

Ask YC:  Users don't like creative founders, right? - amichail

If your startup has users, they probably like what you have done as is.  In particular, they would not appreciate any major changes no matter how clever/creative/useful you think they are.  About the only thing you can do that they will not complain about is to improve speed.  Is that about right?
======
mixmax
I would say that is very wrong.

Check this article that was submitted earlier
[http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/02/gmails-humble-
begin...](http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/02/gmails-humble-
beginning.html)

Gmail had nothing when it launched, but kept on adding features as the need
from user arose.

This is generally the way to go, I think that the way you describe is
stalemate at best, and disaster at worst.

~~~
amichail
By "users", I don't necessarily mean early adopters. When you get significant
traffic (or non-technical traffic), your user base will be much more reluctant
to change.

------
pg
No, users used to love it when we introduced new features.

~~~
xirium
If you incrementally add one new feature then any existing user may or may not
use the new feature. But what happens if you radically overhaul a site,
changing its style, changing the items, style and placement of the navigation
and improving but changing core functionality?

~~~
Hexstream
Can you not throw away what's bad and keep what's good during your
overhaul?...

~~~
hbien
It's generally really hard to throw away stuff, even if it's bad. Users get
used to things in the UI even if it's bad.

------
dkokelley
I think the title should be changed. Your question is not about creative
founders, but rather system changes.

I think most users accept, like, and even expect some evolution in your
startup's product or service. The thing most users don't like is when you
change something drastically, when it already worked well.

Justin.tv comes to mind. When they started, their site was about 4 pages, with
the home page hosting the video feed and a few others for information. This
worked for those who were interested in watching Justin and crew doing
whatever it was they were doing. I remember the day they radically changed the
design and layout of the site. The entire background changed, some buttons
were missing, others were added. They had prepared viewers already, but the
initial reaction was largely negative.

The reason for this change was to shift the direction of JTV. Users would
browse through hundreds of feeds instead of only one. They would even publish
their own feeds, and the site was redesigned to accommodate this.

This was a major change in direction for those who were watching originally,
and many didn't like it. What JTV had before worked for what they wanted to
do: Watch Justin. Now it became more difficult, but JTV took a calculated risk
in making the change, and I think in the end it payed off because what they
have now serves more people in more ways.

The difference is between improvements and overhauls. Improvements are
expected and encouraged. Overhauls are only for radical changes in direction
or to fix something incredibly broken. If it was broken, your users will thank
you in the end, it it's a change in direction, you're taking a risk, and good
luck with it.

------
pibefision
Think on Flickr, it started as flash game online and it's the best site on
imaging on the net. Thats creative change. And the community acepted it very
well.

------
Tygerdave
I find the only startups that I'm being drawn into are the ones with creative
founders. The two that come to mind are Wesabe and now TipJoy, both are sites
that launched when they had built enough to be useful, but still have a lot of
interesting potential. You can just look at Google's share price if you want
proof that users love potential and expect change and improvements.

~~~
amichail
Google's products don't change much in terms of UI/features. They innovate
more on the technology behind the scenes.

~~~
Tygerdave
I think that speaks to their creativity, keeping things simple for the user
takes a lot of creativity. I can't speak to your experience, but for me anger
about change comes from three sources:

1\. The small but sometimes vocal group that hates all change. 2\. People who
don't need the extra features and who now have more work to do for the same
results. 3\. People who are using my programs a little differently than I
intended, and whose functionality I broke.

With the sometimes exception of #1, if I'm honest with myself, these are all
problems caused by my lack of creativity not my users dislike of it. Your
experience may be entirely different.

------
thingsilearned
Iterate as much as you can, and have a sweet feedback/response system created.
Then you'll know that what you're making is something they want, because a
bunch of people probably requested it. Also it makes your users feel more
involved which is especially important in the beginning.

------
webwright
Nope. New features win. Users love 'em. Especially when they actually
requested them in the first place (we get 10-20 suggestions PER DAY).

The statement, "...they would not appreciate any major changes no matter how
clever/creative/useful you think they are" seems to indicate that you might
think the best source of ideas is you-- not your users.

IMO, the majority of ideas that you implement should come from your users. If
you have a great idea that didn't come from your users (and you have an
active/vocal userbase) you should ask your users what they think of it before
you implement it.

------
staunch
Adding features is pretty safe territory but there's frequently going to be a
certain amount of backlash when you _change_ something, even when you're
trying to improve it. It's scary how outraged users can become really.
Announcing changes in advance and giving the option to use the old version can
reduce the number of death threats :-)

------
icky
Where on earth did you come up with that idea?

~~~
amichail
I have observed in multiple contexts that users generally don't like change.

There are probably several reasons for this:

* understanding change requires mental effort

* users have already evaluated your service once and don't want to keep reevaluating it

* users bring their physical world expectations online (e.g., imagine buying a sports car that is then transformed at some point into a family car because the manufacturer decided it would be a good idea)

~~~
icky
I think that, at least during a startup's early-adopter stage, the userbase is
comprised of exactly the people who thrive on change (especially change for
the better), so even if your hypothesis is correct, you may have a window of
opportunity to make some aggressive improvements.

------
edw519
"they probably like what you have done as is"

If only.

Frankly, I have trouble remembering a single time that has ever happened to
me.

------
imsteve
"halo effect."

