TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving?(zachboerger.com)
zachboerger.com
TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving?
http://www.zachboerger.com/post/31422688826/thoughts-on-tc-disrupt-seriously-what-problem-are?6fbe7100
24 comments
Going to a conference and then publicly ripping the participants (while being or not being a hypocrite about it) is just about as trendy as starting a startup. I bet there will be 199 more posts strewn about HN just like this by the time the conference is done.
Edit: I want to add that everyone loves to repeat all the smart things they read on other blogs on their own blogs in some vain attempt to seem wise but how many people actually get it or even follow their own advice? Saying something isn't the same as doing it.
Edit: I want to add that everyone loves to repeat all the smart things they read on other blogs on their own blogs in some vain attempt to seem wise but how many people actually get it or even follow their own advice? Saying something isn't the same as doing it.
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> Wait, what? You're writing a rant about other entrepreneurs not solving problems when your startup is "google alerts for video games and movies" with no apparent business model?
I see a clear business model. If you have thousands of people that want to know about upcoming movies and games you have a valuable asset for film and game studios.
I see a clear business model. If you have thousands of people that want to know about upcoming movies and games you have a valuable asset for film and game studios.
To second this, perhaps a little more solidly:
Q) Who owns Reddit? Q) Who owns the Gawker<->Jezebel<->"to infinity and beyond" series of sites
...
And so on. Then add the 6 major players, and the actual Corporations who have entire multi-million dollar departments of people doing this stuff, and handing it off to other major companies. You know, those old school "Mad Men" type establishments. Then the other tiers of viral media, advertising and so on. Then the "cool" players who get free stuff before the market to generate desire.
The OP needs some serious perspective. In the eyes of everyone looking at your site, you're not an entrepreneur, you've just told everyone you know 0% about how the market works.
>Painful. This shit flies with HN? Interesting.
Q) Who owns Reddit? Q) Who owns the Gawker<->Jezebel<->"to infinity and beyond" series of sites
...
And so on. Then add the 6 major players, and the actual Corporations who have entire multi-million dollar departments of people doing this stuff, and handing it off to other major companies. You know, those old school "Mad Men" type establishments. Then the other tiers of viral media, advertising and so on. Then the "cool" players who get free stuff before the market to generate desire.
The OP needs some serious perspective. In the eyes of everyone looking at your site, you're not an entrepreneur, you've just told everyone you know 0% about how the market works.
>Painful. This shit flies with HN? Interesting.
"What problem are you solving" is dogma. At the earliest stage, a startup is an experiment to see if people want something.
There are tons of examples of companies that started as toys, and ultimately became businesses. In hindsight you can always come up a description of the problem they were solving at the time, even if nobody knew the problem existed. You could do this for Twitter today: they solved the problem of (exercise to the reader).
There are tons of examples of companies that started as toys, and ultimately became businesses. In hindsight you can always come up a description of the problem they were solving at the time, even if nobody knew the problem existed. You could do this for Twitter today: they solved the problem of (exercise to the reader).
Thank you for this! That's one thought I had but forgot to mention in another comment below. Dogma is the perfect word for it too. I also believe the people repeating that dogma are doing it either out of ignorance or some attempt to make themselves feel important and world changing. That's where your second point comes in - those same people will do all sorts of mental gymnastics to explain the problem which may not even exist. Your example of Twitter is perfect too! They now say its some novel communication platform. Well, I'm pretty sure it started as what basically amounted to Facebook status updates on a site called Twitter. Now people are rewriting history to make the legend true.
Uber is a good example. Started as a black car service for Silicon Valley but are fixing transportation problems in major cities with eventually 5+ modes of transport for anyone. They're fixing urban logistics, at first they were a neat app.
While it's important to initially form an idea around a problem to be solved, the focus really should be on building a product to solve a problem in such a way that it would be painful for your customer to stop using your product.
That's how you create enough demand to properly charge for your product versus offering it for free and it being considered just a really cool idea.
