

Doing It Right, Not First - andrewdumont
http://andrewdumont.me/doing-it-right-not-first

======
bigiain
Keep in mind too, that "doing it right" involves much more than "just" solving
the problem. It's at least as important to let people know that you've solved
a problem that they have. It wasn't Instagram's software that Facebook paid
$1B for, it was the people using the software.

"Doing it right" involves doing the marketing right, and doing the customer
acquisition right, and doing the customer support right, as well as getting
the UX/UI right and choosing the right scalable backend and using elegant
algorithms.

Often the customer acquisition and marketing are _way_ more important than
elegant algorithms and scalable software stacks (cue Facebook and PHP
discussions…).

------
toddnessa
Something anyone working on a startup idea should bear in mind. You may find
similarities out there to what you have vision to do once you get started
working with your idea. However, it is helpful to realize that just because
something is similar to you does not mean that it has to be the same. Adding
your own personality, twists to the product that differentiate yourself, and
your own insight as well can set you apart from others. That's getting it
right by focusing less on what others do with their ideas and more on what you
want to do with yours. Focusing more on innovation & less on the competition
is a much better way to succeed in the long-run.

~~~
rmATinnovafy
I agree.

Everyone is focused on finding the latest hot niche. They never realise that
the old boring stuff still has a lot of potential.

The older a segment/market/product/service is the easier it is to innovate.

People call me crazy when I tell them my first product is about email
marketing. But I'm convinced that my take on it is an improvement.

PG's startups we'd like to fund talks about this in an amazingly simple way.

------
phil
It's not even clear that you have to do it right.

~~~
bigiain
I think a lot of people would point at Facebook and PHP and say "yr doin' it
wrong!"

I think Zuck got very lucky with that one, php happened to be available when
he was first "playing around" with social websites, and available hosting was
just getting fast enough cpu for it to become practical to run larger and
larger systems with it. These days they've pretty much painted themselves into
a corner with it, and their HipHop work is a probably very carefully chosen
alternative to a ground-up rewrite in scalable-serverside-tenchiques-de-jour…

But no-one can argue that they're not the 800lb gorilla of the social network
vertical today. There might well be other people out-competing Facebook in the
"fine dining" markets, but Facebook certainly have the "fast food" social
network space sewn up pretty tight. (And when the value is the size and
connectedness of the social graph, that's the bit I'd want to own first too)

------
chexton
The best example of this theory is, for me, Dropbox.

~~~
trustfundbaby
Apple iphone for me ... people had been doing smart phones/pdas for donkey
years ... and they came along and simply blew _everything_ else away. It was
uncanny because it seemed like such a mature space, but they just made
everything else look like bricks.

I still remember my first time playing with one ...

------
sparknlaunch12
Given we live in the 'everything has been done' world, being first doesn't
mean anything. Many of the big names were not first (google, facebook, twitter
etc).

So 'doing it right' has a lot of benefit.

But in context probably of most value is just the 'doing'. Getting out there,
speaking to potential customers and showing off your MVP.

~~~
jamesrcole
I don't speak from knowing, but FWIW doing it right + doing first, if
possible, may be an advantage.

------
ratzinho87
Do you know any companies that "did it first" and are still in the lead after
a number of years? To my surprise, I cannot seem to think of any.

~~~
kristopolous
Ford, Kellogg, Seagate, Monsanto, McDonalds and Intel have plenty of notches
on this belt.

~~~
endersshadow
ebay, PayPal, and Amazon are good examples in the digital world.

------
borlak
do it better, not do it right

"right" is always changing

------
binspace
Or be the first to do it right...

~~~
agumonkey
and thus the last

~~~
Aftershock21
there is no such thing

