
A Google side project evolved into a $4B company - sahin-boydas
https://techcrunch.com/2019/03/29/how-a-google-side-project-evolved-into-a-4b-company/
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nostrademons
I first heard of Niantic when a friend mentioned in 2010 that they were
thinking of transferring to them to become their ~3rd employee. They didn't
end up doing it (went to Chrome instead). I went to the launch party for their
first product (Field Trip, early 2012) and still wear the T-shirt from it.

I think what many people don't understand is how many base-hits you typically
need to pull before getting a home run. Field Trip was a bust; it was mildly
interesting, but ultimately more annoying (basically, it would pop up
notifications on your phone detailing the history of various landmarks you
were walking past). Field Trip begat the location-aware game Ingress, which
was wildly popular within Google (though I never played - was wary of
addictions) but largely a niche success outside. Ingress begat Pokemon Go,
which is basically Ingress re-skinned with Pokemon characters and with some
extra AR features. Everybody knows Pokemon Go.

That's 3 major pivots from a guy who was already an experienced founder -
Intrinsic Graphics to Keyhole to a VP in Geo.

The story of many other recent hits is similar. Fortnite came out of nowhere -
except it didn't, their founder has been making games since 1991 and had a
string of base hits like Gears of War and Unreal Tournament. Bitcoin came out
of nowhere - except it didn't, [assuming Satoshi is Hal Finney] he'd
previously developed the first reusable proof-of-work system, was the second
developer at PGP, and had been working on crypto his whole life. Medium's the
culmination of Evan Williams's 4 startups (Blogger, Odeo, Twitter, Medium) to
bring publishing to the masses.

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ben_jones
Well ya the more times you roll the dice the more likely you are to land on
the numbers you want. But lets not pretend its about just rolling the dice as
much as possible...

Be a tenured serial entrepreneur with rubber stamps from popular VCs and tech
firms that will set you up on easy street to get funding, hire, or acquired.
From there not only is it easier to exit, but you can just use the funding to
buy some (or all) of the success you're after. Finally your risk tolerance is
massive because you can just stumble into a very well-payed
engineering/executive position even if you shit the bed.

There's no doubt been a lot of note-worthy tech created by Niantic BUT how
much of Pokemon GO's success is attributable to its ability to purchase and/or
network-into via Google connections the Pokemon IP? You know that
internationally viral brand that was already itching for a new game?

I think its disingenuous to push entrepreneurs to burnout BEFORE they learn
the inner-workings of a heavily slanted system. Arguably suffering is the best
way to learn it, but having gone through it myself I think there should be a
better way.

~~~
nostrademons
It's neither entirely about rolling the dice nor about connections & rubber
stamps, though those are _part_ of the story.

Rather, the lesson I got from watching Niantic's story unfold is the
importance of _uncovering_ and _correcting_ errors. You don't know the shape
of the problem you're solving when you first venture off to become an
entrepreneur. You'll discover that a lot of your assumptions were wrong. But
when you discover that, if you're resourceful enough, you'll figure out an
avenue for overcoming them.

In Niantic's case - the problem with Field Trip was that there wasn't really a
_point_ to it. The landmark histories were mildly interesting, but they didn't
fit into what I was doing with my phone at any given time. So Ingress
_created_ a point by adding teams and game mechanics; they made the landmarks
interesting by making visiting them the whole point of the game. And then the
big problem with Ingress was the lack of that branding, and so they partnered
with Nintendo to get the needed IP to make it a success.

Money certainly helps, but money alone doesn't create a successful startup
unless deployed in an area that's preventing you from attaining success.

~~~
ben_jones
My comment was a little cynical I just want to say thank you for the
interesting context on Niantic and agree that the ability to repeatedly
overcome obstacles and pivot/adapt a product is critical to most successful
start-ups.

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jzebedee
Only the first couple pages are visible, the rest is hidden behind the "Extra
Crunch" paywall.

~~~
quicklime
And, it's only available in a few countries (US, Canada, UK, France, Germany
and Spain). People from other countries can't pay even if they want to.

This is not how I imagined the web would end up :(

