
Frighteningly Unambitious Startup Ideas - HelgeSeetzen
http://ardenthoughts.tumblr.com/
======
pg
"If I were Paul Graham, these types of companies simply would not satisfy me
(despite what look to be very lucrative payoffs)."

That's hilarious, because I'm the one who wrote all the summaries of the
startups that she's judging them by. I deliberately express startup ideas as x
for y whenever possible because that's the most efficient way to describe a
startup in a few words. Airbnb, for example, was in its day "eBay for space."

On Demo Day we accompany each startup's name with a brief summary of what
they're doing. The goal of these summaries is not to convey the full breadth
of a startup's eventual ambitions, or even what they're currently doing, but
just to help investors watching 65 presentations remember which company is
doing what. TechCrunch reused these descriptions, as reporters often do. And
now this woman has read the summaries printed in TechCrunch and is treating
them as if that were all there was to know about the startup. It's like a game
of Telephone (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_whispers>).

My standard advice to startups presenting to investors is that it's better to
start with an overly narrow description of what you do, so that investors at
least know what you're talking about, and then expand from there.

See <http://paulgraham.com/investors.html>, particularly items 1 and 14.

It's surprising to me that someone who wasn't even at Demo Day would feel
confident enough to judge the startups' originality based on the 3-5 word
summaries we use on the schedule to help investors keep them straight in their
heads.

I was about to say that it's also surprising that people would upvote such a
post. But on reflection it's not that surprising.

~~~
jrkelly
I wasn't at the Demo Day, but it's hard to consider making car repair more
efficient to be a problem that really matters. Not saying it can't be a decent
business, but your essay about ambitious ideas was pushing people to do
better.

~~~
tptacek
I am just baffled by the idea that people here think there isn't a huge dent
to be made in the universe in auto repair. There are 723,400 auto mechanics in
the US alone, making a median of $35k in an incredibly inefficient marketplace
that fleeces and inflicts misery on millions of working class families (who
get to work and their kids to school in cars, not fixies) _every year_.

~~~
moocow01
Lets not go overboard - I'm sure some customers have their complaints but your
making the car repair industry sound equivalent to today's Wall Street. I
genuinely rarely hear people complain about car repair - now if we were back
in 1970 or 1980 Id have a different opinion.

~~~
gruseom
He's not going overboard. When you don't know anything about cars, it's really
hard to find a mechanic or car repair shop you can trust. One reason I always
try to help people who ask me any question about their computer is that I just
think of how ignorant and defenseless I've felt when my car breaks. I do what
they do: find the person in my life who knows the most about it and cling to
them like a drowning man.

If the Your Mechanic guys can solve this problem, they'd be rewarded with
fantastically loyal customers (including me) in a big market. Actually I'm a
little bewildered why anyone would see this as an unambitious idea. It sounds
hard to me.

~~~
kerryfalk
Agreed, it's not an overreaction. As an auto enthusiast and someone who has a
large group of friends that are also auto enthusiasts we are acutely aware of
the issues our non-enthusiast friends have with the auto industry.

We're aware because they come to us with their problems and seek advice.
Everything from helping to buy a new car to trying to understand what the
mechanic was telling them is wrong with their car.

When I was younger I worked at the front desk of a reputable auto shop. It was
very common for customers to mistrust us, and they had good reason to feel
that way, too. Not because our particular shop was bad - it wasn't - but
because many others are.

The auto industry is _huge_ and has many _huge_ segments that can be targeted.
There is room for many companies to grow into significant players.

------
Detrus
Paul Graham said don't attack the problem head on. Make a beachhead.
Supposedly these seemingly dull ideas are beachheads.

That was covered in a previous HN discussion about a similar article
questioning YC startup ideas in practice.

But something like Dropbox seems to have a hard time scaling out, exploring
other ideas, and that's with a founder who wants to build a big company like
Apple.

Even if you start with a beachhead, it should be one that can grow. Apple
started with a PC, to grow they made more and better PCs. Microsoft/Gates
started with BASIC then pivoted drastically to an idea that could grow, an OS
for PCs. What will Dropbox grow or pivot to in order to be an Apple size
company? Hard to imagine backups for teams or iCloud but OS independent will
be the ticket.

