
Mobile is a dud? - pg
http://elusiveconsumer.wordpress.com/2006/10/18/mobile-is-dud/
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nickb
This article is spot-on! As an angel investor, I routinely hear pitches about
different mobile apps. My answer is always a big NO and I try everything to
persuade small startups that have not spent any money yet on the idea, not to
pursue it. If you have an idea for mobile handset market, read about "walled
gardens" (google for more links):
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walled_garden_(media)>

Unless you have some extremely strong connections (i.e. you have an ex telco
exec on the board or as a CEO), stay clear of ALL closed platforms.
(Incidentally, and that also includes Windows/MSOffice/Exchange etc).Startups
need to be agile and startups have a higher chance of becoming successful if
there are less barriers that you need to jump over, not more. This is why
Internet is a perfect platform for startups... there are virtually no barriers
(unless net-neutrality is defeated)!

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eli
[time_machine] There's no point in creating Internet-based software. Think
about it! Unless you've already know somebody at AOL or Compuserve you'll
never get anywhere. What you think you can start your own BBS and compete with
the big guys? It'll never work, there's no way... [/time_machine]

See what I'm getting at?

The trend is clear -- the walled gardens are crumbling. Consumers in the
future will get more freedom. Mobile data services are getting cheaper and
faster. Phones are getting more capable.

The mobile services market is terribly immature (it's still the wild west,
actually), but a dud? I think not.

My guess: Some day carriers will just be in charge of data pipe--and that's
it. They probably won't even handle customer support on their own. Carriers
are pretty good and making voice and data connections work, but not much else.
And, much to their chagrin, there's no reason should be a part of the mobile
services revenue stream any more than my ISP deserves a cut of iTunes revenue.

~~~
jamongkad
Could'nt have said it better myself. Question is "when" will the carriers be
just in charge of data pipes?

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python_kiss
This reminds me of a similar situation mentioned in "Founders at Work" about
PayPal's original plan to develop applications on the Palm Pilot.

In their own words, "..the move of the enterprise to handheld devices was
actually not forthcoming...Any minute now (we thought), there'll be millions
of people begging for security on their handheld devices. It just wasn't
happening. We were correct to change our strategy, since it still hasn't
happened."

Has anyone considered the possibility that the cellphone might not be the
glorious next step forward? Most tech evangelists, including myself, expect
mobile devices to eventually diminish our reliance on the desktop. What if
that actually never happens at the expected grandeur scale?

A friend of mine recently bought a Nokia 8800. It's an expensive phone, so I
asked him what he used it for. His answer, "for phone calls and sms". It seems
to me that mobile startups are pushing supply ahead of demand.

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eli
"I used to say that the web browser was the most hostile programming
environment ever devised, but that was before I found out about Mobile."
-Douglas Crockford

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staunch
Reminds me of PG writing about how much persistence it took and pain it was
for Loopt to make any headway with the carriers.

Steve Jobs has battled both the recording industry and the phone carriers and
in both cases even _he_ has had to compromise a lot. Those massive entities
seem about as geared towards innovation as banks.

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jamongkad
[Prediction: Until there is widespread WiFi and 3G access to the Internet via
mobile phones (in other words, mobile-based business can reach consumers by
going around network operators portals) there will be limited opportunities to
establish profitable mobile-based businesses. Established companies should
steer clear until then.]

Aren't we seeing this trend already? Considering this article was written last
year. Nokia has already included the SIP stack in their series 60 phones.
Motorola is also working on a SIP stack for their line up of phones as well.
Doesn't this say anything? Hell the Motorola A910 has Wi-Fi connectivity
therefore making the possibility of IP based communications a reality.

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JMiao
I could imagine why many startups have chosen to focus on mobile, especially
when it's a space that's attracted significant investment from carriers and
media conglomerates alike.

However, many startups underestimate the true intentions for these
investments. For carriers, mobile media is an opportunity to get their foot in
the door of content distribution. For media firms, it's a chance to amortize
IP development costs and maximize returns by putting their franchise content
on as many screens as possible.

For users, it generally means taking it up the backside.

