
How would I get started? - peteforde
http://hackertourism.com/post/37555787943/how-would-i-get-started
======
waterlesscloud
And of course this thread fills up with more of the same negativism trying to
justify itself.

PG nailed it with the term "middlebrow dismissal". Which is a politer term
than what I think when I come across it.

I never think to myself "Wow, what a realistic, practical, well-informed
comment that generic negative feedback was. My respect for that commenter has
certainly increased!" Particularly when it's the 500th example of the same
thing in the same thread. Why do people do that? You can't possibly imagine
you're adding any value in that case.

It's a growing problem here, and for me at least it's completely contrary to
why I visit this site.

In the end, I don't care if the dude is capable of starting his own cable
company or not. For one thing, I'm smart enough to know _it's not my place to
judge that_. It's completely irrelevant what I think about that. I can wallow
in my own mediocrity without feeling compelled to assign it to someone else.

But the value of the post to me, and to the site in general, is to consider
the question. How _would_ you go about starting a cable company? The question
of whether any particular individual is capable doing such is COMPLETELY
lacking in interest for me. I don't care about that answer, and I especially
don't care about some random internet commenter's opinon on that topic. But
the question itself is of interest to me, and I hope to others on this site.

If it's not, then maybe there's less value in this community than I'd hoped.

Sorry, a little riled up here. The continuing attempt at justifying the
attitude is a bad, bad sign.

~~~
daniel-levin
Speaking of ambitious ideas and 'middlebrow dismissal', I'd like to see the
algorithmic dismissal detector that PG wrote about. I'm sure the denizens of
HN know a thing or two about computational linguistics. Is this sort of thing
(algorithmic detection of middlebrow dismissals) possible?

~~~
apl

      > Is this sort of thing (algorithmic detection of
      > middlebrow dismissals) possible?
    

I'll give you a middlebrow dismissal: No. Definitely not at the current state
of the art. In fact, not many _people_ agree on whether a given comment
qualifies as a "middlebrow" dismissal; personally, I consider many of the
examples that pg has labeled as such pertinent points.

If in doubt, I prefer a good middlebrow dismissal to the shallow cheering of
the overly excitable.

~~~
daniel-levin
What is 'the current state of the art'? Note that I am a total dilettante in
the area of machine learning/NLP.

And why couldn't the top _k_ HN users (patio11 et al) be given the option to
classify comments {dismissive; troll; shallow-cheering; ...;} and this human
classification could be the training set of a supervised learning system that
could use NLP algorithms to derive useful metrics. Simplistic example:
dismissive word ('sucks'; 'never work', 'impossible') density correlating to
something that has been flagged as dismissive. Or is this an impossibility?
Again, I do not have the hands on knowledge to be able to call this one.

~~~
tobyjsullivan
The immediate flaw in that approach is that "patio11 et al" are top
contributers because they post a lot and have valuable opinions - NOT because
they are always right. They're not (I'm confident they would agree here).
Therefore their opinions would be inappropriate as an AI training set.

~~~
daniel-levin
Sure, totally agree, but a consensus by verified posters was more of what I
was aiming for

~~~
spion
I guess I am going to pitch my potential solution again:

[http://gkosev.blogspot.com/2012/08/fixing-hacker-news-
mathem...](http://gkosev.blogspot.com/2012/08/fixing-hacker-news-mathematical-
approach.html?m=1)

it would probably have more weight when i release the test code and datasets
though...

------
polyfractal
I don't understand your complaint...there were plenty of helpful posts in that
thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893858>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893826>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893857>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4894121>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4893841>

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4894378>

You asked for advice and received some great information. Just because the
overwhelming advice is "This is not a great idea, you will need a lot of money
to fight established, entrenched businesses" doesn't mean the advice was
unhelpful.

Did you want everyone to sugar coat their opinions with "Yeah! Go get them
tiger! We believe in you!", or did you want serious advice that can lead you
to making an informed, rational decision?

If you were a CEO of a company, would you want your employees to tell you
whatever you wanted to hear ("yes-men"), or would you want people who actually
advised you and helped make an appropriate decision (even when it may be
counter to your opinion)?

------
nhebb
I didn't take part in the previous thread, but I kind of took umbrage with the
question. It's really hard to take a question like that seriously when it
appears that the OP has put zero effort into researching the subject. How can
you not be pessimistic about that? If you're not the kind of person that can
do even the most basic research of how cable companies operate, then I don't
have one iota of confidence that you would be successful building one. I'm not
trying to be mean - just realistic.

~~~
irahul
> If you're not the kind of person that can do even the most basic research of
> how cable companies operate

"Ask HN" doesn't qualify as _most basic research?_

~~~
bartonfink
In my opinion, no. In this day and age, there are far better ways of obtaining
preliminary knowledge on a subject besides asking another person to fill you
in. There's obviously Google and Wikipedia as starting points, and there are
any number of paths those might lead to which would help you form a specific ?
- e.g. "what would you have to do to make true a la carte channel options from
a cable provider profitable?" That ? shows me that the person asking has done
at least preliminary research and, if I have any thoughts, I don't have to
start from square one.

