

Feature or Company? - iamclovin
http://yongfook.com/feature-or-company

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mkramlich
There's two standard responses to this point.

One, that the risk of that happening should have been obvious at the start, so
it's silly to feel burned.

Two, if you do build some add-on feature to someone else's platform then the
challenge is to do it so well that the company behind that platform offers to
buy you. Tweetie was so good it could not be ignored, Twitter loved it, they
wanted an app, buying it would save them the effort of writing their own, plus
talent is scarce. Thus, they get bought.

~~~
pierrefar
Also, the threat of being competed against may never materialize. Facebook can
build so many apps, but they won't build them all.

This, I think, leads to the real litmus test for me: how sure are you that the
company is 100% committed to being an open(ish) platform rather than building
out its product? The parallels with Microsoft, Apple, and Facebook are quite
interesting to explore.

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Luyt
This happens with World of Warcraft, too. Someone makes an AddOn which
enhances WoW with a great feature. Then after some time, Blizzard incorporates
the feature in the base game, and the AddOn is obsoleted. I've seen this
happen numerous times over the years.

~~~
maushu
Not exactly the same thing. I'm not aware of the details regarding AddOns in
WoW but I don't think you can monetize from them.

~~~
tl
There used to be sold addons at one point (it's possible but piracy is
extremely easy), but Blizzard made paid addons a TOS violation.

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Tarski
Whilst you might not create a stable business out of a Twitter feature, if you
can implement a feature that lots of people want for a time when no one else
provides it you could make a lot of dosh in the short term.

~~~
fookyong
as you said, that's pretty much a _recipe_ for an unstable business.

3rd party platform + a feature that everyone wants + makes money... it would
make zero sense for the 3rd party to sit on their hands. you're either going
to be acquired (lottery) or, more likely, they will implement the feature on
their own and you'll be both out of a revenue stream and have a piece of
obsolete software on your hands.

good for hackers with ADD and I see nothing wrong with building this kind of
thing for teh lulz etc, or to promote your _real_ app.

very strange when you see VC-funded "features" though.

~~~
iamclovin
Even Foursquare/Gowalla look like features which can be out of business by
either Facebook/Twitter

~~~
fookyong
My mind boggles at Quora too. I just don't get how they can even think of
launching while Facebook are about to roll out their own Q&A feature.

The StackOverflow folks have the right idea - I think the market can support a
bunch of niche Q&A sites with tight communities.

For monolithic Q&A sites on every topic under the sun, you need massive
traction otherwise you have the usual chicken/egg UGC problems that we've seen
a million times before. Facebook already has massive traction, Quora doesn't.
Game over.

~~~
qq66
Q&A sites don't need a lot of users to be effective. Any group of 500 people
can probably answer a question that you have, unless it's very arcane. User
engagement is much more important.

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param
This advice makes sense to me, and I would personally never want to open
something that's a feature for someone else. However, there are startups in
this space that get angel/vc funded all the time (Rapportive).

I guess I see the following scenarios could make this work:

1\. Build a 'feature' that is complex enough that the other company will see
value in just acquiring you rather than eliminating you.

2\. Work for early mega-adoption so that you can pivot to larger scope/better
product based on feedback

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shadowsun7
I absolutely agree with (1). In fact - now that I think of it - it's probably
why products like SuperDuper still sell well after Apple introduced Time
Machine.

And that perhaps suggests a corollary: 3. Build something that the other
company will never build (even if they could).

E.g: Apple will never make blogging software/a powerful, dedicated feed
reader. It's not in their DNA to do such things.

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houseabsolute
I wonder how things would have gone if these companies had patented the
features they built and then sued Twitter to prevent Twitter from implementing
them. You could argue (or, I could at least) that this is what patents were
made for.

~~~
notahacker
Patents might have been built to protect unique and game-changing innovations
simply being copied by a major plyer in the market, but they certainly weren't
designed to stop people from building obvious enhancements to their product
because someone else did it first.

The patent review process wouldn't work quickly enough to save them anyway.

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jscore
Welcome to platform business. Anytime you build on someone's platform, using
someone's API, you're at risk.

Microsoft did that well against a little known company called Netscape.

~~~
mkramlich
Well, they bought Spyglass's browser, and pulled the rug out from under
Netscape. The lesson is don't be the next Netscape. Be the next Spyglass.

~~~
patrickaljord
Betting your business on hoping to be the next Tweetie or Spyglass is pure
lottery though. Not worth it.

~~~
notahacker
The trick is to build something which earns income in the short term (which
might be the shelf life of the service)so any buyout comes as a nice little
bonus rather than something you desperately need to compensate you for the
time and money invested.

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OoTheNigerian
I think the first step is not to name your 'company' Tweet something.

Secondly, Ask yourself who controls the future? All these Tweet Co's that are
running for the skies could have created something that integrated with
multiple platforms and could create value independently even if not on a large
scale (ala Zynga).

What amazes me is that most of these feature businesses do not have even the
email addresses \ of 'their users'. In my book, no email, no acquisition.