That being said, there's quite a few "startups" launching every week that are really just neat projects or ideas, but aren't proper startups/products/businesses. That doesn't make them bad, just not in the same category as something that charges money. They're essentially trying to solve a problem they created themselves...said another way, they're a solution in search of a problem.
That's how you create enough demand to properly charge for your product versus offering it for free and it being considered just a really cool idea.
That being said, there's quite a few "startups" launching every week that are really just neat projects or ideas, but aren't proper startups/products/businesses. That doesn't make them bad, just not in the same category as something that charges money. They're essentially trying to solve a problem they created themselves...said another way, they're a solution in search of a problem.
I think some of this gets back to talking to customers asap and getting over the fear of them telling you that they don't want your product. The faster they tell you what pains they really are having, the faster you can move in the right direction. But good pitches need the one sentence "here's who we are" followed by the one sentence "here's how we're solving your problem". Get that correct and people will at least know why you are worthy of taking their cash. And as he referenced, vitamins = where you spend spare change, health care (painkillers) = large $$
I agree with you.
But we're wrong. We're just saying this because in our eyes, these "problems" aren't worth solving. We're not interested in them.
matchist (matchist.com), my current venture, wants to help freelance developers cut out all the bad things about freelancing. We want to save you time, money, and headaches.
I love this problem. It NEEDS to be solved.
But you might think it's the stupidest problem around.
But we're wrong. We're just saying this because in our eyes, these "problems" aren't worth solving. We're not interested in them.
matchist (matchist.com), my current venture, wants to help freelance developers cut out all the bad things about freelancing. We want to save you time, money, and headaches.
I love this problem. It NEEDS to be solved.
But you might think it's the stupidest problem around.
I don't identify with your problem, but I totally believe that it's a problem. I was at Disrupt and saw a lot of really cool companies solving real problems. That said, I also saw a lot of sexy apps and sites that really aren't addressing problems at all. They do cool things, look nice, and work well, but they really aren't addressing problems. Thoughts?
The startup gods have proclaimed that you must solve a problem and now everyone seems to be taking it as an absolute truth. The startup gods are wrong.
Listen, solving a problem is what we need more of in this world. It's hard, its rewarding, and the idea of it is sexy though the problem itself may not be. That said, solving some problem is not the only way to succeed or be relevant. Some things can be cool and sexy and total non-needs and still be a huge hit. Some things that are just fun and entertainment are not just successful but important in our lives! Yes, important! Like Zynga. I fucking hate them but they make freaking games and they're doing damn well (their downward spiral is irrelevant and unrelated to my point). How about the cheeseburger network (you know, Lolcats, I can has cheeseburger and all that?). Useless, entertaining, non-problem-solving ideas that are big hits.
I honestly say fuck solving problems. You know whats really important when it comes to starting a startup no matter if it solves a problem or not? It's this question:
Can I get people to give me money for this?
If the answer is yes then it's a good idea. Solving problems is awesome and if you think of something that solves a problem that you'll get money from that's even more awesome. But all this talk of solving problems seems more about people trying to make themselves feel superior or trick themselves into thinking they're changing the world rather than anything having to do with business.
Listen, solving a problem is what we need more of in this world. It's hard, its rewarding, and the idea of it is sexy though the problem itself may not be. That said, solving some problem is not the only way to succeed or be relevant. Some things can be cool and sexy and total non-needs and still be a huge hit. Some things that are just fun and entertainment are not just successful but important in our lives! Yes, important! Like Zynga. I fucking hate them but they make freaking games and they're doing damn well (their downward spiral is irrelevant and unrelated to my point). How about the cheeseburger network (you know, Lolcats, I can has cheeseburger and all that?). Useless, entertaining, non-problem-solving ideas that are big hits.
I honestly say fuck solving problems. You know whats really important when it comes to starting a startup no matter if it solves a problem or not? It's this question:
Can I get people to give me money for this?