~~~
mikk0j
This beachhead thinking is key. The trouble is that it is harder to represent
in the “we’re X for Y” way, which is usually the thing that sticks with the
audience (which is also the reason why it works so well).

~~~
Detrus
But an X for Y beachhead doesn't make the current idea scalable. Perhaps it's
a beachhead for the founder to get a reputation so maybe one day he can try a
scalable idea, either in the current company or some future one. But it
doesn't mean the pivot will be related to the current X for Y.

It worked out for Microsoft. But somewhat contradictory to this scenario Paul
Graham also said to start chipping at the ambitious idea because starting
companies is hard anyway.

So looking at seemingly dull ideas of YC, is there some way for them to scale
without pivoting as far as Microsoft did?

------
tptacek
X for Y, where X = "Airbnb" and Y = "Large existing market poorly served by
technology", is in fact a good shorthand for "frighteningly ambitious".

Literally. Airbnb is a frighteningly ambitious company. It is explosively
generating value and we don't know how it's going to play out long term. It
could end up with us living in caves with dogs watching out for the
Terminators.

It is hard for me to take the rest of the article seriously after it suggests
that "Airbnbing" auto mechanics is unambitious. It's possible that _most_
Americans have routine car service done at dealerships where they're being
routinely fleeced, and that the current crappy system of servicing vehicles is
driving talent either out of the businesses or to those giant dealership
shops. Have you ever tried to find a reliable mechanic? I drive an old Audi.
It's painful.

~~~
daredevildave
I'm not sure, maybe you have a different definition of 'frighteningly
ambitious' to me. What is the largest possible outcome from making it slightly
easier or cheaper to repair your car? It saves a few million Americans a few
hundred dollars?

My definition would be more like: sending ordinary people into space; making a
mass-production electric vehicle; cheap solar power; curing flu/the common
cold; inventing a new type of computing device; replacing huge incumbent
companies (telcos, oil); reducing home electricity usage by >50%; inventing a
new human-computer interface. Etc.

~~~
tesseractive
Let's say I wanted to solve a _really_ big problem. Not something
comparatively simple like "new kind of computing device", but really big.
Global. Like the fact that we tear through so many natural resources because
people go out and buy new equipment so often instead of getting old equipment
repaired. That is a major ecological problem of the 21st Century right?

So I look into it and I discover that one of the main reasons that people
replace a broken device is because it's really easy to go buy a new piece of
gear (everyone wants to sell you one!), and much more trouble to track down
someone who will repair an old one (properly!) and go deal with whatever's
involved in getting it done.

OK, that's an interesting problem to solve, right? But if people are throwing
away devices, how do you get everyone to change their behavior? That's really
hard, especially for a startup with limited resources.

So what's a minimum viable product to get started with? Well, what if you
started with a way to let people get their cars repaired more easily? People
already get their cars repaired, and the user experience is terrible. Solve
the part of the problem that people know they need solved first (car repair),
then move on to convincing them they want other things repaired too. That they
don't need a new gadget every two years, they just need an easy way for
someone to help them keep their old one in good repair.

And if it works, that's tons (as a measurement of weight) of working devices
that don't go into landfills, and tons of natural resources that aren't used
up making devices to replace them. Is that ambitious enough for you?

(Note: I have no idea if this is what the founders are actually thinking or
not. I just know that you can't judge the ambition of a startup from their
first product.)

------
samstave
The reason why I think that it is difficult to say a frighteningly ambitious
startup idea is actually something that is expected to come through YC, is
that the funding that YC provides is miniscule, and will cover hardly an
annual salary for a single, accomplished person who has a lot of domain
knowledge in a field they may want to disrupt.

As someone in the medical space who is 37, married with 2 kids - My salary is
more than the funding of YC - and I would not be able to take ~150K and divide
it among multiple founders -- let alone have that funding cover, you know,
actual startup expenses.

I feel I am in this catch-22 limbo area -- too old and too ambitious of an
idea to fit the YC mold.

Personally, I see YC as being fairly myopic in the type of people they fund,
and it is frustrating because I think YC is incredible!

Sure, there are tons of opportunities for nifty apps that serve a silo of a
need (even if that silo is infinitely deep) -- but the idea I have to
revolutionize the hospital space can't feasibly be built on 150K - unless I
take that funding whilst retaining my full time job to pay for me and have
that 150K go directly to the product.