Asking the community to spend its time doing preliminary research for you is,
to put it bluntly, rude.

~~~
astine
That's ridiculous. RTFM isn't an attitude that arrose apropos of nothing. It
comes from situations where newbies asking the same basic questions over and
over again exhausting a community's patience with simple questions that can be
easily looked up in a FAQ or manual. Asking an open ended question about
starting a new kind of business isn't anything like that. There's no FAQ about
starting an ISP* so it's difficult to know where to look for info. Asking
people who know more than you is not an unreasonable form of preliminary
research in most situations. My first stop would have been HN too.

*Amazingly, it looks like there is: <http://cgi.amazing.com/isp/> but it's hard to tell how useful it really is.

~~~
jt2190
HN in this case is what a salesperson would call an "unqualified lead". A good
salesperson tries to make sure that they sell their product to someone who
will potentially buy it. Similarly, the person who asks a question should try
to ask someone who can potentially answer it. Just as the HN community would
reject a posting that is a sales pitch for many products, the HN community
will reject a question that is too vague to answer.

For reference, here is the original, way too vague question:

    
    
      > I want to build a cable company that centers around 
      > viewer types. Basically, it is my understanding that the 
      > majority of my cable costs centers around channels 
      > (like fox) that I just dont watch, if I wanted to build   
      > a system that let customers limit this, where would I 
      > get started?
    

Note that he didn't ask this question on a discussion forum about cable
television. He didn't specify if he was looking for advice on the technical
aspects, the regulatory aspects, or the business aspects. He didn't hunt
around in the user profiles on HN to see if there were people with industry
experience that he could approach directly. He didn't describe whether he was
looking for high level answers like a list of websites that might have more
information, or whether he was looking for very specific info. He did nothing
to qualify HN as a good source for the answer to his question.

~~~
shurane
If I was trying to gloss a reason for the OP posting on HN, I would think he
asked here was because of HN's particular focus on startups and 'disrupting'
traditional industries. Seems to fit for creating a cable company. That being
said, the question is still a poor fit because, like others said, it lacks a
lot of initial effort.

------
jasonkolb
I upvoted this so hard.

I agree there is a very large snarky dick contingent on HN who pollute
potentially productive conversations with "What a stupid idea" type of
comments. (Unfortunately I think this is a symptom of the human race, not just
HN.)

However, there are some exceptionally bright people who hang out here who I
would love to just brainstorm with--throw ideas out and see what happens. This
site has an above-average level of these people I think.

I would love to see or find a group of people who are just interested in
getting together and banging heads together and see what comes out. Even if I
have no interest in starting a new courier service or whatever, I find it
quite enjoyable to take the lessons and skills that I've learned and apply
them in a new problem space. I especially love hearing feedback on those ideas
from people who've worked in those spaces.

The most promising ideas are the ones that might sound dumb to someone
entrenched in tradition.

~~~
SoftwarePatent
> I would love to see or find a group of people who are just interested in
> getting together and banging heads together and see what comes out.

Great idea! Something similar has actually happened, not with the HN
community, but just a handpicked group of highly intelligent people put into a
room together with the mission of coming up with innovative new ideas. It is
described in this article.

[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_...](http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/05/12/080512fa_fact_gladwell)

------
patio11
Imagine, as a thought experiment, that HN declared a do-over and took another
stab at answering the question. What, _specifically_ , do you want in the new
thread that was not present in the old thread, and what do you not want in the
new thread that was present in the old thread?

Some potential options:

a) _Keep_ all the facts. _Remove_ conclusory statements which suggest that
this is a bad idea.

b) _Remove_ the discouraging facts. _Add_ new facts which tend to not be
discouraging, such as "Monthly cable rates are high relative to many B2C
products and lifetime values can easily hit the thousands of dollars, allowing
you to spend a lot on customer acquisition." _Add_ conclusory statements
suggesting that this makes founding a cable company a good idea.

c) _Remove_ discouraging facts about the cable industry, _replace with_ to-do
action items which accurately describe the process of how one would set up a
cable company (regulatory approvals you'll need, who to hire, how much to
raise, etc etc), and very carefully attempt to phrase "Convince investors to
stake you with $X0 million" in such a way that it does not sound discouraging.

d) _Remove_ everything about starting a cable company. Treat the question as a
springboard about "How to disrupt the cable industry?"

e) Something else?

~~~
napoleond
Patrick, this is condescending. I doubt you meant for it to come across that
way, but that's how I read it. Most of the posts in the original thread could
have conveyed the exact same information in a less dismissive, discouraging,
and sometimes even hostile tone--it would have made them more valuable to our
community.

~~~
Mz
You are right: It is condescending, and I downvoted it for that reason which
has no doubt been cancelled out by like a hundred upvotes just because it is
Patrick.

