
How To Disrupt And "Hipmunk" An Industry - jasonlbaptiste
http://onstartups.com/tabid/3339/bid/41534/9-Ways-To-Disrupt-And-Hipmunk-An-Industry.aspx
======
swombat
I'm sorry, but this article really lacks context, and is grossly
overgeneralising (see [http://swombat.com/2011/1/20/how-to-write-good-startup-
advic...](http://swombat.com/2011/1/20/how-to-write-good-startup-advice-
articles) )...

Most of those would be good pieces of advice given the right amount of
context, but they are blown up into universal advice and, even worse, a "how
to" (yes, I know the title of the original article doesn't say "How to", but
it was posted to HN by its author, jason, and so he chose both titles!). This
is not a "how to" for disruption. A better how-to for that topic would be this
one: <http://swombat.com/2011/2/18/how-to-develop-disruptive-ideas> by someone
who's written a book about the topic after spending much time studying it, and
so has had the chance to develop a generic method.

Instead, this article is a collection of potentially good pieces of advice
that can be deadly if used without being properly understood.

Anyway, so my point is, I think you can do _much_ better than this, Jason,
given your skill at writing and your breadth of knowledge of startups.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
I've done better, I can be honest about that. Way better. I'd give this a
5.5/10 on my scale. I wanted to focus in more on the type of things Hipmunk
and hellofax are doing. Disruption as a whole is another topic and would take
a lot of time to write, hence why I've held off.

As for the title. HN automatically changes from "X ways" to "How To", so I
just did it to save the editors + pg time.

As a sidenote, the comments on HN have gone to shit lately. We always complain
about HN going to shit,but I finally think it's almost at that point. Maybe
it's Jacques leaving or something I can't put my finger on, but the magic is
gone. A lot of the comments focus on minute points that don't address the
topic at hand. Before you say "oh it's because it's your article", I say, hold
on a second. The comments are focusing in on whether hipmunk is disruptive
instead of the actual points of the article, aside from Swombat's. It's not
even trolling. People are still very nice. It's just insight. I'm not learning
as much as I used to here.

~~~
swombat
I wouldn't say it's because of your article, but I'm not sure it's such a new
development... Geeks have always had a propensity for focusing on minor points
of disagreement... (particularly when they disagree with the title/subject)

Focusing on the article, I think it would have been better presented as
"Things Hipmunk is doing right" - then it would have an implicit context, and
could be insightful without generalising to all disruptive startups. In a way,
the "disruptive" tag did more harm than good, by focusing the discussion on
people arguing over whether Hipmunk is disruptive according to their personal
semantics...

Oh well!

(PS: Sorry for the 'tough love', but I knew you could take it ;-) )

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Sure, but recently it's been arguments about minor points with no substance. I
almsot feel like we're getting meta here. heh.

Don't apologize about the tough love! Listen, when I don't perform, call my
ass out. I don't like sugarcoated things and when I'm below par, I need to be
told. To me that's just straight up love.

------
absconditus
"The word disruption is thrown around way too much."

I agree. What has Hipmunk disrupted?

~~~
kin
I concur. I'm a big fan of Ohanian and what he's trying to do with Hipmunk,
but as of now there is no disruption, more like a cult following.

One thing to point out on their efforts is that they managed to work out a
deal with AA while AA removed themselves from Orbitz, Expedia, and the lot.
I'd consider that progress towards disruption.

~~~
realitygrill
You mean Huffman, right?

~~~
kin
Ah, right. Although technically, both are there now.

------
ctide
To 'Hipmunk' an industry: Be a cofounder of a successful startup. Leave that
company. Make a new one. Whatever industry you're involved in will be
hipmunked!

------
6ren
In Christensen's definition of _disruption_ there's nothing about
"excruciating pain". It's about serving non-consumers, then getting better. A
key idea is you don't confront a competitor head-on, but begin in markets that
they don't care about, with a product that's not as good, in _their customers'
opinion_ , and so doesn't threaten them.

> _Disruptive innovation_ , a term of art coined by Clayton Christensen,
> describes a process by which a product or service takes root initially in
> simple applications at the bottom of a market and then relentlessly moves
> ‘up market’, eventually displacing established competitors.

> An innovation that is disruptive allows a whole new population of consumers
> access to a product or service that was historically only accessible to
> consumers with a lot of money or a lot of skill. Characteristics of
> disruptive businesses, at least in their initial stages, can include: lower
> gross margins, smaller target markets, and simpler products and services
> that may not appear as attractive as existing solutions when compared
> against traditional performance metrics.