~~~
jamroom
I'm 41, married, and have 3 kids - my "cofounder" and I have just applied to
YC for Summer 2012. I've been running in "start up" mode since around 2000, so
my lifestyle has adjusted to a much lower level of pay than I would expect had
I continued working in the fortune 500 as a developer, but I don't regret a
single moment of it.

Even though your idea is ambitious, you might consider nights/weekends to work
on it - you know the whole "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single
step" - get something together and see if you can raise some funding - you
never know. There's a lot of money being throw around right now.

I think YC is setup so it attracts those who are willing to go out on a limb
for an idea, since (and this is a guess) they might be the most likely to
persevere through the rough patches and stick with their idea until it
succeeds.

~~~
darklajid
Thank you. Your voice was missing here for a while.

32, married. As of yet I have no offspring, but that's going to be corrected.
Still, I lurked and commented here, always with the 'Ahhh.. If I'd be without
ties and responsibilities once more' thought.

I cannot tell you how glad I am to read that someone with arguably more
responsibilities in life and a bit older than me (another point that is rarely
coming up here) gives a damn about conventions and prejudices and just joins
the otherwise ramen-eating, single, < 27 crowd.

~~~
bicknergseng
We're not all eating ramen and single. Yes, when you're married with kids and
a mortgage the immediate risk is greater, but that doesn't mean us <27's are
immune or ignorant of risk. Many of us have 100k in school loans. Even the
ones who don't are not eager to throw away a safe opportunity at an
established company to forge out on their own.

I had a tough time finding a cofounder among my peers. Even the most
entrepreneurial of them, people who had started things in college, are still
far more inclined to go to work for someone else (especially with an offer in
this job market). While I know there's a myriad of reasons, I think a most
would rather go somewhere where all of the responsibility is on them. If you
mess up at a big company, there's hundreds or thousands of others that
shoulder the fallout. If you mess up and you're one of 2 or 3 or 4 people....

My point is that it takes courage to start your own company no matter what age
you are.

~~~
jamroom
You are so right - I like to think of it as accepting responsibility for your
life. Several hundred years ago "starting your own company" could be equated
to "going west and creating a new life" - it takes a lot of guts and
determination to strike out on your own, and most people would never dream of
it.

------
alain94040
Even Twitter wouldn't sound ambitious if you say "we are group SMS for the
world".

To better understand how ambitious a startup is, assume that its adoption is
100%. If everyone is using it, does it change lives? If everyone chats on
Twitter, does it impact politics? If everyone is on Facebook, do you reconnect
with old friends? Etc. Dropbox is in that category too.

With used cars purchases, I can see how everyone would use the site, and still
not have any meaningful impact. Cheaper cars. More efficient market. But
still, in the end, cheaper cars. Am I missing something?

~~~
Estragon
What is the best-case endgame for dropbox? I like it, but I don't understand
why everyone's so excited about its potential.

~~~
mixmax
What if you could edit all your files in dropbox' html interface? What if it
was easy to do, and kept the simplicity they've become known for?

Then your OS would be a commodity, and Dropbox would be what provided the
value. Seamless editing of documents across devices, no matter where you are
or what sort of device you're working on.

That's a pretty good endgame for dropbox.

