

Warning: Software Startups are Not as Easy as Everyone Says (2007) - dshah
http://www.softwarebyrob.com/2007/11/06/why-starting-a-software-company-is-not-as-easy-as-everyone-tells-you-and-why-facebook-apps-are-crap/

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danielrhodes
This guy is statistically correct, but reading stuff like this is like
kryptonite for entrepreneurs.

What this guy doesn't take into account is that in practice, not everybody is
equal. If you learn from the right people and think in the right ways, you can
position yourself much better so that your odds are much greater than 2% or
whatever random number he threw out there.

It's lame when you see posts like this because all it does is make people want
to quit when they are actually learning a lot and taking a chance and seeing
what's possible. If you are enjoying what you are doing, keep on doing it for
as long as you can.

Clearly it's not easy, and most entrepreneurs would love to face the
challenges that successful ones do.

~~~
whyleyc
I think you're misunderstanding the post - the author is not encouraging
entrepreneurs to quit, but instead highlighting the importance of choosing
your niche carefully.

This seems like sensible advice to me - if you want to maximise your chances
of success then pick an area to compete where the number of competitors is
proportionally smaller or existing competitors have missed the point.

Just because a market may seem boring doesn't mean the technology used to
address it will be.

~~~
Retric
To give an idea of how important this is. If twitter had a real competitor in
the early days they would have been toast due to technical issues. However,
because they where stumbling alone in the dark nobody was there to rob them of
customers. Which game them time to grow large enough and competent enough to
become a much harder target.

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kondro
Persistence allows luck a chance to happen.

I'm a strong beliver, having spent a lot of time consulting with various
companies, that most of them become successful because they get lucky at some
point in their history.

I've rarely seen or worked with perfect companies that have smart leaders and
ideas that area too good not to succeed. However, what I have found common is
these successful companies usually spent a long time (>5 years) not being
successful until one day they land their whale, great PR/marketing
opportunity, big idea, etc and become successful.

What did they do different? They weren't smarter, had more money or worked
harder than their competitors. What they did was persevere until they got
lucky. Luck is a factor of probability and, as long as you don't have a real
lemon of a product (and even sometimes if you do), you will be lucky…
eventually.

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jdp23
Does anybody really believe startups are easy? When I talk with people, I
always make it a point to say "startups are _hard_" -- and everybody nods in
agreement.

~~~
nostrademons
Note the date on the article. It's from 2007, which was the height of the Web
2.0 / FaceBook App craze, before the market cratered. Everybody - myself, my
future brother-in-law, several of my friends, a few of my current coworkers -
was creating a startup back then.

~~~
bentlegen
_Everybody - myself, my future brother-in-law, several of my friends, a few of
my current coworkers - was creating a startup back then._

That's funny - I feel like I'll be saying the same thing about 2010-2011 in a
few years.

~~~
mishmash
Except this time it'll be with _Apps_... :)

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acconrad
This is what kills me about the "startups are really hard" stats: it
perpetuates the "you're bad if you're a failure" mantra. There have been
numerous posts saying how a failing startup is not a failure and something to
be congratulated here in the US, particularly in the Valley. Someone recently
posted an article as to why entrepreneurship is lagging behind in Japan for
exactly this reason. So why scare entrepreneurs here in America?

I've learned, without even having started my own company, that if you build
something...ANYTHING...it can only be a good thing. If I created a project and
the best stat I ever received was that 5 people used it, the WORST possible
thing that could happen is I spent a couple of bucks on hosting, and now I can
demo it to every future job I decide to take. If you build something in your
spare time, it shows passion, initiative and excitement. Who doesn't want to
hire someone like that?

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clinton
Possibly a reality check for someone who might have been chugging the ol Kool-
Aid a bit much.

Unfortunately the "bottom line" section makes the whole article sound like a
jaded entrepreneur who made a 'me too' social application that didn't bring in
the easy dollars.

So Software startups are hard unless you try a 'boring' idea like 'bug
tracking' or 'invoicing software'? Huh? So a software startup is 'easier' if
you have have found people suffering problems that cost them real time or
money, which your piece of technology can solve?

Guess what - those 'boring' ideas, or the lessons and rationale behind them is
the real thing you are learning about building a business. Will it be 'easier'
than your me too social app? Not a chance - it will have its own set of
challenges and pitfalls - but you will learn even more about process and be be
a little more likely to be 'successful' the next time round when you are
thinking "Oh, man it would have been easier if I had have done this 'boring'
thing over here that these people were successful with".

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evgeny0
Who on Earth said startups were easy?

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jacques_chester
"I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the
battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of
understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; _but time and chance happeneth
to them all_."

Luck is a huge factor in success. Napoleon used to ask of candidates for
lieutenant "is he lucky?", and he meant it.

Time and chance, folks. The idea for Facebook is as old as dirt in internet
time.

~~~
aditya
And for Groupon, as well!

~~~
MrFlibble
Thing is there can be a dozen great ideas out there but it won't necessarily
be the best one that succeeds but rather the one that people actually hear
about.

Amazing how many people believe if they build it "they will come" with nothing
else planned. Oh if only the world were so easy.

~~~
aditya
Yeah, making "them come" is almost as hard as building a product that will
keep them coming back...

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zackattack
This is a poster case of political correctness gone wrong. Making millions of
dollars does not make a woman significantly attractive. Case in point, Kathy
Bates, who has a terrible time meeting men, despite her success/wealth/talent.