But, gee, how many other people get called by their first name instead of
their handle? "Thomas" comes to mind, but I imagine it is a rather small club.
Patrick is fairly introverted and gets super nervous when giving public
speeches, even though he has experience doing so. On a much smaller scale, I
have been in the kind of position he is in here on HN. I read his remark here
as an attempt by someone with a lot of social pull and responsibility here but
limited social savvy to affirm the good qualities of a forum he is very
personally invested in. Yes, he did it less than smoothly. But his
condescension is very likely a defense mechanism, knowing he is a big target
and is very likely to be attacked. It is kind of him flinching, knowing it is
coming and trying to steel himself for it.

I don't know what the solution is, either for HN or Patrick. But I do know how
uncomfortable it is to be called out by my given name in public when most
other people are hiding behind some anonymous handle or otherwise lower
profile. I know how awful it feels to be delivered what amounts to a personal
attack so very personally, by name, from semi-anonymous crowds. I don't think
putting Patrick on the hot seat like that helps HN at all. In fact, it likely
makes things worse.

One of the problems with HN is that it is a forum aimed at a largely socially
awkward crowd. Most people who have the technical expertise to become
influential here will be poorly equipped to perform crowd control duties, even
though they essentially take that on as a de facto duty, like it or not. When
they attempt to live up to that duty, it might help to cut them some slack and
try to see the good intentions behind their sometimes mediocre execution.

I wish the leaderboard had 160 names on it. It is the top 150-ish people who
have some hope of "fixing" the loss of quality that is so frequently lamented
here. I don't know exactly how to do that on such a large scale, but I have a
few clues about how to proceed. And trying to meet people like Patrick halfway
is part of it.

(I apologize for how rambling this is. As is often the case, I seem to be
running a fever.)

~~~
georgeorwell
> "Thomas" comes to mind, but I imagine it is a rather small club.

I think this is a very interesting observation. One possible way to find this
club might be to look at tptacek's profile:

"Must-read list: 'patio11, 'gruseom, 'anigbrowl, 'mechanical_fish,
'carbocation, 'potatolicious, 'grellas, 'dctoedt, 'yummyfajitas, 'tzs,
'rayiner, 'rprasad. Yeah, yeah yeah, 'pg too."

But even more interestingly, there's a way to social engineer yourself into
the in-crowd. Open their profiles in separate tabs, click on "comments" and
"submissions", and bookmark the lot of them. Instead of reading the Hacker
News main page, open the tab group and read their comments and submissions.
Agree with them for the most part, and take their side in arguments. Not 100%,
or you'll come off like a sycophant. You're not looking for karma -
submissions are much better for that - you're looking for acceptance by that
group. When people call you by your first name, you've won.

I'm not advocating this, but I think it's interesting that it can be done.

~~~
Mz
:-) Though I have very serious doubts that would really work, at least not
without having sufficient technical knowledge and intelligence to genuinely
engage them in discourse. In which case you could join the in crowd on actual
merit -- and probably would far prefer that method, for a variety of reasons.
Some social circles you really can't fake your way into. This is probably one
of them.

~~~
georgeorwell
> And, as I have said twice already tonight on hn, I really need to go now.

> Later.

Go to wherever it is you need to go, Michele. By the way, I'm George, and I'm
a hackaholic.

P.S. I'm social engineering you.

~~~
Mz
Mmkay, George.

(Though check the time stamp. I left, ran my errand, and came back. Though I
will probably log off again soonish to sleep.)

------
RyanZAG
I'd say there is a big difference between 'asking for feedback' and 'fishing
for ideas'.

"I want to launch a new courier service. How would I get started?"

This seems much more in the 'fishing for ideas' stage and hoping you can crowd
source the process of creating your business while paying nothing for the
privilege. Most people aren't going to help you.

"I've started planning my new courier service. It will be mostly in the
healthcare industry as hospitals are over-paying on delivery costs of fragile
medicine. I've worked out some ideas on how I can better fit and transport
fragile medicine. However, I don't know how I would get contacts in the
medical industry to test drive the technology. Who should I try and talk to
and does anybody know of any existing studies into this? Anybody work in the
field of transporting fragile goods and know what certifications are
required?"

This is much more in the field of 'asking for feedback' and is very unlikely
to be brushed aside.

~~~
EwanG
I'm hoping you're actually working on the service you just described? Between
the delivery of meds and labs, it is "interesting" how much hospitals pay just
to get things from A to B - though the custody chain tracking certainly plays
a part.

~~~
RyanZAG
Unfortunately not! It is something I've seen before and the charge goes
straight to customers/insurance with even mundane things in healthcare - like
paying $50 for a pair of plastic gloves as an extreme example.

I don't actually have any new novel ways to transport medicine though, I was
just making an example. More than likely the high charges are because of the
very small number of providers of mobile, certified and absolutely secure cold
storage devices. I think my guess on asking about the certifications is
probably the right aspect to tackle first if considering this, because the
certifications are no doubt extremely challenging to obtain.

EDIT: Also want to add - if anybody finds the idea of cheaper medical
transport appealing, please try and make it a reality! Decreasing the cost of
medicine by any sort of factor is probably the single best thing that could be
done for humanity as a whole at present, and will probably make you more money
than some new social network.

