It supports my point. Also note that it's free and a nonprofit, not a VC backed company. Wireless Generation - They have been around for 10 years and were not profitable at the time of
66.
by avichal 15y ago
Google is normally not outwardly competitor focused. Makes me think there are acquisition discussions going on behind the scenes and this is part of the diligence.
67.
by avichal 15y ago
Unfortunately students have the same mentality and have no buying power on their own. Khan Academy has built a great brand but is free. The demographic analysis in the article supports the thesis -- in my unbiased opinion ;-)
68.
by avichal 15y ago
Hi JByers -- blog author here. I don't think the comparison is non-sensical because the common thread tying all of these different segments together is the end buyer's perception of value. If you as the builder or service provider or techno
69.
by avichal 15y ago
I do wish them the best but I don't think it's a counter example. They've been around for 20 years, so if they are huge (I have no idea how big they really are) then it because they stuck it out for the long term. "The Great Courses was fou
70.
Why Education Companies Do Not Succeed(avichal.com)
230 points by avichal 15y ago|62 comments
71.
by avichal 15y ago
Hi, We're hoping to build a large, successful business. There is a lot of technology behind this that is a legitimate barrier to entry so we don't expect this will be copied in any meaningful way soon. We'll be writing blog posts to explain
72.
by avichal 15y ago
We'll be offering the whole service, just letting people in off the list slowly so we can make sure everyone has a good experience as they come in. Avichal, Spool Co-Founder
73.
by avichal 15y ago
Hi Martin, I'm one of the founders. Thanks for your feedback. The business model on this is pretty clear. It works like DropBox. Most users are casual users and cost us almost nothing. Heavy users have a clear pain point and will pay for it
74.
by avichal 15y ago
I love that Jobs story.
75.
by avichal 15y ago
Law firms are being disrupted like many other industries because of the Internet. They are set up with lots of overhead, expensive service based employees, and have a lot of mouths to feed. And since it's service based they have an incentiv
76.
by avichal 15y ago
I'm a big MixPanel fan. We use it at my company. The big differences: a) More real-time. Nothing is 100% realtime quite yet but MixPanel is by far the best. b) Event driven - GA is pageviews driven, KissMetrics (also a fantastic product) is
77.
by avichal 15y ago
A must read that's not on the list yet: On Liberty, John Stuart Mill. The thoughts/ideas on society and politics are the sort that will resonate with a lot of the HN crowd. They advocate things like free speech, freedom of thought, equal r
78.
by avichal 16y ago
The VC and angel world are tiny and it all revolves around reputation and trust. The negative perception is going to cost Spark a lot more than the breakup fee. I'm shocked that they DIDN'T get it.
79.
by avichal 16y ago
This is a way to bootstrap an app economy and solve the chicken and egg problem. If they launch with their own app store (like Nokia) no one will build for it and they won't get any device sales because they have no apps for the device. Thi
80.
by avichal 16y ago
Not really. Though 2.3 has been out for months, 90% of users are still on 2.1 and 2.2: http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-ve... It takes forever for Android users to get the new versions anyway so RIM users won't be
81.
by avichal 16y ago
Any "there isn't a bubble" believers want to comment on this one...?
82.
by avichal 16y ago
Actually I think they talked about that too "it eventually plans to offer businesses a self-serve platform for running deals"
83.
by avichal 16y ago
This effort by the NYTimes just seems misguided. Why don't media companies understand that the Internet is ubiquitous? There isn't a separate Internet on your iPad or your laptop or if you're going through a search engine or Twitter. It's a
84.
by avichal 16y ago
"Being a startup" is not a binary condition. Startups possess many admirable traits and many big companies manage to capture some or many of these. And many startups have problems like politics or bureaucracy that you find in big companies.
85.
by avichal 16y ago
I don't think this is true at all. Jobs re-invented Apple in about 6 years and did an amazing job with it. Being a startup means lots of things. At the core of it is to stop worrying about what you have to lose. Apple was able to do this be
86.
by avichal 16y ago
Why don't you go raise a little bit of money and get to that in a lot shorter time? Taking a $500k round and giving up 10% of your company to get to your goal 4 years more quickly is a worthwhile trade-off. If you have $500k in revenue and
87.
by avichal 16y ago
Great overview post. A really useful, related post might be what goes into a VC pitch and examples of great ones and some not so great ones (just as a reference).
88.
by avichal 16y ago
This isn't about Amazon or Netflix's size. It's about Apple's arbitrary interpretation of its policies. The App Store has had this problem since the beginning. Apple is purposely vague in it's definitions and chooses to apply them in whatev
89.
by avichal 16y ago
What did you write? 3 million pageviews a month is amazing.
90.
by avichal 16y ago
2 reasons: 1) The goal of the bill is to hang on to entrepreneurs who will generate new value and create new jobs. To drive "real value" you have to improve business productivity, make information accessible that wasn't accessible before, a

More ›