

PG’s ‘Startup Ideas’ Post: One Missing Heuristic - npguy
http://statspotting.com/2012/11/pgs-startup-ideas-post-one-missing-heuristic/

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pdog
Paul Graham has brought this up before, in _How to be an Angel Investor_ [1]:

"There is an ongoing debate between investors which is more important, the
people, or the idea—or more precisely, the market. [...] The three most
prominent people I know who favor markets are Marc [Andreessen], Jawed Karim,
and Joe Kraus. And all three of them, in their own startups, basically flew
into a thermal: they hit a market growing so fast that it was all they could
do to keep up with it."

Paul Graham goes on to say:

"Thermals happen, yes, but no one can predict them."

[1] - <http://www.paulgraham.com/angelinvesting.html>

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nqureshi
I don't think he missed it. From his essay:

"Similarly, since the most successful startups generally ride some wave bigger
than themselves, it could be a good trick to look for waves and ask how one
could benefit from them. The prices of gene sequencing and 3D printing are
both experiencing Moore's Law-like declines. What new things will we be able
to do in the new world we'll have in a few years? What are we unconsciously
ruling out as impossible that will soon be possible?"

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monsterix
Well given that PG/team has been able to create this awesome community of
really intelligent people to discuss such ideas is enough to ensure that he
doesn't really miss any of these fringe stories of success.

In this essay sure, but not in the complete picture out there.

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F_J_H
It seems to me that that key piece of advice in pg's essay:

    
    
        "Live in the future, then build what's missing."
    

is just a more subtle way of expressing the "missing" heuristic described in
this article:

    
    
        "Focus on enabling technologies and environmental factors."
    

and seems to me to be a bit of a distinction without a difference.

However, it is helpful to hear it expressed a different way, and reminds me of
something I heard Gary Hoover (of Hoover online fame) say at a conference,
which was that in the same way Tsunamis are the result of plate tectonic
activity that happens months, weeks, or days in advance, there are things
shifting within your industry that could result in "tsunamis" of change. What
are they?

It seems like very obvious advice, but it is interesting to sit down and make
a concentrated effort to think of what the shifts may be occurring in your
industry. Sometimes they are easy to miss in that they are so obvious. (As in
"fish were the last ones to discover water...").

Another way to think of it came to me from one of Tim O'Reilly's essays where
he describes some key marketing advice he was given, which was to "find a
parade and get out in front of it." (He attributes the success of O'Reilly
media to getting behind the web and open source in its early days -
[http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121002122119-16...](http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20121002122119-16553-it-
s-not-about-you-the-truth-about-social-media-marketing)) From that
perspective, I like to think of what "parades" are happening in my industry,
(energy), such as conservationism and environmental responsibility. What
happens if/when 75% of the cars on the road are electric vehicles, (and are
driverless)? Maybe my car is charged via solar panels or a whisper gen, and
drives itself to the store where someone loads it with the groceries I ordered
online? What products/services will be needed to support that? What do things
look like when homes are net-zero energy, as they are meant to be in
California in 2020?

It can be an interesting exercise.

Edit: Typos

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jiggy2011
Also (not sure if covered) but related:

Look at stuff that has been tried and failed in the past, ask why it failed
and see if anything has changed in the interim that might effect that.

Example is dropbox, they weren't the first with the idea of "have a space on
your computer that is synced with the internet" but AFAIK they were the first
to try it at a time when bandwidth for shifting files around was trivial.

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andrewflnr
I think he missed the point. It doesn't matter what new cool thing is possible
if no one will pay money for it to happen.