------
crazygringo
I love this idea. Not as something to realistically help you get started, but
purely educational. There's so much knowledge tied up exclusively among people
"in the industry", that would be great to get out into the public.

I would _love_ to know all the things involved in starting an airline. How are
planes actually bought? How are mechanics actually procured? What kind of
safety regulations are followed? etc.

I once read the book "Starting & Running a Restaurant for Dummies" just to
find out how it's done. It's fascinating!

But turning it into a Wiki, for anything, would be so much better. You can
have summary sections, that link to fuller articles, you can cross-reference
how to hire a chef (both for the restaurant, and for the airline catering),
and so on.

~~~
corford
I worked in the aviation industry for 6 years, so here's a 20 second "Airlines
for Dummies" guide :)

1). To acquire aircraft you either buy directly from the manufacturer (Boeing,
Airbus, Embraer etc.) or (much more commonly and especially if you only plan
on operating a small fleet) you lease them from someone like Macquarie or, in
some cases, from another airline who has spare capacity (known as wet and dry
leasing).

Alternatively, if you are an existing airline, you can temporarily contract
another airline's aircraft under what is known as ACMI. They give you their
aircraft and crew and you pay the fuel, landing fees and other taxes. ACMI
contracts can be as short as a day or last for years.

2). For mechanics (assuming you mean people), you either hire them directly
via specialised aviation staff agencies or you outsource maintenance (e.g. to
someone like www.priority.aero)

3). Safety regulations are devised by international bodies such as ICAO and
IATA as well as national entities known as Civil Aviation Authorities.
Aircraft manufacturers also play a role. It's typically each country's CAA
that primarily enforces the regulations on all nationally registered aircraft.
In Europe, there is also Eurocontrol which is a pan European governmental body
that's responsible for co-ordinating Europe's airspace.

If you wanted to start a new airline (assuming it was to offer charter flights
and not scheduled routes), some of the things you'd need to do would be:

1). Decide what type and how many aircraft you need

2). Decide what cabin layout you need (all economoy?, how many rows, how many
galleys etc.). This depends largely on who you envisage your customers will be
(e.g. are you planning to sell charter capacity to tour operators or do you
want to offer a VIP configured fleet to fly wealthy people around).

3). Decide what engines you need (different generations have different range
capabilities and maintenance costs)

4). Get your aircraft. If you go the leasing company route, try to get a
"power by the hour deal" where you only pay for the hours you fly (the holy
grail) or a short 1 or 3 year lease. The market is depressed at the moment so
gone are the days where leasing companies demand 5 or 10 year terms.

5). Get insurance. You will need a specialist aviation policy from someone
like Lloyds. Although it depends on what aircraft you are insuring and where
you plan to fly, a typical policy will offer damage and liability cover in the
region of $200 million.

6). Get your crew together (flight, operations and ground staff). Due to
minimum rest regulations, you are going to need at least two sets of flight
crew for each aircraft if you want to maximise utilisation. For a 180 seater,
a typical crew complement consists of: a captain, a first officer, a mechanic
and 4 cabin staff. To save on staff costs (at least in theory) you can
outsource operations (these are the people that co-ordinate everything -e.g.
catering the aircraft, filing flight plans, crew rostering, over flight
permits etc.)

7). Get your operating license from the CAA. You can't fly without it.

8). Set up a fuel deal using a fuel broker (or directly with Shell or BP).

???

profit*

\-- * Actually there is no profit in running an airline. Seriously, don't do
it (trust me).

~~~
ovi256
That there's no profit is something I've seen repeatedly, including written by
Warren Buffet. So my question is where does the capital they burn through each
year come from ? What kind of magic business is this where companies are
eternally taking losses yet still around ?

Is someone giving them money to burn ?

~~~
corford
Unfortunately, explaining this will take more than a sentence and it's 00:30
where I am and I need to sleep. But in a nutshell, the whole industry relies
on a heady mix of stupid investors, money launderers and state backing. The
only people that make money are the brokers (as in most industries...).

~~~
krakensden
But there's a lot of money in running the things:
[http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/01/american_merg...](http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2012/10/01/american_merger_with_us_airways_ceo_tom_horton_gets_a_huge_payday_if_it_can_be_avoided_.html)

------
SatvikBeri
Many of my friends have a very interesting trait: pose any sort of problem in
front of them, and they'll practically drop everything to work out a solution.

Trebuchets using only materials in the office. Conquering South Africa.
Lesbian strip clubs. Realistic world domination. What the world would look
like if D&D rules actually applied. AI for storytelling. Etc.

Regardless of how ridiculous the premise, they'll work on it until they have
at least a plausible solution. Ignoring impossibilities and slim chances and
jumping straight into brainstorming and crazy ideas is a lot of fun. I'd
rather have more of those conversations.

------
huggah
The problem with this is that for questions like "how could I build a cable
company?", _answers don't help"_.

