Thanks for being so open and honest about the whole thing.
You said, if you were profitable, you wouldn't be shutting down. But if you think there should be a way to make social payments work then don't you think its just a matter of time when you would be profitable.
I mean minimum profitability also doesn't really justify what is called in other posts the 'opportunity cost', but if you are working on something big and still believe there is customer value then profitability will come eventually.
And if that belief is still there then maybe just buckle down for sometime in a paying gig and then go back again. It might take your mind of it for sometime which might actually give you some good insights on how to take it ahead.
I though, still understand that there could be other personal reasons for you to do this, in which case please feel free to not respond.
Thanks again for the post and best of luck for the future.
We didn't want to do Tipjoy as a side project. Like I mentioned in other threads, payments isn't something to do lightly. Any contracting that would pay the bills wouldn't leave enough time to work on Tipjoy.
I didnt really mean it as a side project. I understand it won't work that way. Just keep it on the side till you are able to raise more funds, or organize from other sources (job,consulting etc.) to give you a decent runway.
If sounds like they would need new funds now though, not way off into the future where they could hit profitability. The interest in another round of funding would probably be low for a company that has chewed through a sizable chunk of funding and so far not produced the results they were hoping for.
1. Building a startup and not falling in love.
2. Falling in love and screwing up a startup.
Though both don't have to be exclusive, I bet 2. is a better choice. Also you have your whole life for startups, wheras falling in love would be constrained to a short number of years.
I think go with the girl and figure the startup thing along.
Actual tech guys as VC. It's fantastic. I think it explains their past success and why they are capitalized at $300mm. I expect nothing but success from these guys.
Couldnt DISAGREE more. The advice is extremely banal bordering on common sense but most importantly discounts the fact that a lot of startups are built not to solve any existing problem but perhaps to just better an existing solution.
The semantics are crucial here, because solving a problem almost implies that it is something a customer 'understands' to be a problem and not just satisfed with the status quo - that is true for almost everything - give me a better house, car, laptop, email, search etc. etc. anyday and if its really good enough I will switch.
The biggest startups were not found by scratching an 'itch' but through founders idiosyncratic views of the status quo and how they belived (without an MBA, without a customer survey and without figuring out if it was really an 'itch') on what was a better way, and for a long time without any external validation.
Selling books online - how does that even make sense, the internet was supposed to get rid of books but Amazon found a way. The iPod - if no one even knew something like this can be built, how can it possibly be a part of their 'itch'.
Twitter - I bet there was no itch here too.
But all of the examples you gave solve problems. With Amazon's kindle and associated service, they helped solved problems related to distribution of books, storage of large collections and portability. After having just packed up and moved my book collection, I can see real value in having something like the Kindle.
The iPod solved the problem of poor user interfaces and managing your music collection, and it did this better then any other current mp3 player on the market.
The main point of the article is to make something because it is of actual use and not just because it seems like a good idea. He never says only confine yourself to well defined problems, and he explicitly says to consider making something which is better then any of the existing solutions.
Your own idiosyncratic views of the status quo can allow you to see the situation in a different light and how things can be better. You may be the only one who thinks this way, and others will only understand that there was a problem only after seeing your solution. But that does not mean that the problem did not exist or that a better solution did not exist.
I think its more of a change in the thought process. A lot of times identifying the problem you are trying to solve (lets say u did start thinking of that as an idea) - provides you the solutions for the market, positioning, pricing and more. So the author's point is if you don't have a real problem you are solving - you are probably not headed anywhere. Eventually even if u call it an idea - you still got to figure out the problem to tell the user why to adopt it.
The way I see it the take away is more about the way you think about your product than about where or how you started or what terminology you give.
And also as edw519 there would be very few outliers and of course they are a gamble. Every invention is. As you mention google and twitter you should also note that figuring out how to build a business out of these ideas is hard. All search engines faced the problem - advertising made it a huge success but did come very late. Twitter for a long time now has been on the same Q.
So it does make sense to think of your product as an idea to create something ground breaking but for most part, figuring out the problem you solve simplifies a lot.