~~~
jamongkad
Eeek I can see your points. Although there must be a way to work around this.
Any thoughts?

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Alex3917
Don't do mobile wireless. Even if you have a good idea. Especially if you have
a good idea.

Trust me. It's just not worth it.

~~~
jamongkad
Why would it not be worth it then? Cuz if I was presented with some compelling
evidence at to why I should not pursue mobile wireless. I will be more than
willing to change the direction of my start up.

~~~
Alex3917
1) There are hundreds of different cellphone models. You need to alter your
product to work on each one. Even the cellphone companies aren't able to do
this. Nokia tried to make a software program that would let you find your
friends, and they could only make it work on seven or eight of their OWN
phones. Yahoo has search software that works on many models of phones, but
they also have 100 hackers employed to work full time on just that. You won't
have 100 people.

2) The cell phone carriers turn off parts of the bluetooth spectrum to prevent
people from downloading their own ringtones. This also prevents people from
using your software if it needs bluetooth.

3) Cell phone carriers will never partner with you. At least not on terms that
allow you to make a profit.

4) Even if one cell phone carrier partners with you, the rest won't.

5) Any software that takes advantage of the phone feature will drain the
battery very fast. If you need to ping the cell tower ever five minutes, that
means you have to recharge the phone every two hours. Which essentially means
the phone is now worthless for making calls.

6) Most people don't know how to load software onto their cellphone, even if
they were willing to pay for it.

7) Even if you can get some people using your software on their phone, to
everyone else it will just look like they are sending text messages. If no one
can see others using your software then it isn't viral and it won't spread.

8) Cell phones don't fit into the pockets of girls pants. (This is actually a
serious problems)

9) There have been hundreds of entrepreneurs who have gone into mobile, and
they have all failed. I can name two dozen companies that have tried to do
social networking over cell phones. It's clearly something people want, but
none have been able to release a decent product for the reasons above.

10) The next generation of WiFi will make probably make your product obsolete
in two years anyway.

~~~
jamongkad
And yet YCombinator is funding Loopt. Care to explain this? Does this mean you
think Loopt will fail as well?

~~~
Alex3917
I don't know if Loopt will fail or not because I don't know how close they are
to partnering with other carriers. I do know that if they can't expand beyond
Boost then they have zero chance of succeeding, and publicly we haven't seen
much evidence of progress in nearly a year. I also know that their CEO said if
he had to do it again, he wouldn't do a business that relied on partnering
with the carriers.

As for YCombinator, PG described it as being a difficult problem to solve, but
noted that the job of a startup is to solve difficult problems. Certainly you
can get rich solving a problem that's too hard for everyone else. But there
are a lot of other problems with fairly easy answers, it's just that no one
else has figured out that answer yet.

I'm not saying definitely don't do it, but certainly be aware of the issues.
If your business manages to avoid these central issues, then maybe it's
feasible. But if you're going to try to pull a Ulysses S. Grant style meat-
grinder approach, then, well, good luck because you'll need it.

~~~
jamongkad
Hmmm something to think about indeed, anyways good points on the issues it
actually gave me a "Don't do-avoid" list for future plans and ideas.

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davidw
And yet, ycombinator is funding a mobile-platform company, Tsumobi...

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davidw
Care to explain why this was voted this down? It's true, as far as I can tell
from this article:

<http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/09/demo-day-y-combinators-spring-chicks/>

So I'm a bit curious that Paul posted something about mobile being a dud.
Perhaps he thinks Tsumobi has a good answer to part of the problems with
mobile?

I'm curious because I'm pretty interested in the mobile space, and, indeed,
wrote something very similar to Tsumobi (Hecl), and was thrilled to see that
ycombinator thought enough of the idea to fund it. (Ok, yeah, would be nice if
someone funded _me_ , but I never really pursued Hecl as a startup idea, but
more as an open source platform).

~~~
danw
Well the two problems are operators and handsets. Tsumobi tries to make it
easier to make apps for phones, helping solve the handset part of the problem.