If you want to build a cable company, a payments system, a new government, or
colonize mars there is no high level answer. There are hundreds, thousands,
tens of thousands of sub-questions that need to be answered. Eventually so
many that you need to hire people to ask and answer them, and you won't even
know what the question was.

The truth is that if you really want to go to space, no one will help you. Not
because we don't want to help you, but because we _can't_. We can speculate,
and dig up research or law or economics---but at the end of the day, all
you're doing is inviting us to help design your bikeshed. If you can break
down the problem, figure out which questions to ask, what information you
don't have, and who does, that person might be able to help you. By the time
you've gotten that far, you're already on the verge of sinking your life into
this---and if you want to build a cable company, that's what it's going to
take.

------
smoyer
I missed that question and would be happy to help with the technical aspects
of starting a cable company (though I'd like to see content delivery decoupled
from the infrastructure). I have 25 years of experience in the industry if he
gets that far.

The hard part of the process (and I believe the limiting factor in a new
company's success), is arranging the contracts with the content syndicators.
Find my e-mail in my profile if you're serious.

~~~
berkay
Actually even this tidbit (contracts) helps. Identifying the
challenges/obstacles is very valuable as it opens it to creative solutions to
those problems that may not occur to insiders.

~~~
smoyer
IIRC, ESPN is the most expensive and some of the channels are actually free.
If there is information on the history of Telebeam (and how they started), it
might be instructional with regards to picking a niche and starting small.

------
xiaoma
> _"I’m really disappointed in the universally pessimistic and generally
> unhelpful answers this question received. Some people pitched some
> interesting ideas and helpful analysis, but most of the replies reinforced
> the notion that Hacker News readers are predominantly male know-it-alls and
> on the average, a bunch of snarky dicks."_

This would have been both more convincing and shorter without the anti-male
bit. I realize that western media is pretty insensitive to this variety of
sexism, but a quick test is to try substituting "black", "female", or "Jewish"
where you've written "male". If it sounds offensive, then it probably is.

~~~
peteforde
I promised myself that I wasn't going to reply directly to any of the
comments, but it's important to rebut this succinctly: so far as I can tell,
100% of the top 1oo contributors to Hacker News (by karma) are male.

I am documenting my methodology and will publish my findings in the near
future.

Please remember that nobody has the right to not be offended. Meanwhile, if
you can prove that HN has been taken over by Jewish black women with a
collective chip on their shoulder, then I will stand corrected.

~~~
xiaoma
I don't dispute that it's a mostly male site. The problem is that unless
you're claiming that being male is a negative thing, there's no reason to
include it along with your criticisms of "know-it-alls" or "bunch of snarky
dicks".

If, for example, you said that Hollywood producers were "predominantly Jewish
know-it-alls and on the average, a bunch of snarky dicks," then a lot of
Jewish people would take offense and rightfully so... dispite the fact that
the vast majority of producers are in fact Jewish.

Similarly, the claim that elementary schoolteachers were "predominantly female
know-it-alls and on the average, a bunch of snarky bitches," you would have
offended a lot of women, and the fact that most elementary school teachers are
female would be no defense.

There's no need to bash men to make your argument. Bash the snarkiness or the
know-it-all attitudes. That's my humble request to make the discussion a bit
friendlier, and incidentally more focused on what actually matters.

~~~
jbooth
It has to do with power. The comment about jewish film producers (high status)
is not only not offensive, Mel Brooks has made jokes about it for 30 years.

Calling all female schoolteachers (low pay) 'bitches' is extra offensive on 2
levels.

------
lnanek2
So if someone says they want to jump off a cliff naked, should we all applaud
and encourage them? I think it's better to tell them it isn't going to work
out well and why.

There was some interesting analysis and procedures in that thread about how to
go about it, but the best post for the OP was really about how, as a company,
he would be paying to license certain channels, and if users only subscribed
to one or two instead of all of them, he wouldn't make enough money to keep in
business.

As a user he can whine and complain all he wants about a la carte being rare,
but as a business, he has to make enough money to keep running and he didn't
understand that. Pointing out big problems in his plan is doing him a favor
because he can then change the plan or address them.

------
raganwald
Here's a rule of thumb: If a new business isn't impossible, it isn't worth
discussion on a web site with the word "hack" in its name.

~~~
unimpressive
Or at the very least, if a new business isn't _generally thought to be
impossible_.

~~~
raganwald
Very true! In my own case, I like to think "impossible," because I don't want
to fall into the trap of thinking that I have the insight to know the
difference between actually-impossible and impossible-for-mere-mortals-to-
conceive.

So if something seems impossible to me, I try to consider the possibility that
the problem is my lack of imagination.

------
peripetylabs
I didn't participate in the discussion because the question was so vague. _"I
want to colonize Mars. How would I get started?"_ The same way NASA got to the
Moon -- they didn't log onto ARPANET and ask around, they got to work.

------
ChuckMcM
An interesting rant. I've observed that problem solvers also follow something
like the inverse power law, which is to say it takes a certain kind of person
to attack large problems and as the problems get larger the set of people
willing to consider them seriously decreases logarithmically until it
asymptotically approaches zero.

In an analagous fashion the "quality" (using karma as a metric of quality) of
comments on HN are also quite high and drop off steeply approaching zero. This
is reflected both in the comments, and in the karma distribution [1]. The
trick is to keep the noise floor high enough for quality reading and low
enough that you don't miss out on new people making great comments.

[1] <http://www.mcmanis.com/karma-chart.html>

------
spindritf
> And yet Hacker News folk must be drawn at least somewhat by Paul Graham, who
> applauds frighteningly ambitious startup ideas.

It wasn't a frighteningly ambitious start-up. It was the same old idea, done
hundreds of times across multiple countries, with a minor adjustment in its
pricing structure.