~~~
Detrus
That's Google Documents + web photoshop etc. Most of the value will be in the
quality of the editing UI, Google Documents vs DropBox documents.

Google Docs already turns your local filesystem into a "commodity." And what
if Dropbox becomes Google Docs, that's not google/Apple sized. Then what?

The path to scale for Dropbox seems quite tricky.

------
mhartl
Those who disparage "X for Y" descriptions misunderstand their use. When you
have only a few minutes (or seconds) to pitch your idea, being _X for Y_ or
_the X of Y_ is an effective way to give people the gist and pique their
interest. Only then does it make sense to go into more detail and explain the
full scope of your ambitions.

~~~
anateus
Exactly. Only a minority of companies that use those pitches used the same
phrasing in their initial creation process. The goal is to solve a problem
someone has, the "X for Y" is a shorthand for "don't take my word for it that
people have this kind of problem, look at this very similar situation".

------
the_bear
I had the exact same reaction when reading coverage of the demo day. Hopefully
the ideas seem underwhelming because of the last part of Paul Graham's essay.
In the "tactics" section he says, "If you want to take on a problem as big as
the ones I've discussed, don't make a direct frontal attack on it." Maybe
these YCombinator startups actually do have ambitious ideas, but they're
starting out with something small and seemingly unimportant. Maybe in five
years some of these companies will be reinventing education and communication.

------
iamwil
Ideas change. Apple didn't start with iPhone or iPad. They started with the
Apple I, which was just a circuit board. Microsoft didn't start with Windows
7. They started with BASIC for the Altair. Paypal didn't start with online
payments. They started as money transfer between PDAs.

As for the criticism about "X for Y", the problem is not with them, but with
the rest of us. Most people (smart or not) have a hard time grasping
completely original ideas, and they don't have the time to dive deep into it.
"X for Y" is simply a low bandwidth way of transferring a core idea. It's the
MVP of communicating your vision. If you have to take more than a sentence to
convey your idea/startup, you're going to have a hard hard uphill battle. But
chances are, you don't have a clear understanding of what problem you're
solving.

------
ChuckMcM
"With the press these companies are getting, I expect they will make investors
and founding teams a hefty profit, but they certainly do not speak to me as
signs of brilliant, innovative thinking."

This is something I've seen several times, I don't believe anyone has shown
that 'press coverage' was a causative agent in a successful exit. I believe
'delivering a useful product' (which happens to generate press coverage as a
side effect) is the missing piece here.

You want a brain dead stupid IOs App I would buy that is derivative?
Instapaper for Printers. Which is to say I would love an App where I could
launch it on my iPad and then 'print' to it across the network from my Mac or
Windows machine. I don't care if it dropped the printout into iBooks or
created its own 'space' (I could imagine a designer would have fun with the
old 20th century printout distribution bins). But basically there are times
when I wish I could print something out and then read it on the road later. It
was a capability discussed for the old Plastic Logic Reader that never saw the
light of day.

And yes, I still do 'listings' when I'm studying old code or dumping a bunch
of numbers and charts.

------
debacle
A problem I see with many of these ideas is what I would call the
profitability mirage. The general belief is that the flow is:
$founder->getStartup()->iterate()->getUsers()->monetize(), with a
AcquiredException thrown somewhere in one of those method calls.

The problem is that so many of these startup ideas (that don't happily see an
AcquiredException before monetize() is called) will fail at the monetize step
because there is steep competition in many of these markets right now, and the
burgeoning startup mentality means that someone else is probably doing exactly
what you do, slightly better or worse, but they're at a point in their
business cycle that they don't need to call monetize() just yet. Thus, you may
have a mass exodus of users at precisely the point where you try and bring
your ARPU above zero.

~~~
dxbydt
If the default behavior of a program is to throw an AcquiredException after a
few iterations, I wouldn't call it an Exception in the first place. imho, the
real exception here is the monetizeException.