If the answer is yes then it's a good idea. Solving problems is awesome and if you think of something that solves a problem that you'll get money from that's even more awesome. But all this talk of solving problems seems more about people trying to make themselves feel superior or trick themselves into thinking they're changing the world rather than anything having to do with business.
Brilliant. You said it all.
Gaming is a huge industry. Tell me what problems this whole industry solves, vitamin or painkiller? I would argue that it is a huge waste for the society. Same goes with alcohol. Do they acutally "create" more problems?
The truth is that people want to spend money to buy vitamins and many useless things. If you provide them and people buy, you have a business.
The notion of a startup having to solve a problem and the argument of vitamin or painkiller are stupid and amateur.
For OP, indeed, you are trying to solve a problem. But you create a new problem for me - I have to remember to go to your site to learn whatever I want to know, on top of many things I do everyday - cnn, wsj, techcrunch, gmail, YC news, facebook, twitter. I already get more information than what I can digest. I cannot remember to go to your site and will not have incentive to do it. Until you provide something unique that I need, I won't visit your site again. (I visited yesterday.)
Gaming is a huge industry. Tell me what problems this whole industry solves, vitamin or painkiller? I would argue that it is a huge waste for the society. Same goes with alcohol. Do they acutally "create" more problems?
The truth is that people want to spend money to buy vitamins and many useless things. If you provide them and people buy, you have a business.
The notion of a startup having to solve a problem and the argument of vitamin or painkiller are stupid and amateur.
For OP, indeed, you are trying to solve a problem. But you create a new problem for me - I have to remember to go to your site to learn whatever I want to know, on top of many things I do everyday - cnn, wsj, techcrunch, gmail, YC news, facebook, twitter. I already get more information than what I can digest. I cannot remember to go to your site and will not have incentive to do it. Until you provide something unique that I need, I won't visit your site again. (I visited yesterday.)
I know you didn't ask for product feedback, but I think your product has a problem: You need early adopters to start using it, but early adopters naturally hear about the news and developments that you claim to deliver. In otherwords, I shared your product with a few coworkers, we signed up, then we all independently decided that we'd hear about those things naturally, through other channels. Sounds like a vitamin.
Totally fine with the feedback. Thanks for checking us out! To address your point though, we've actually found that we have a pretty awesome mix of users that consists of both early adopters and more "normal" people. For example, my dad loves movies and gadgets but never reads any tech blogs or hears about this stuff normally. He likes using our site because he can hear about things he is interested in but normally never wouldn't have been exposed to. But again, thanks for the feedback; user acquisition is obviously always an issue.
It seems a little weird that someone who loves movies doesn't hear about them through any other sources. While I wanted to sign up for some of the movies, I knew I'd see ads for them on TV, or at bus stops when they launched. I've literally never missed the launch of something that I cared a lot about, because by definition I'd be the kind of person they'd be trying to reach. But the proof is in the data - if you're getting active users, then that's all that matters. Congrats :)
There are those of us who are interested in launches but just don't have the time to dedicate to keeping track of their status.
I'm sure most profitable companies were formed to solve a problem. But a few absurdly successful ones don't really fit that description. You can shoehorn them in, but it seems like a stretch to explain the "pain point" facebook solved. Instead, it seems like in those cases, they provided a new thing no one knew to want before.
funny, kelly sutton wrote a similar-ish post on TC Disrupt last year: http://kellysutton.tumblr.com/post/10164180568/your-idea-is-...
Last line of that post is hilarious.
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>> You need to be a painkiller, not a vitamin.
If you read that article, he actually says "very few are (painkillers)" ... being a vitamin isn't bad, it's just easier to market a painkiller ...
>> I feel like an asshole for saying all this, because I never want to talk badly about fellow entrepreneurs.
The fact that you have to add this to your post is a good clue that it may have been unwarranted or poorly worded.
Look, my startups don't cure cancer but I like to think they solve problems for people. If people ask me for honest advice about their startup or pitch, I will definitely give it. But I don't go to conferences and then publicly rip the participants (or most of them).