~~~
jere
I believe the author is referring to Y Combinator and the startups _it_ funds,
rather than Viaweb.

Though I'm sure you could argue many of those are rather unambitious ideas
also.

~~~
JshWright
I believe the OP was referring to the cable company idea that started this
whole discussion.

~~~
jere
Woops. I was quite confused by _it_.

------
madsushi
> However, why does everyone assume that the inquiring mind is an idiot?

Because the inquiring mind did zero research and asked a question so broad and
so vague that it was impossible for anyone to answer it without months of work
and very specific knowledge.

To quote Carl Sagan: "If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must
first invent the universe." I don't think anyone was wanting to sit and spend
hours explaining to the author how to do something incredibly difficult and
complex without the author putting anything forward. Why not just take that
knowledge and do it myself?

------
chernevik
Everybody already knows it would be great if we could get cable speed and
reliability without actually laying cable. Building a business around that is
easy. The hard part is actually achieving that.

Asking people for the miracle upon which you'd like to build a business, that
anyone could build given that miracle, isn't a request for constructive
feedback. At its absolute best it is a request for an IP handout.

------
neurotech1
The answer to most of these questions, is find somebody knowledgeable in the
field or industry, and ask them for advice. Most of the SpaceX senior staff
have aerospace experience.

~~~
gprasanth
> find somebody knowledgeable in the field or industry,

This, or actually get yourself into the field, work for some time.

In a lecture(startupschool), Jessica Livingston(Partner, YC) talked about a
guy who made app that allows users to order food from their phone. She said
that he was an example of 'a good founder' because he actually joined a
restaurant as a waiter just to learn how things worked.

Take away? (Get your self involved in, know widely about, find spots which you
should do better) in the field you want to start your company in[Joel Spolsky
also said something of this sort in his lecture!]

------
napoleond
A lot of those questions would get really good answers on Quora (and I agree,
they should be welcomed here more openly).

A really good story related to all of this is the way Richard Branson started
Virgin Atlantic: [http://ravithesun.wordpress.com/2006/12/25/birth-of-
virgin-a...](http://ravithesun.wordpress.com/2006/12/25/birth-of-virgin-
atlantic/) (couldn't find a better source, but I heard him tell the same story
at an event)

------
gizzlon
This reminded me of Richard Branson (the Virgin guy) and a post by James
Altucher. I think James' point is that to do something huge, like start a new
airline, you always have to find the next step. Pretty basic really, break a
big task into smaller pieces. But worth a read nonetheless, it really goes
into OP's question.

 _"Q: How do you know when you’re thinking too big or aiming too high (if
that’s even possible)?"_

 _"A: In the mid-90s I had an idea that lasted about the amount of time it
takes to drink two beers. I say this because I had the idea at a bar and it
was quickly squashed by the two friends I was with

(...)

My real problem was: I didn’t have confidence. And I didn’t know what the next
step was. In retrospect, I should’ve written down my idea, written down ten
ideas for possible shows to launch with, and started pitching TV companies to
get someone to partner with me on it. That would’ve been simple and not taken
too much time before there was some payoff."_

[http://www.jamesaltucher.com/how-do-you-know-when-youre-
thin...](http://www.jamesaltucher.com/how-do-you-know-when-youre-thinking-too-
big-or-aiming-too-high-if-thats-even-possible/)

------
jelleprins
While I do find it interesting to read about the work involved to start such a
company - I believe most here would be even more interested to read what steps
it would take to start a disruptive company in such a market. A lot of these
markets are either ready for disruption or have recently been disrupted. I
would love to read an in depth-article about the work involved.

------
nicholas73
I think the issue isn't about how feasible the start up idea is in general,
but how feasible it is for YOU. The comments may have been directing you to
another idea for this reason.

Using your example of Elon Musk, you can see even his start ups have a
progression of ambition. That is, space travel and electric car companies are
much less feasible than a payment system or news site.

What is the difference between Musk and you today? Simple. Investors trust him
with large sums of money since he has led successful companies before.

There is a reason YC companies generally have low capital requirements. That
is the lack of track record of the founders (and that business experience does
matter).

For your cable idea, the path towards that goal may very well be starting
other companies first. Or be an industry insider who has the experience and
connections to convince the incumbents to invest in you (like Pandora).

------
robbiea
I definitely agree with this article. We shouldn't be pessimistic about
someone's grand vision. However, if you really wanted to start a cable company
you probably wouldn't be asking hacker news on how to start a cable company.
You would already have other resources that you can tap into and get started
on it.

