Okay, let's leave Google out of this for a moment. My emphasis was that the transition from "startup" to "business" seems to happen when you connect with paying customers.
I even posted a post to this effect where I basically summed up the most interesting part (for me) of a marketing book:
In order to have a clear value proposition to get people to give you their money, you need to answer (according to the book) these questions in succession of difficulty:
Who you are / what you do / for who / because they need what thing that they can't do without you / unlike your competitors / your different in what way / which is a very important distinction (how?) and makes people care (why?).
I'd say most startups start with "who they are" and stop. Some make it to "what they do" although not expressed clearly. The part about "for who" and "why they care" never seems to be spelled out, just implied or something.
The first response is by some guy who took this as both a personal attack and an attack on the whole Y Combinator community!
Then PG comes on and says, "well such and such venture capitalist says he funds business that solve a problem the founders had."
I try to point out that that only holds true as long as that problem is one a huge market of people are also having and are willing to pay for the resolution of.
Then, in a rather futile and pointless exercise, he goes on to systematically knock about 30 points off my all-time high of 80, perhaps under the delusion that I secretly covet a high point tally so I can impress him or something.
It's like, the very mere suggestion that people need to tie their technical ability to practical solution solving for paying customers, especially in this economic climate, seems to meet with rage and fury from programmers who seem to take basic economic reality like a personal insult or something.
> "Make something people will want", since people don't
> always know what they want.
That would need perspective and ability to anticipate possible patterns of future development, ability to assign probabilities to multiple scenarios, etc.
All "right brain stuff". Most programmers I've come across, especially here, couldn't seem to care less as long as they post their startup and score points from peers.
Most programmers I've come across, especially here, couldn't seem to care less as long as they post their startup and score points from peers.
Perhaps you could stop being so nice to us. Just kidding. Believe me, most of the programmers here understand this completely. We also understand that things like quantitative market analysis, business plans, etc are for the most part useless because no battle plan survives contact with the enemy. In this regard, I think we are more right-brained, or at the least more honest, in terms of what we think users want. We put out a rough approximation of what we think they want and let them guide us. What could be more empathetic than that?
From my understanding, Y has so far been involved in about 80 startups or so.
Name 1 that provides a benefit people care enough to pay for.
... ... ... ...
But if what you said is true, ie, that programmers are "more honest in terms of what we think users want", shouldn't you be able to point to a lot of things?
If it's true that "We put out a rough approximation of what we think they want and let them guide us", how come nobody seems to be guiding anybody towards an offering people are willing to pay for?
Or do you guys just think you're "more honest" and "empathetic" when in reality you may be very, very far from the reality of what people actually want enough to pay for?
I could see adpinion and clickfacts possibly going somewhere to an extent ... though only because I don't know enough about advertising to figure out if they won't be able to get lots of customers
I can't help but notice, though, that clickfact's management team seems to be around PG's age so I wouldn't call it a pure Y Combinator thing based on the premise of Y Combinator as I understand it.
I even posted a post to this effect where I basically summed up the most interesting part (for me) of a marketing book:
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=127157
In order to have a clear value proposition to get people to give you their money, you need to answer (according to the book) these questions in succession of difficulty:
Who you are / what you do / for who / because they need what thing that they can't do without you / unlike your competitors / your different in what way / which is a very important distinction (how?) and makes people care (why?).
I'd say most startups start with "who they are" and stop. Some make it to "what they do" although not expressed clearly. The part about "for who" and "why they care" never seems to be spelled out, just implied or something.
The first response is by some guy who took this as both a personal attack and an attack on the whole Y Combinator community!
Then PG comes on and says, "well such and such venture capitalist says he funds business that solve a problem the founders had."
I try to point out that that only holds true as long as that problem is one a huge market of people are also having and are willing to pay for the resolution of.
Then, in a rather futile and pointless exercise, he goes on to systematically knock about 30 points off my all-time high of 80, perhaps under the delusion that I secretly covet a high point tally so I can impress him or something.
It's like, the very mere suggestion that people need to tie their technical ability to practical solution solving for paying customers, especially in this economic climate, seems to meet with rage and fury from programmers who seem to take basic economic reality like a personal insult or something.
> "Make something people will want", since people don't > always know what they want.
That would need perspective and ability to anticipate possible patterns of future development, ability to assign probabilities to multiple scenarios, etc.
All "right brain stuff". Most programmers I've come across, especially here, couldn't seem to care less as long as they post their startup and score points from peers.