------
marcusf
I'm not sure what the value of this post is? Would you honestly expect every
company or even every demo day to contain a frighteningly ambitious idea? And
if they were frighteningly, scarily ambitious, would TC really hype them? The
sane response seems to be to write them off instead as far too ambitious.

I guess I just don't get what the skepticism here brings to the table? I'm
open to input about that.

~~~
27182818284
I've sent the list of companies from the latest batch to several non-tech
friends and not a single person has been impressed with anything on the list.
_That's not a good sign._

With things like Dropbox and Reddit not only did my eyes light up, but the
eyes of non-tech friends lit up. Same with Hipmunk. Hipmunk I didn't even have
to show someone, I could just say "not shitty airline search" and they were
intrigued.

I think the point to this submission and others like it are that a lot of
people are scratching their heads over this current batch. Nobody expects
every company to be "Wow!" but generally there are a few.

------
eurleif
> I feel confident in assuming Steve Jobs didn’t pitch OS X by saying “It’s
> like Windows for Apple Computers.”

Um, maybe not, but Bill Gates definitely pitched Windows as like a Mac, but
for IBM compatible PCs. Seems like a bad example.

------
jrkelly
This was exactly my thoughts when reading the demo-day list. I wonder how pg
reconciles this? Seems like an emerging strategic weakness for YC.

------
Elepsis
I think this is another in a long series of articles that mistakes the press
coverage for the vision. When journalists say "we're x for y" that's their way
of conveying the information _in a way that makes sense to us_ , by relating
it to something we already understand (at least usually: I've seen TechCrunch
use increasingly esoteric examples for "x" of late).

In some cases the companies themselves use that line in their pitch. This
isn't surprising, given that it's such a fast and powerful way to give people
a rough idea of what you're doing and how short each presentation at YC demo
day is.

But that doesn't change the fact that in either case, this is just _shorthand_
and isn't reflective of the grand vision of any of these companies.

------
bryanh
Myspace for Harvard students.

------
mikk0j
The “we’re X for Y” is awesome because it is a simple, powerful positioning.
That's also why it can be misunderstood so easily.

The same model is used in pitching screenplays and movies. Alien, famously,
was pitched as "Jaws in space". It works because it sticks, but doesn't define
the field (the plot etc) too much. Similarly, startups using the “we’re X for
Y” are giving themselves a quick mental positioning in the mind of the
listener, but without carving an exact niche. It is easier to work up or
broaden from defining the idea ('the beachhead') that way.

The way to misunderstand it is think that they mean to do exactly that. "What,
they're taking a giant shark onto a spaceship?"

------
alasano
There was a TC post encouraging startups to pitch their slogan in a concise
format which did not follow the x for y pattern. In a few more words they
mostly avoided the problem you are presenting here.

[http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/30/startups-give-us-your-
best-...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/30/startups-give-us-your-best-one-
sentence-pitch/)

I thought that most of them did quite well even if some ideas were unambitious
even when presented in this manner.

------
caublestone
The problem is press coverage. The press needs to be able to write a story. In
order to write that story, they have to understand (quickly) what they are
writing about and deliver it to readers in a way they can understand
(quickly). So if someone demo's a way for doctors to track medical records and
an algorithm that uses all of this data to improve point of care diagnostics,
what do you call that in a headline? Google for Doctors?

The reason why I bring the medical example up is because there is a team here
that has a frighteningly ambitious start up (not idea yet). Medigram is a
stacked team that is going after the medical industry in a way that no one
else wants to. Starting with a messaging app that complies with regulators,
they are planting the seed of trust with the medical industry. When they move
up to records, they get data. When they get data, they use that math heavy
team to solve the ambitious idea of making diagnosis more accurate. Then who
knows? A tiny pill that you can swallow that transmits blood test data back to
a central server and diagnose your issues instantly? I don't know, but they
had to start somewhere.

------
NDizzle
Unambitious startup ideas can be conjured up by a small team and sold to a big
company later with hardly any up front dollars. If you want ambitious you
should look outside the realm of 100% tech startups. Specifically, you should
look in the food/tech realm - but don't look at the worthless calorie
counters.

Disclaimer: I work for a struggling startup in the food/tech realm.

------
ajratner
Cool article! I think a broader question raised is one I have thought about a
lot: what is the optimum trade-off between narrow clarity of function/purpose
and broad ambition/expansiveness/spread of features? On the one hand: we
obviously admire and use things that are ambitious and full-featured (google,
facebook, etc. etc. etc.) On the other hand though: HS points out that the
narrowed "X for Y" model makes a better YC pitch... but more importantly, it
might make a better consumer pitch. E.g. sometimes I wonder why I don't use
wolfram alpha more often... and I think one of the answers is that I don't
quite know what it does. It possibly covers TOO much area and I might- at a
moment of quick snap judgement- pick the far more limited service with the
easily comprehensible/memorable single feature claim... Thoughts?

------
3pt14159
The hard ones don't get press for years. Look at upvertr, sure it could be
described as git + electronic software + parts sourcing, but it will take them
a while to build this to the point where everyone will see how amazing and
useful it is.

------
fleitz
I fail to see why companies that make money would fail to satisfy an investor?

Is there something about the YC model that makes companies that go on to turn
modest profits not generate returns for the investor?

A business like Wal-Mart wouldn't satisfy you as an investor? I wouldn't have
any problems taking 8% of Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart didn't invent anything new, they
just did it a little bit better than their competitors. Techcrunch 1969: "Wal-
Mart: Sears for people who like to pay less"

Impressive algorithms don't make money, businesses that satisfy customers do.
You're not going to 'change the world' unless your customers are happy.