> Because companies tend to innovate faster than their customers’ lives
> change, most organizations eventually end up producing products or services
> that are too good, too expensive, and too inconvenient for many customers.
> By only pursuing “sustaining innovations” that perpetuate what has
> historically helped them succeed, companies unwittingly open the door to
> “disruptive innovations”.
> <http://www.claytonchristensen.com/disruptive_innovation.html> [see also
> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology#The_theor...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disruptive_technology#The_theory)]

Far from being excruciatingly painful, the disrupted incumbent is often at the
height of their success, well-respected and well-liked, and doing a great job
at serving their customers. For example, just before Digital's fall (the
puzzle that Christensen wanted to understand in his PhD) it was a highly
lauded company. _How could Digital get killed?_ he implored.

To me, this article's use of "disruption" is a signal of quality that says:
_this is not a rigorous article._ It seems to be using _disruption_ in its
common dictionary meaning, _to shake things up_. But when writing on
technology adoption and startups to a seasoned audience, one would expect an
awareness of the technical meaning. Although, to be fair, it does seem that
many people in startup circles use the term extremely broadly (as if it meant
"to compete with" or "to beat"). I agree with the article on that point.

A counterpoint to this entire comment: fortune favours the brave, not the
meticulous.

------
calbear81
Jason is spot on that Hipmunk is trying to ease pain in the flight booking
industry. Booking flights is largely undifferentiated in the space with low-
price sort and sites bombarded with ads all aimed at squeezing a few more
bucks out of a low-margin industry (flight rev share to partners are less than
$3/ticket).

Is it disruptive to the flight industry? I don't think so. I love the intent
of Hipmunk but to say disruptive implies a deeper seated change that I don't
think Hipmunk is driving in flights. You mentioned Square which both solves an
interface pain point but is also shifting payments to a mobile on-site
platform for small businesses. They are doing business differently because of
Square and are able to service a new segment of customers they were not able
to before (ones with credit cards).

What would be disruptive to the airline industry? I think to disrupt the
industry, you would need to change the way people fly or how they buy/book air
travel as a whole. One idea that I think would be considered disruptive is if
someone introduced pre-paid flight vouchers to lock in prices much like you
would to gas/oil contracts. This would change the airline's supply/demand
model, it would change the way we "hunt" for low prices, and change the
general way we view air travel (instead of waiting for a low price, we've
already paid for x number of flights so we're free to go as needed).

The other points in the article are generally spot on for startups to focus on
your power users and build a fan base. The one thing about calling out your
competitors is that it's easy to do when you are clearly and squarely about
reducing pain and friction and that your target audience clearly sympathizes
with your intentions. No smart competitor would come out and call you out on
trying to do the consumer some good unless they want a PR backlash.

------
wensing
Similarly, weather is an ugly, painful, lost-in-yesterday category--which is
why we're so glad to be in it.

------
pnathan
Hipmunk has an _amazing_ interface. It is simply revolutionarily better than
existing flight sites. I don't fly much, but boy howdy, I don't plan to move
away from Hipmunk.

I don't think they disrupted the online travel industry, however. (yet?) I'd
like to see them become _the_ flight search portal.

~~~
lazyjeff
I don't get what's so great about their interface. Sure it's got eye candy.
But I can't even search for +- 1 day from my selected date. Most airline or
travel sites can.

~~~
TillE
Yeah, that's a rather important feature, given that airlines often run certain
flights only on certain days. I don't personally do much business travel, so
when I fly, my dates are _extremely_ flexible.

It also seems to completely lack EasyJet, which makes it nearly useless for
intra-Europe flights.

I've seen quite a lot of Hipmunk hype, and it _does_ have a nice UI that
presents information well. But in terms of actually finding the cheapest
flight in a given time window, I'll stick with Kayak.

------
rabble
All hipmonk did was provide ITA's Matrix time bar interface with the ability
to book tickets. Brilliant, and they added some marketing. It wasn't hard or
innovative. Most people simply didn't know about that UI.

------
gcb
the hipmunk path can be applied to any industry, given the existing condition
(#1 bellow) on the field:

1\. get solution used for 30yr in the industry but closed to insiders

2\. provide same solution for end consumers

3\. profit.