Your last little blurb is off the mark:
Mp3 players existed long before the iPod, but they had poor usability and no centralized store to legally purchase music. Bookstores existed long before amazon, but their inventory was limited. Blogging existed long before twitter, but it was a bit overkill to use existing solutions for micro-blogging.
Yes, but everyone was happy with the status quo of MP3 players at the time. Nobody wanted the iPod. Everybody said it would fail. And certainly no one was asking for a centralized music store. Pfff!
I don't really agree with OC on other points, but the iPod really didn't scratch an itch. It changed the game by creating something new, not something that "solved a problem."
To say the iPod solved a problem is pure hindsight.
I have to disagree with you here. I had a couple MP3 players before the iPod and it was obvious that they were pieces of crap. Very obvious. I didn't know how to make them better. I knew that they had unnecessary pain in syncing, control, and storage space.
I don't own any mobile Apple products now but the iPod really did make portable digital music players mainstream through its cachet AND the problems it fixed.
A lot of people weren't happy with MP3 players at the time. It's not like they were extremely popular before the iPod. Specifically, before the iPod there was no MP3 player that could both fit in your pocket and hold your whole music collection.
slightly offtopic, but I am fundamentally opposed to this journal-conferences monopoly on published research and the related profiteering by the likes of springer.
Its like the newspaper industry which has outlived its business model.
Someone please youtube the whole thing and kill them already.
Someone please youtube the whole thing and kill them already.
Ever heard of Google Scholar? As long as researchers put their papers up on their personal websites -- and almost everyone does, these days -- Google will find them. Sure, there isn't 100% coverage; but I'd say that Google Scholar provides much better coverage for published research than youtube provides for TV shows.
As a student that uses Google scholar quite often "almost everyone" is a lot lower than you think it is. At least in computer science and related fields, I have to use my schools access to journals almost every time.
That's odd. I'm a computer scientist who uses Google scholar quite often, and I can't remember when I last needed to read a paper which Google couldn't find for me.
Maybe the situation is different in my fields (algorithms and cryptography) than in yours?
Almost everyone does in certain, but not all, disciplines. A lot of papers in subjects like Biology and Chemistry, for example, don't seem to be as accessible.
The problem is not really finding stuff. It's a filtering problem. If the article made it through this process, people's priors are more favorable and they might actually read it or not dismiss it immediately upon the first disagreement. I don't like the process either. I also have no other solution.
I think arxiv is a great start but still seems to be kind of internet add-on to the old way rather than being a rethink from the ground up to the research business.
I liked the "Cite as" feature, but there are fundamental issues which I think needs to be changed:
1. Anyone should be able to comment/discuss articles. With perhaps karma based user voting to surface the best comments. Each comment should again be citable.
2. The text should be in HTML- shareable simply and acted upon by the community.
3. A reddit style list for each topic listing the recent,high impact papers. High impact is again voted on by the community, again with people who are 'known' to produce better research having more weight.
Are you familiar with the Open Access movement (http://www.plos.org/oa/index.html) along with the legislation recently passed (and currently under attack) which mandates all NIH funded research be made publicly available within a year of initial publication? Please write to your congressperson to let them know that you support the Open Access initiative!
Seems like Google is playing catch-up to yahoo for once. This has searchmonkey written all over it. Yahoo though, seems to be still without its mojo so cant see it capitalizing on this thing - even assuming it goes big.
You said, if you were profitable, you wouldn't be shutting down. But if you think there should be a way to make social payments work then don't you think its just a matter of time when you would be profitable.
I mean minimum profitability also doesn't really justify what is called in other posts the 'opportunity cost', but if you are working on something big and still believe there is customer value then profitability will come eventually.
And if that belief is still there then maybe just buckle down for sometime in a paying gig and then go back again. It might take your mind of it for sometime which might actually give you some good insights on how to take it ahead.
I though, still understand that there could be other personal reasons for you to do this, in which case please feel free to not respond.
Thanks again for the post and best of luck for the future.