~~~
ericabiz
"Wal-Mart didn't invent anything new..."

Whoa! Wal-Mart revolutionized the supply chain. And Wal-Mart also started with
a revolutionary idea: We can make stores in rural areas so people don't have
to drive to the big city to shop. Every other chain considered those same
rural areas unprofitable. It turned out to be a gold mine.

There are several books out there about how revolutionary Wal-Mart has been. I
suggest you read one before assuming that Wal-Mart "didn't invent anything
new"!

~~~
fleitz
I don't disagree that wal mart is an innovator and that their innovations
allowed them to crush their competitors, but from the perspective of Wal-Mart
in 1969 they aren't doing anything new. At that point they're "Sears for
people who want to pay less" which illustrates the silliness of OPs POV.

Fundamentally though Wal-Mart's business model is "big truck - small truck"
it's just a specialization of Sears business model, similar to how all the
businesses on TC are X for Y.

------
lominming
Let's just imagine the one-liner of the big companies today: \- Google: Yahoo
with PageRank \- Facebook: Friendster for colleges \- Dropbox: Files sharing
made easy \- Yelp: User reviews for restaurants

All ideas seem small and narrow at the start. It is true that you should
recognize the possible direction the startup could go, but as PG said before,
it is important to first make something that a group of users really really
love. From there, you start growing into something bigger. The main point is
that you may not know what it will grow and evolve to when you first start the
company.

------
edawerd
Don't forget that Airbnb once pitched themselves as "EBay for space", just as
Your Mechanic now dub themselves the "Airbnb for car repair"

What once seemed like a niche, unambitious company now is frighteningly
ambitious.

~~~
Philadelphia
As an ordinary person outside of the VC world, I literally have no idea what
Airbnb is. Never heard of them once. Ever. I think there may be a mismatch
between what people who read Techcrunch consider exciting and what actually
has traction with the public at large.

------
pwf
Be aware, you've linked directly to the home page of your tumblr instead of
linking to the post itself. Your HN submission will become very confusing
after you make another tumblr post.