~~~
Mz
Wow, what elegant hypocrisy.

I want to change healthcare. I have spent twelve years getting myself well
when the entire world says it cannot be done. I have a website. I have a
mental model for how to proceed forward. I don't have the programming skills I
need. I am deeply in debt from the process of accomplishing "the impossible".
The specifics of my personal situation are unconducive to applying to
Y-Combinator. I have a really huge credibility problem.

I am generally equally dismissed, though my intent to do something potentially
world changing is sincere and backed up by more than a decade of work. But,
hey, feel free to join the legion of people who have already dismissed me for
not currently having some successful business model in place while claiming
you would like to see people like me get more support.

Oy.

Tldr: People seek feedback at different stages. Having nothing currently in
hand (or seeming to) is not proof of lack of seriousness.

~~~
fearless
Aren't you homeless? Your first priority should be a getting a job so you can
get out of debt and put a roof over your head. Then worry about big ideas like
changing healthcare.

To be perfectly candid, the reason people dismiss you is that someone who
seems incapable of providing for themselves to take care of their basic needs
is certainly incapable of starting a hugely disruptive business.

Sorry if this is harsh. Just trying to help.

~~~
Mz
I left my job in order to finish getting well. I was working at a desk job but
the building was in an industrial park, surrounded by factories. Given how
expensive and debilitating my condition is via conventional treatments, it
makes no sense, financial or otherwise, to pursue an income source which keeps
me ill.

My first priority should be, and is, my health.

~~~
fearless
Isn't being homeless generally accepted as being more detrimental to health
than pretty much any office job?

My only point is that you should start at the bottom of Maslow's hierarchy and
take care of the basics for yourself before trying to change the world.
Seriously. Get off the internet, get off HN, and figure out some way to have a
stable income(or apply for disability and welfare), get health insurance, etc.
After you've done that you can transform healthcare. Not before. Ranting
online isn't going to change anything for you. Get out there and fix the
basics.

~~~
Mz
I am fixing the basics. I know you mean well, but you do not know what you are
talking about when it comes to my situation.

Also, I did not post in this thread to ask for support, but to make a point,
and not about me per se. I am sorry you are so distracted by the particulars
of my situation, which are really rather incidental to this discussion, which
is about HN culture.

Anyway, I have things to do. Logging out now.

Later.

~~~
namdnay
> I am sorry you are so distracted by the particulars of my situation, which
> are really rather incidental to this discussion

Well, you did talk a lot about your personal situation in your original
comment, so you shouldn't act surprised that the discussion took that turn

------
Geee
For most of those questions, the answer is capital.

Elon Musk started from very low hanging fruits for him, whose success enabled
him to move on with more ambitious goals. This model is easily replicable, so
if you have ambitious goals, first build capital with something easier. Which,
I think, most of people here are doing.

~~~
ksikka
Encouragement which builds up from experience is also a sort of intangible
capital.

People are getting their feet wet for experience.

------
nhangen
I didn't read any of the comments in the original thread, but I can imagine
why many of them were negative. Here is the question:

' I want to build a cable company that centers around viewer types. Basically,
it is my understanding that the majority of my cable costs centers around
channels (like fox) that I just dont watch, if I wanted to build a system that
let customers limit this, where would I get started?'

This, to me, reeks of laziness. The OP would have done better to say 'this is
what I've done, research, and/or these are the ideas I have. Am I right,
wrong, or close?'

So problem #1 is that, from the looks of it, the OP didn't do any research
before asking the question.

Problem #2 is that the question is a lazy one.

I can guarantee you that Elon didn't ask these type of questions, but instead
presented lists of assertions and hypothesis which he was prepared to test
and/or validate.

------
miles_matthias
I've setup a Wikispace wiki for this to begin. If people contribute and think
this is a good idea, then maybe its own domain and custom design will be in
order.

I love this idea and I think we should run with it. Go to:

<http://howdoistart.wikispaces.com/>

and edit away!

------
stevewilhelm
The first thing one should do if you want to disrupt a market is learn as much
as you can about the current state of that market.

This doesn't mean reading it's Wikipedia entry.

Ideally, it means spending several years working for the current market leader
in that space.

Barring that, reading as much as you can about the history, economics,
mechanics, and current players in that space.

If possible, become a customer of one or two of the market leaders. If that is
not feasible, again get to know people who are customers (again they may
become your first target customers).

Befriend several people who do work in that space (they could become your
first hires).

The deeper your understanding and experience in a market, the more likely you
will succeed in disrupting it.

------
famo
I didn't see the thread either, but I like this post. I think the best way to
go about starting something large and ridiculous is to tell all your friends
and family you're going to do it, to the point where it would become
embarrassing if you didn't even try to make it a success. Friends and family
are the best at calling you out on not living your dreams.

