
Ask HN: What's up with these "I made ___ in ___ hours/days" posts - rmorrison
Alright, maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand the "I made ____ in ___ hours/days" posts.  I am completely behind the "Look at this site I made", but the "in X hours" part confuses me.<p>1) Persistance is one of the most important traits for an entrepreneur.  We're in an ADD society, and things do not happen overnight.  It's easy to throw together a website, but it's more difficult to stick with it, refine it, get people using it, and most importantly, get them paying for it.  These posts often strike me as demonstrating ADD, moreso than anything else.<p>2) It feels like misplaced gloating.  I think it's great that you're smart, entrepreneurial, and able to create prototypes quickly.  But it's really not worth gloating about how fast you can put up a prototype, most people on this message board could do the same if they weren't working on their real ventures. If you absolutely insist on gloating, it would be better to do so about how many millions of users you have, how many millions of dollars you made, or how many days you were able spent on a beach last year.  If your weekend project can achieve high marks in any of those categories, then I'd definitely want to hear about it.<p>3) Is it an attempt to demonstrate intelligence/ability?  In today's programming landscape, there are so many automated libraries and frameworks that it's pretty easy to put almost anything together (want to put up a site that links satellite images, recent macroeconomic trends, and real time XYZ events, no problem).  Combining some subset of available frameworks and libraries doesn't demonstrate intelligence or ability, even if you can do it in a weekend.<p>4) If it is really that brilliant of an idea, don't rush it.  Go in stealth most for at least an additional weekend, and thoroughly plot out how you'll turn this into a feasible product.<p>5) Is it an attempt to demonstrate how entrepreneurial you are?  A better way to do that would be to pick one random idea, have the confidence that it's so good that you are willing to commit yourself to it 100%, pursue it regardless of what other people are telling you, and make it work.<p>6) Is it an attempt to get into YC? If this works, then maybe I'd understand it more.  There seems to have been more of these over the past few weeks, so maybe that's what's going on.  Although, it seems to me to make you appear more ADD than entrepreneurial.<p>I'm completely behind your entrepreneurial aspirations, but I'd rather you really commit yourself to something, work out the kinks, get users using it, then post "Look at my startup".  Then I can have faith that you've really thought it through, and it's more worth HN's time to really understand what it is you're trying to do so that we can make some valuable recommendations or questions.
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jdietrich
In 1977 the punk band The Desperate Bicycles released their debut single
Smokescreen. The song featured the refrain "It was easy, it was cheap, go and
do it!". The back cover broke down the costs of recording and manufacture,
explaining that it cost them in total £153 to release 500 copies. The medium
was the message.

The spirit of the "__ in __ hours" posts is exactly the same. Developing the
barebones of a product is infinitely quicker and simpler than most people
believe. Many great businesses are trapped in people's daydreams because they
just haven't overcome inertia and procrastination.

I would expect that most of us here follow the logic of agile, MVPs, iterative
development and so on, so why do so few of us actually make a go of it? Look
at Patrick of Bingo Card Creator - he's built a small and simple product in
his spare time that has grown into something that he can quit his day job for.
Any one of us could have built a working prototype of Bingo Card Creator in a
couple of days, but Patrick did and we didn't. Too many of us understand
intellectually that we just need to launch a piece of crap and start
iterating, but not nearly enough of us have the guts to follow it through. It
was easy, it was cheap, go and do it.

~~~
patio11
_It was easy, it was cheap, go and do it._

Ooooh I like this line.

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araneae
They say that so when you tell them it's dumb, they can claim it's because
they didn't spend any time on it.

It's like how kids always brag how little they studied for a test, even before
they take it. It's an excuse for failure.

