
Going Beyond “Make Something People Want” - scg
http://emrahyalaz.com/framework/
======
mbrock
To go up a level in metaness, does this kind of thinking actually help?

From my naïve perspective, it looks like a bunch of marketing concepts that
may nudge someone in the right direction, but who knows? All this analysis
might be useless and even harmful.

Nietzsche said, in his funny and somewhat misogynistic way: "Supposing truth
is a woman, what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all
philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about
women? That the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they
have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper
methods for winning a woman's heart?"

Look at this paragraph, now look at Peter Thiel's PowerPoint presentation.
What if the very feverish desire to create a "successful startup" makes you
fail?

Maybe the idea of the startup itself is the best startup. Look at all these
people making money selling people ideas and tips on how to be a startup guy.
I made a billion dollars, and so can you!

The article mentions the components of desire. Look at them again, now look at
the feverish startup culture of Hacker news.

Everybody wants a recipe for success. Maybe the only successful recipe is
selling recipes.

Facebook didn't start as a startup, neither did Google, neither did
Craigslist.

"Having observed people helping one another in friendly, social, and trusting
communal ways on the Internet via the WELL, MindVox and Usenet, and feeling
isolated as a relative newcomer to San Francisco, Craigslist founder Craig
Newmark decided to create something similar for local events."

That's not a guy who's trying to create a startup and make a million bucks.
It's a guy who's feeling a need _himself_ , who trusts other people and wants
to connect with them. It's a guy who's grounded in reality even if he feels
isolated.

Here's some other ideas for slogans. Make something _you_ want. Make something
your friends want. Make something your local community wants. Make something
your mom wants. Make something real. Spend more time thinking empathically
about human beings than making "hand-crafted designs" and A/B testing your
landing pages. Be a person. Don't make a "product."

~~~
Sir_Substance
>Nietzsche said, in his funny and somewhat misogynistic way: "Supposing truth
is a woman, what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all
philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about
women? That the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they
have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper
methods for winning a woman's heart?"

Maybe I don't know something about this Nietzsche guy, but how does that
paragraph demonstrate a hatred of women?

You know you can use the word woman in a sentence without hating women, right?

~~~
mbrock
You can, but it's not easy, especially not if you're a 19th century man.

More seriously, misogyny is not just "hatred."

Nietzsche elsewhere wrote: "From the beginning, nothing has been more alien,
repugnant, and hostile to woman than truth—her great art is the lie, her
highest concern is mere appearance and beauty."

This wasn't negative for Nietzsche, who admired and advocated flattery and
deception. Someone interpreted him like this:

"Nietzsche's apparent misogyny is part of his overall strategy to demonstrate
that our attitudes toward sex-gender are thoroughly cultural, are often
destructive of our own potential as individuals and as a species, and may be
changed."

Can you not see how much charged cultural prejudice is expressed in the quote
about truth as a woman? It's not exactly trivial to explain, but for starters,
consider what it means that he considers it surprising or innovative that
truth would resemble a woman rather than a man. Why? Because men are
straightforward, logical, truth-like? Women, though, are mysterious, aesthetic
— and something to "win." Nietzsche often wrote with irony, but that there are
misogynistic aspects to this quote seems obvious.

Virginia Woolf: "Why are women... so much more interesting to men than men are
to women?"

~~~
Sir_Substance
>More seriously, misogyny is not just "hatred."

Yes, it is. That's what the word means, you don't get to redefine words to
make yourself right.

>You can, but it's not easy, especially not if you're a 19th century man.

You got time penetrating wide area psychic powers you're not telling us about,
or are you talking out your arse?

~~~
mbrock
"misogyny, noun. dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against
women."

I'm not redefining the word. You're wrong. Have a nice day.

~~~
Sir_Substance
I'm afraid that you are.

The english language is not defined by dictionaries, especially ones which
change their definitions as political stunts.

It is defined by how people use it.

Many dictionaries have changed their definition of "literally" to include
"figuratively", but I'm here to tell you that's not correct.

Similarly, I'm here to tell you that misogyny is specifically an abject hatred
of women, no matter how much it would support your political cause for it to
mean differently. Unlike "literally" your misuse of the worm misogyny puts you
in the minority. Most people still use it correctly.

I, or someone like me, will for the foreseeable future be here, triggering
you, whenever you misuse it.

~~~
mbrock
I know what a dictionary is, thank you. They're collections of definitions
collected by professionals who monitor usage.

But I'd be interested to hear more about your theory of linguistic meaning.
For example, if the meaning of a word is defined by how people use it, then
what grounds do you have to reject _my_ use of it?

You claim that I am in the minority when I use the word "misogyny" to mean not
only "abject hatred" but also "contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against" —
which is the definition vetted by the Oxford Dictionary of English. Can you
demonstrate this in any way?

Assuming that I am in the minority: if minorities are not allowed to use words
differently, how would the meanings of words ever change? Your ideas about the
meanings of words are incoherent. With your own premises, the statement "most
people use it correctly" is a tautology.