"Hey Gaius, weren't you going to build a Cylon detector? You talked about it
for months"

"Yeah, but it was too hard and I didn't know how to start"

"You suck"

A more practical benefit of telling all the people you meet is that one of
them might know or be associated with someone who is connected with the
industry.

------
josephlord
Criticizing what someone has made with middlebrow dismissiveness is one thing
but pointing out that taking on a legally and commercially entrenched industry
will be hard and here are some of the specific challenges is entirely valid.

I think the original question is worth picking apart if the answers are being
criticized.

>Ask HN: I want to build a cable company. How would I get started?

> I want to build a cable company that centers around viewer types. Basically,
> it is my understanding that the majority of my cable costs centers around
> channels (like fox) that I just dont watch, if I wanted to build a system
> that let customers limit this, where would I get started?

The original question is worse (by a long way) than most of the answers. Most
of the answers pointed out the major challenges or suggested better ways to
achieve the vaguely stated aims although there were some useless dismissals.

The question indicates (possibly wrongly) a massive lack of understanding of
the business "Basically, my understanding...[something basically right but
oversimplified]". It is badly punctuated "fox" rather than "Fox", 'dont'
rather than "don't". The question also fails to really be clear about what he
wants to do. Does he really want to run a cable company maintaining wires in
the ground and boxes in homes? Or is this mostly about securing more favorable
and flexible content deals? Or is there an implicit assumption that he needs
to own the cables to get the deals? What scale does he want to start on? A
small town/city or national?

I didn't see the original question while it was active but if I did I would
have pointed out how hard such a business is to break into especially if top
grade content is required due to the maze of exclusivity contracts and the
value of them which means massive amounts of money are needed to make the
sellers choose non-exclusive options. Even companies like Microsoft and Sony
with massive deployed platforms (Xbox and PS3 in particular) need prolonged
negotiations to get any content and aren't anywhere near being able to offer
full cable replacements and even with their own content Sony can offer only
what is not exclusively licensed elsewhere.

However that doesn't mean that the video space can't be attacked as Netflix is
showing but it will in my view need to be an indirect attack that builds
audience until it can compete head to head for the major deals and content as
a viable distribution platform and pricing model. Note that when the
competition really starts costs may rise not fall as the platforms will
compete for the most important content potentially driving up content prices
for all the distribution platforms.

------
zehnfischer
Sure, the internet can be a cynical place, remote communication seems to wake
the worth in a lot of people. At the same time it is full of wonders. Maybe I
can invite you to join a discussion about how it could impact in political
decision making? Click along: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4891571>

------
pla3rhat3r
LOVE this! I'm new to programming and it's the toughest thing to answer. How
or where do I get started? I have some great ideas but not much in the way of
skills to get it done. I know we all have different levels of "figure it out"
skills but it's always helpful if you find someone who can at least show you
how to open the door.

------
tomasien
HERE HERE!

But I do always find myself needing to point out: Hacker News is the most
constructive and positive community on the internet. Yes there are lots of
dicks and know-it-alls with "why didn't they just do this?" syndrome, but you
won't find another anonymous discussion based community of this quality
anywhere.

~~~
rada
Metafilter is equally as good.

------
tobyjsullivan
This is exactly the mentality we need to see more of. Dismissing good ideas is
not just unproductive but actually destructive to the overall progression of
thought - which is why we're here in the first place.

------
AnthonyJoseph
The biggest problem with forums like this, is the tendency for people to
answer questions that the OP didn't ask.

------
marcamillion
I just submitted a propsal for a new thread format on HN that would
potentially solve this. Any upvote love would be appreciated -
<http://news.ycombinator.com/newest>

It's called "Proposal: HWIGS HN: How would I get started".

------
mvts
Great article, an enjoyable read. Thanks.

------
Chirael
Nicely written!

------
jkaljundi
Amen.

------
spitx
There is nothing "rude" about asking HN to chime in on your exploratory-stage
ideas, especially when they are uncommonly ambitious and not your average
badgeville startup ideas. Face it, Foursquare is not going to fetch you a
mercenary if you ever needed one.

Why can group-mulling of ideas, be a terrific endeavor?

1) It can stress-test your idea and expose the glaringly gaping holes you
might have overlooked, in the very fashioning of the prospect itself.

2)Some ideas may not lend to "socialization" because of their inherent nature.
Helps to have them flagged -- if not decimated -- before you even begin. Eg: A
startup seeking to disrupt the litigation law market isn't very readily
socialize-able as one targeting the fitness trainer market.

3) The group-mulling process need not be just one-way beneficial. The
"mullers" stand to benefit from having their horizons broadened too. They
might for once realize, that there are entire industries -- non-glamorous but
nonetheless high gravity, real-impact ones -- waiting to be disrupted beyond
the Mayorvilles and Filtergrams of the valley.

This kind of mulling happens on Quora all the time.

HN should encourage it.

Again you are just being asked to mull.

Not leak insights from the equity-research desk at Goldman Sachs.

Chill with the dressing-downs.

------
funthree
there is no shame in being pragmatic