------
kenkam
"If I were Paul Graham, these types of companies simply would not satisfy me
(despite what look to be very lucrative payoffs)"

There's a difference in investing in companies expecting some kind of a return
and throwing money at really ambitious ideas in the hope that one of those
gets really successful. I cannot see how investing carefully and getting
returns (ie. making money) is not satisfying.

------
movingahead
This is delirious. The OP should have just read pg's essay on how to apply to
Y Combinator. He clearly explains there (and here again) why the X for Y
representation helps in getting a foothold.

Also, what does OP expect founders to do? Declare their complete vision
beforehand to impress the audience. The purpose of a vision is not to get
popular with the tech press, but to guide the founders.

------
uberPhil
A wise man once said "Nothing is original. There is nothing new under the Sun.
It's never what you do but how it's done".

While I agree that saying "My Product X is like Y on steroids" is somewhat
unoriginal and maybe even uninspiring, the simple fact is that every idea is
pretty much an evolution of a previous idea.

That being said, I'm not to sure what the point of the article was :)

------
woohoo
I think the idea of describing a startup as "like X for Y" is OK for some but
in general I agree that it comes across as not being particularly innovative.
I think it makes sense to give prospects a frame of reference for an offering
but there are other ways of doing it aside from defining your entire company
in comparison to another one.

~~~
ndcrandall
I agree. People want to know very quickly what the idea is and what it's
comparable to. I believe that it gets the audience more engaged in the fact
they don't need to make the connection while learning about the product
throughout the presentation.

------
cpt1138
We've been told countless times that the only thing VC's will fund is ideas
that are already being done. The reason's given are so when the entire niche
fails they can point and say "see, everyone else failed, its not our fault."
The reason nothing innovative is ever done is because no one is willing to
take the risks.

------
notatoad
it's be good if somebody with powers could change the link to the permalink
instead of the base blog url:
[http://ardenthoughts.tumblr.com/post/20053064127/frightening...](http://ardenthoughts.tumblr.com/post/20053064127/frighteningly-
un-ambitious-startup-ideas)

------
yelongren
I don't think anyone can realistically expect to find a google-scale diamond
in the rough at every single YC batch. "Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas"
I suppose is about a process of collective unconscious iteration that would
yield such a diamond every 5 or 10 years.

------
jaysonelliot
FTA: I feel confident in assuming Steve Jobs didn’t pitch OS X by saying “It’s
like Windows for Apple Computers.”

True, although Windows was originally pitched as "it's like the Macintosh OS
for IBM PC-compatibles."

------
keeptrying
I dont think PG's essay had anything to do with his investment thesis or
rather its the not the most important thing he looks for.

The ideas he backs are basically about the team.

------
outside1234
the only problem with this post is that Google was like Yahoo but that search
actually worked, Microsoft was like IBM (the software bits) but software for
the masses. There are a lot of counterexamples where starting with something
existing provides a beachhead for the ambitious.

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wtvanhest
If you can't pitch your business as x for y you haven't boiled down your idea
enough yet.

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sskates
I'll take being "Siri on Steroids".

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monsterix
Well everybody has an opinion, and a choice to tread on a path that feels
"right". For a moment you might think these ideas are unambitious, but when
you dig-deep you'll discover a lot of gems underneath. One wouldn't expect a
frightening execution, speak or quality within six months of a startup.

That's probably a picture only big daddies like Apple can show to the world.
For example on another thread you can already see DuckDuckGo revealing their
ambitious face after a perceivable unambitious journey of two years!

Also another thing that probably we all miss is that the next big thing might
not necessarily be anything from the ones ever listed - ambitious or
unambitious. None of the big names like Facebook or Google or Apple were
frighteningly ambitious ideas to the world until they kicked butts of
everyone.

On second part: Suggestions on choosing a worthwhile domain name is really
nice, but looking at how much has been squatted out there, there doesn't seem
much of a choice or harm with the current trend of choosing twin word names.

There are fewer cheap options at disposal of entrepreneurs and so it is for
the rest of the world.