~~~
cookiecaper
While I agree that it's usually a disclaimer, I don't think it's always done
with such nefarious intent. "I made X in a weekend" indicates that's the thing
you made is probably a relatively basic application, not necessarily out of
fear that someone won't like it, but more to inform people not to expect a ton
of polish or complain about a lot of missing features. I think it's legitimate
and informative in these cases.

~~~
mechanical_fish
It's a social signal. You don't want people to criticize your fun weekend hack
because it hasn't demonstrated product-market fit, or because it doesn't stand
up to the market leaders, or whatever.

Without a clear label, every time someone coughs around here it's interpreted
as some kind of business plan, or an attempt to get into YC.

The title tells you that _this submission is for fun_. Either try to look like
you're enjoying yourself when you read it, or take note of the warning label
and skip the article.

------
charliepark
Agreed. If someone's launching an MVP, I can completely understand their
desire to put it out there and get feedback. Those types of posts (inviting
critique) are fine in my book.

The ones that grate are the ones that say "we built this startup in a
weekend."

By adding the "in a weekend" / "in 24 hours" bit, you're automatically
discounting the product you've built, as an easy way to deflect criticism. If
it's shaky enough that you need to preemptively deflect criticism, don't post
about it. If your app is quality, then it doesn't matter if you built it in a
weekend or over three years. Let it stand on its own.

To reiterate the OP, build stuff. Share it. Get feedback and criticism, and
iterate it to make it better. But claiming that you made "a startup" in a
weekend is both ignorant and arrogant, unless your app has scaled so quickly
that we've already heard about it by the time you post it to HN.

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petercooper
It's a headline technique. As well as including a solid number (always a good
headline "trick"), it has the psychological effect of making people think..
"ooh, I gotta read this, because if he/she can do X in Y hours/days, maybe I
could too!"

I'm quite into studying headlines as a hobby (yeah, I know) and
<http://delicious.com/popular> is a great source of headlines that clicked
with a large number of people. Today the number of "X ways to do Y" or "Z
things about A" headlines is reasonably low, but I've seen it go over 50% of
the links there many a time.. (HN's editors seem to have a policy of editing
out the numbers at the start of headlines, FWIW.. but they don't tend to do
with the headlines you're referring to.)

------
DenisM
Maybe it's just the pure creative joy? I know that as a maker I get kicks when
stuff I built _works_.

~~~
jaxn
I think that is it.

Sometimes you just get in the zone and get a ton of work done in a short
period of time. Like when vision, knowledge, and desire converge with free
time. It feels awesome.

Also, for these little side projects it is nice to be able to see __ hours /
days as a sunk cost and see what happens.

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lotharbot
A) Inspirational value. If somebody else on HN can make a useful tool to solve
their problem in 3 hours, I might be inspired to take a crack at solving a
problem I've been putting off dealing with.

B) Technical interest. HN isn't just about getting in to YC or proving you're
a great entrepreneur; much of what we discuss is simply "interesting". Being
assembled quickly is one attribute that can make something interesting.

C) It helps us remember that not every problem is of the same scale, and not
every solution has to be a multi-year startup-spawning VC-requiring system.

------
thwarted
I find it annoying too, but I think it is somewhat of a response to "you say
it could be done in a weekend, but you're wrong" positions that there have
been an increase of.

I also think it's a little bit of people trying to prove to themselves that
they can do it, that some of the excuses they had before are just that,
excuses, and they aren't insurmountable.

It puts a lower limit on the amount of time it takes to do, and it's useful to
see that. If you were working something similar, but only had three hours a
day to do it, but someone says they did it 40 hours straight over a weekend,
it helps other people judge complexity (obviously, individual skill and
experience comes into play, but at least one variable gets removed).

It also provides support for the position that it's not the technology that is
necessarily the hard or time consuming part. If someone can implement Yammer
in a week (I pick on Yammer here, rather than twitter, because the business
model of Yammer doesn't need to be as scalable as twitter, technology wise, so
the first version will most likely get more use before the implementation
needs to be revisited), then the impetus is on the "business guy" to start
selling it. I've actually been this situation a few times, having had the
first beta, production-ready version ready in what seems like an extremely
short time, and been waiting for the other half of the team to do their side
of the work.

------
emilam
Shipping a product is a hard thing to do. It takes a lot less work to make a
copy of x in 23 hours. The actual "work" of a product often comes right before
you release the product. The last 10% of the project is 90% of the work most
of the time.

It seems they are doing it because they don't have the willpower to put the
finishing touches on and have a shipped product.

------
jacquesm
I think some of the posts are clearly in jest, to propagate the meme but with
a wink saying 'you don't really believe this do you'.

