
The worst response to a great idea - chrisbennet
http://shop.bluffworks.com/blogs/news/12924385-the-worst-response-to-a-great-idea
======
nemesisj
Weird. I visited the website and got a message saying "This website abuses
rawgit.com. You should complain to its owner."

~~~
gadders
I think the owner needs to update his URLs to use the Raw Git CDN. From their
FAQ:

Can I use a rawgit.com URL on a production website? No. Please use
cdn.rawgit.com for anything that might result in heavy traffic. Only use
rawgit.com URLs for low-traffic testing and sharing temporary examples or
demos during development. When people misuse rawgit.com, it costs me money.
Please don't be a jerk.

What will happen if I send large amounts of traffic to a rawgit.com URL? Bad
things.

First, requests will be throttled and your site will load very slowly. If the
traffic continues even after automatic throttling is triggered, rawgit.com
will start serving evil.js and evil.css instead of requested JS and CSS files.
Visitors to your site may see an annoying alert warning against using
rawgit.com in production, and your JS and CSS may start doing very strange
things.

This is designed to get your attention and encourage you to stop being a jerk.
Only use cdn.rawgit.com in production; never rawgit.com.

~~~
gadders
And it looks like the Hacker News effect may have put Bluff Works on the top
referrers naughty list:

[http://rawgit.com/stats#referrers](http://rawgit.com/stats#referrers)

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moron4hire
My mother was [1] a serial entrepreneur. She is also a serial hobbyist, which
is to say that she procrastinates unknown work (like finishing projects) with
known work (like starting projects). Unfortunately, a trait she passed on to
me, but I seem to be getting out of it. It's a lot of hard work. And career
coaching.

It caused/causes some stress between my parents, but they are still constantly
brainstorming on business ideas. It was a pretty common refrain in our
household, "awww, look at that, they put a Steak-and-Shake exactly where we
were thinking of one." Whatever my mother lacked in execution and my father in
will, there was still a healthy appreciation for the entrepreneurial spirit.

So these days, they are both extremely supportive of my endeavors. And I've
found myself a group of friends who are the same. Having a supportive social
circle is incredibly important.

If you have folks in your life that you know are scared, little rodents,
content to show up to a J.O.B. every day and do what they are told, unable to
imagine how anyone else could ever want anything differently, then just don't
talk to them. By this point, people are used to the "boring job" story [2], so
if they ask what you do for a living (which itself is kind of a bullshit
question) just tell them "I'm in computers" or "I'm in sales". If they press,
"oh, you wouldn't find it interesting". Because even though it _is_
interesting, _they_ won't find it so.

And then go home and work your ass off.

[1] "was" in the sense that she mostly seems to have finally found success in
consulting for non-profit fundraising, not in the sense that she is no more.

[2] [http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-
jobs/](http://www.strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/)

------
circlefavshape
"I want to make a new kind of wrinkle-free pants that are cool instead of
stodgy and are so wrinkle free they can be worn for multiple days in a row
without care"

Is "jeans" not a subset of "pants" in US English?

~~~
twic
I wear a variety of kinds of trousers - jeans, chinos, cords, these weird
linen things - and i don't think i've ever noticed wrinkling as a problem.

Maybe it's the way i wash and dry them. Or maybe it's just because i'm
sufficiently fat that my body stretches the wrinkles out of everything i wear.

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Freaken
"This website abuses rawgit, you should complain to the owner".

Consider it done.

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tonylemesmer
He needs to ask the right questions. As the author correctly works out, the
respondents are operating with only a small amount of information available
and therefore being necessarily pessimistic in the outcome. Realistically the
people he asks for their opinion could probably only give information that a
customer could respond with. Therefore don't ask questions like "I want to
make wrinkle free pants what do you think?" and expect anything other than
direct comparisons to other products. The respondent doesn't know your margins
or even where you're selling them or anything else about the business.

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chrismcb
I don't get the title, but I'm glad the author is trying to understand the
criticism. "Aren't those dockers?" means you have to compete, and convince
people your brand is better. some people think their idea is new and
innovative when it might not be. "Better have 59 more ideas" is more of an
attempt at humor, but he is also right. Starting a new business isn't easy.
"why would anyone buy that?" I think history has proven that people would buy
wrinkle free clothes. The only piece of advice I can offer, is build your
brand. Having quality clothes will help build it, but in the end the only real
thing that is going to differentiate you and, well say docker, is your brand.

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squigs25
Most people out there are going to be nay sayers. A truly good idea is good
because it's a secret. PayPal's secret when it was founded was that people
might want a secure way of making payments over the internet. Facebook's
secret was that people want an easy way of staying connected to everyone
they've ever met.

Ideas are inherently not obvious. Judging the value of an idea is even less
obvious.

At the end of the day, you need to take small bets. Don't wager your life
savings. Listen to the criticism and have the confidence to filter out what
you think is irrelevant.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you and then
you win."

~~~
chrisbennet
"Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to
ram it down their throats."

-Howard H. Aiken

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retube
These would be perfect for me. Anyone know if they live up to the marketing
claims?

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stillsut
Try a different pitch, e.g.

"10 year hoodie"
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jakehimself/the-10-year...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jakehimself/the-10-year-
hoodie-built-for-life-backed-for-a-dec)

It's not about what product specs you can claim - like wear for 3 days without
wrinkles, but about explaining to consumer Joe why he needs that.

How about roll-out-of-bed-and-into-the-office pants?

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pessimizer
I don't know that manufacturing and distributing trousers is as much a great
idea as it is an industry that has made money for hundreds of years. It's well
proven that money can be made making clothes, the question is whether you have
the business skill and domain knowledge to do it yourself.

Trying to bring back sock garters could be a great idea. I would call them
'sockspenders.'

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soggypopsicle
This theory could be accurate in this case or since this is a niche product he
may have not asked people that had this need.

Since I'm not his target market I wouldn't have liked the idea but I'm sure
people who already like Dockers would have responded more favorably to what I
see as just a better version.

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Im_Talking
Exactly. And you need to see it exactly how it is. The entrepreneur is doing
things that normal people can only dream of. 99% of the population wants
order. But order never leads to progress. Be the person that changes the
status quo.

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orkoden
Ideas are worthless, execution is all that counts.

~~~
k__
Well, at least they have to be good ideas.

Some friends of mine had the money and the technology, but no one wanted their
product.

~~~
dragontamer
Marketing is part of execution.

