

Ask HN:  How important is "rocket science" to startups - tom_b

Hi,<p>Reading the article "The Interview with Y Combinator That’s Not" earlier I thought there was an interesting angle to be explored.<p>During the interview, the DirectedEdge team got a question, "So where’s the rocket science here?"  This clearly attaches some value to the underlying implementation and algorithms.<p>How critical is having some super-advanced software tech to startup success?
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rcmorin
I'd go further. Patents are nice to haves for VCs and investors and look
pretty on glossy business plans (look at our shiny algorithms and
wireframes!). Don't bet the success of your company on your patent portfolio.
The fact is, no startups out there succeed in the long run because of their
proprietary technology (think facebook, myspace, youtube, yahoo, google,
flickr). Even if something is "rocket science" and very hard to build, it
might keep your competition at bay for a while. But once, you're successful,
they'll always find a way to do it. So, what can you do? Figure out your
sustainable competitive advantage. What is the rocket science that will
insulate your startup from big competitors? I think that is the angle worth
exploring here.

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tom_b
Sustainable competitive advantage - excellent phrase. It covers a wider range
of possibilities than are implied by rocket science.

One of the reasons I originally posted the question is that I'm particularly
interested in one of the ideas that YC mentioned in the startup ideas that YC
would like to fund, enterprise software 2.0
(<http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html> see number 5).

My experience in that space is that there are a number of companies that are
generating huge revenues using software that could be improved via the "build
a better mousetrap" methodology. But basically none of that space requires
rocket science, unless you include the ability you have as a startup to use
more powerful languages and tools than your standard corporate behemoth.

Now, that said, using more powerful tools might free you up to innovate in
ways other companies can't, similar to how PG has touted Lisp as a big
strength for Viaweb . . .

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rcmorin
Tom excellent point. There is a huge market for innovation in the enterprise
space. At the financial services company I work for, the average employee uses
about 25 applications and has a different username and password for each. And
most of these apps are terrible. There is enormous pain in the corporate world
and it's an understatement to just build a better mousetrap. Just build
something that doesn't suck as bad as their current software; and sell to the
business people and upper-middle management decision-makers.

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icey
First of all, you have to consider who was being quoted (rtm).

Secondly, the statement points to how you protect your IP. If it's something
that's easy to make the first time, then it's even easier to duplicate. How do
you protect your idea without any kind of "secret sauce"?

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trevelyan
> How do you protect your idea without any kind of "secret sauce"?

Wrap it in a business model that's somewhat robust to competition. Photo
uploading is not technically complex, but the business model to support free
is more of a barrier to entry.

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lloydarmbrust
I think a startup's competitive edge is often not the product or space that
they are in but the people on their team. For example, my company is in a
pretty competitive space with lots of big corporations as our competitors--but
we don't worry because the one thing that News Corporation or Rupert Murdoch
doesn't have is me and my team.

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JoeAltmaier
A better mousetrap is all you need. Implement well - not all that easy to
duplicate or there wouldn't be so much annoying software out there.

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marze
Probably shorthand for "what's your real competitive advantage here".