Then there are those that want to promote a platform or a technology showing
how rapid they could develop a toy website, basically a functioning prototype.
Most of those would fall apart under the first serious load (and some do right
after posting here), but still, you have to hand it to the people that can
push themselves like that just to have something to show off their favourite
piece of kit.

Then there are those that really believe this is the way to do it, to whip out
some site in 24 hours and to call it a 'start-up' instead of a one night
project.

Usually the latter two fail as fast as they come, but every now and then one
of them shows staying power.

pingwire.com comes to mind, after several iterations it now looks a lot better
than the first announcement, and there are plenty of others.

------
j_baker
I'll be honest. I stopped listening at "ADD society". It really took me from
"listen to this guy give advice" mode into "grandpa's ranting again" mode.

~~~
techiferous
> I stopped listening at "ADD society"

That kind of reinforces the claim... ;)

------
blackswan
I think one of the causes for the endless stream of "I built a
reddit/twitter/[x] clone in [y] hours" stories that pop up regularly is that
many people often incorrectly attribute the success of businesses to that
which is immediately apparent. They see reddit list stories in a certain way
and assume that this is the reason it is so popular.

95% of discussion I have with non-entrepreneurs about my startup relates to
things that they can see or grasp intuitively - for instance our design
choices. Few understand that the code I write is just one of a myriad factors
that will determine eventual success.

------
epochwolf
I don't understand this either. I'm currently doing "I made ___ in ___
months/years."

This is because

1\. This idea has been done before and usually done poorly. (No, I'm not
letting on with what I'm doing.)

2\. It's a side project. I have a reading list I want to make a dent in and I
have school to finish.

3\. My audience isn't going anywhere. I have strong incentive to launch with
an excellent website because there are plenty of other people in other
communities.

4\. It's not going to make money until it's large if it ever gets there. I'm
in no hurry to support a monster community by myself.

------
dtran
Releasing something rough and unpolished can be scary, so everyone feels a
need to qualify it with a statement like this. I find myself guilty of this as
well... check out what I made... and immediately "I haven't had much time to
polish it... I'm going to make it better soon!... it was something I hacked
together this weekend". As makers, we all want to get out our final finished
product which realizes our vision, but we need to learn how to build the
minimum viable product that can show off the vision even if the edges are a
bit rough. So really everyone should be making ____ in x hours/days.

------
jeromec
I don't think it's about gloating at all. I think it's more about showing
something but with a warning of how much went into it so those that judge can
have some context. I also think there certainly is a bit of pride involved,
but it's completely understandable. This is a site by and for hackers for the
most part. If it were a site about bicycling enthusiasts then a post about a
new bike purchase might be accompanied with how many seconds were shaved off
some normal riding route, because others might relate and appreciate it.

------
Zev
To me, its showing off how well you know a specific tool (or how quickly you
could learn it), rather then a specific market.

Nothing wrong with a bit of ego or wanting to show off something that you
made.

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avner
I really don't see why someone _shouldn't_ showcase something they hacked
together, regardless of the time it took to materialize. Granted that the "in
X hours" part may reflect the hacker having some other agenda (as highlighted
in your post); at the end of the day however, like you said, if whatever it is
that they are showing off holds any commendable merit it will be recognized by
the community. Anything else will die down after a couple of upvotes anyway.

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nathanh
I like to see how long it takes people to build things. (I do think everything
the OP said is legitimate though)

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indrax
Sprinting is a decent tactic to overcome procrastination. Combine that with
"Release early, release often." And it makes a fair bit of sense to spend a
minimal amount of time creating a minimal product to show people.

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barmstrong
I think they are just saying: I'm testing lots of ideas and it's cool how
quickly it can be done now.

That's all. You make a valid point though that these comments can rub some
people the wrong way or be misinterpreted.

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bhiggins
I think "in X hours" is silly too, because that just means it's gunna be easy
to copy. Not a good business plan.

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dnsworks
I find them just as annoying as the "How I Did Some Simple Task" posts that
finally seem to have died down.

------
SkipHeadJr
I made slightly more than 42 quadrillion dollars* in less than a nanosecond.
Doing nothing at all. Suddenly all those 'overnight millionaires' look like
punks. Wait, they are punks.

*Zimbabwe dollars (approximate value in U.S. dollars: 0.00001