What political cause do you imply that I have? Do you think you have a
different political cause?

~~~
Sir_Substance
>You claim that I am in the minority when I use the word "misogyny" to mean
not only "abject hatred" but also "contempt for, or ingrained prejudice
against"

Fantastic, lets accept that definition for a second. Please explain how the
following demonstrates "contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against" women:

>Nietzsche said, in his funny and somewhat misogynistic way: "Supposing truth
is a woman, what then? Are there not grounds for the suspicion that all
philosophers, insofar as they were dogmatists, have been very inexpert about
women? That the gruesome seriousness, the clumsy obtrusiveness with which they
have usually approached truth so far have been awkward and very improper
methods for winning a woman's heart?"

~~~
mbrock
That's an interesting question. I did my best to explain my view in my first
reply to you, but you seem pretty hostile to my point of view, and I don't
have the time to discuss this in depth. If you're interested, I recommend you
consult the available literature on Nietzsche's views on women, like Nesbitt
Oppel's _Nietzsche on Gender,_ which argues that though his writings often use
misogynistic language, his views on women are deeper and don't reveal personal
misogyny, more the opposite. I quoted his question about truth as a woman
because I find it witty and thought-provoking, and my qualifier of "somewhat
misogynistic" points to his use of the stereotyped image of women as basically
irrational.

~~~
Sir_Substance
>I recommend you consult the available literature on Nietzsche's views on
women

So what you're saying is that I'm right, there's nothing in that statement
which shows anything less then the best respect for women, but because of
_other views that person holds_ those words, in and of themselves, are now
/irreparably tainted/.

There is no talking to morons like you.

~~~
mbrock
I could say something about "context," but you've already decided that I'm a
moron not worth talking to, so it seems pointless.

------
allendoerfer
The author describes an interesting framework. The problem I find in praxis
is, that founders _know_ about principles Paul Graham or Peter Thiel talk
about, but they have not internalized them and still fail to _act_ according
to them. The more complex the framework gets, the more opportunity is given to
misjudge and fail to act on them.

Founders try to _make something people_ want, they just misjudge what people
want. They know, that they should _fail fast_ but end up playing business
anyway, because they are scared of talking to people and to actually fail.

I therefore think, that complex frameworks are interesting to look at but
short catchphrases are more useful in praxis, because they are already hard
enough to act by.

~~~
visakanv
Genuine question: What can a person do to get better at acting on something
that they struggle with, when they acknowledge it to be valid/true?

~~~
allendoerfer
I would say, you can struggle with such a task because of two different
personal shortcomings: Missing skill or "psychological reasons".

If it is just missing skill: Find the best way for you to practice and
practice. Just retrying will get you somewhere.

If it is not a missing professional skill, but a psychological reason, which
blocks you, is different. I would say, you first need to realize the exact
thing, which hinders you. After you identified that, find a way to circumvent
it. This is more difficult, but everyone faces it, so there are many resources
about. I personally think acknowledging that your brain is just a human
machine, which acts in some situations in some way and can get triggered into
different states is key. Most of the time it is not about willpower.

~~~
visakanv
Thank you so much for this. I have encountered this POV before, and it makes a
lot of sense, though I have had some difficulty assimilating it fully. Oddly,
I feel better hearing it from somebody else (more data points, maybe?). I
really appreciate it.

------
lesingerouge
Interesting article. Nice analysis and formalization of two thought frameworks
(Thiel and Graham). Good ideas and good research with the mix of anthropology
and psychological included.

Framing this whole article as a hypothesis, the question is now whether this
hypothesis can be proven (ie does it work in real life) and what are the
limitations of this theoretical approach (ie maybe it will work only for
software and IT opportunities).

Anyway it seems like an interesting avenue to explore (combining psychological
and anthropological studies with investment research). Does anybody know of
any VC/accelerators/incubators that apply this method?

------
louischatriot
Very interesting read. What I would add to this framework is the often
overlooked "solving one big problem" vs "solving lots of small problems". Most
startups try to solve lots of problems, which can be seen by the number of
features being developped. This is understandable: in the early days, you keep
thinking that "if we had feature X, we would close customer A" and keep on
adding more and more features.

In general this doesn't work, because small problems are something we can live
with. It's way better to solve one big problem, the one the customer is losing
sleep over.

At Local Motion, we noticed that the big customers we closed fast were always
companies with one very big problem we could solve (e.g. "my cars are getting
stolen") vs lots of small problems (e.g. "software tool for maintenance" \+
"data reports" \+ "graphs" \+ xxx)

------
programminggeek
I have a simpler heuristic to get to success I think is to build something
that YOU wand and YOU would pay for. Then charge what you would be willing to
pay.

Unless you have a boatload of empathy or you spend a lot of time living with
and solving other people's problems, you are going to waste a lot of time on
these kind of silly frameworks for trying to find the perfect idea.

Yet, you are one of many billion people on the planet who buy things. So, it
is highly unlikely that what you want is totally unique. Also, the only person
you can truly empathize with is yourself. You know what you want and you like
better than anyone else.

Build for yourself. Sell what you would buy. If you wouldn't pay what you are
trying to charge, then you are probably in the wrong business.

------
tempodox
This article may well be interesting, but I would need some kind of Google
Translate in order to be able to read it.

------
muser
16 months old? How did the testing and overlay with PG's 18 startup mistakes
go?

