
The Startup Party Is Over - quelsolaar
http://news.quelsolaar.com/#post111
======
nlh
I rarely get such a viscerally negative reaction to reading something as I did
reading this article.

The party is not over. It’s never over. There are always always always more
ideas, great businesses waiting to be built, and wonderful opportunities for
clever people.

Of course the “obvious” apps/website have been built — do you know why?
Because they only seem obvious in retrospect - most weren’t obvious at the
time they were built. And even if they were, implementing was harder than
you’d think and adoption was even harder.

Argh this frustrates me so much.

HNers: Don’t give up - don’t throw in the towel, and definitely don’t assume
there are no more ideas to build with a good brain and a keyboard at your
disposal.

~~~
hn_throwaway_99
I had a negative reaction to your negative reaction because I think you are
mischaracterizing his argument. I don't think he's saying "you're guaranteed
to fail, just give up", but rather the expectations of "valuation to effort"
is skewed by the 2002-2014 time period, and with that I wholeheartedly agree.
If anything, I would argue it would be a _better_ startup community if people
had realistic expectations about how much effort hard things take, instead of
yet another food delivery app.

~~~
nlh
Ok that's a fair point, and I just read the article again with this in mind. I
understand where you (and the author) are coming from.

My strong reaction came from "all the obvious ideas are taken" and I still
think you can build a billion-dollar company from your bedroom.

I actually agree with the author that the YC model of accomplishing something
huge and meaningful and hockey-stick-like in 12 weeks is unrealistic. (I
actually think it's been unrealistic from the start but that's a different
argument for a different time).

Thanks for pointing this out! The core of my response still stands but I see
the nuance of the author's post now.

------
askafriend
Discord - publicly launched 2015

Robinhood - publicly launched 2014

Airtable - publicly launched 2015

Plaid - founded May 2013

Nextdoor - publicly launched 2012

Opendoor - founded 2013

Keeptruckin - founded 2013

Samsara - founded 2015

Calm - founded 2012

Niantic - founded 2010, first launch in 2012 (Ingress) then Pokemon Go in
2016.

Quip - founded 2015, acquired by Salesforce for ~800mm.

All examples of ~multi-billion dollar companies founded in Silicon Valley in
the past few years solving real problems and scaling fast.

I can keep listing more but I think my point has been made.

Sure the market is more mature, but there's still tremendous potential out
there and there always will be. It's too convenient to think all the easy
problems have been solved (but yes, many have) and that the big guys will
crush you (but when is that _not_ a possibility?).

I think this article is just pessimistic with no substance. It's quite
fashionable to be pessimistic about Silicon Valley.

~~~
SmokeGS
I'll wait to see the results from the anti-trust investigations going on.

~~~
twblalock
Which startups would be targets of antitrust investigations? The big companies
are the ones that have something to worry about.

------
scottlegrand2
This seems unnecessarily pessimistic. I mean they're still funding amazingly
dumb ideas like pogo sticks as a service right now. One day, a startup will
resist getting acqui-hired just like Google resisted getting acqui-hired by
Yahoo and it will disrupt its incumbent. But I'm guessing it won't be a
company focused on pogo sticks as a service. As for the harder and more
beneficial challenges out there, the Silicon Valley MVP model never worked for
them in the first place because they are hard and they take time. I'm not
seeing the vision to go after those problems emerging in any serious way yet.

[https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/05/31/swedish-
startup...](https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2019/05/31/swedish-startup-to-
bring-pogo-sticks-to-s-f-as-e-scooter-alternative/)

~~~
tashoecraft
Cangaroo isn’t a real startup

------
carlsborg
Related - Andrew Chen (of Andreessen Horowitz) on his reasons on why growth is
getting harder. (Undated, looks like 2018)

[https://andrewchen.co/growth-is-getting-hard/](https://andrewchen.co/growth-
is-getting-hard/)

------
asaph
> Today I would argue that you should expect it to take five years to build
> anything that matters.

Setting aside for the moment whether this is true, if you're unwilling to
invest 5 years of your time into a business, I would argue you're not
committed enough to it for it to succeed. I suspect investors will think
similarly.

~~~
ubercow13
Isn't their point that investors want a product before 5 years is up, and they
don't care how much time you might be willing to invest into it?

~~~
asaph
I would strongly challenge that assumption too.

------
mmcclure
Reading this reminded me of the urban legend where the US Patent Office
commissioner quit because everything had been invented in the early 1900s.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Holland_Duell](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Holland_Duell)

------
futureastronaut
This is seriously demotivating but thankfully lacks any substance.

------
jackyinger
I think that there’s truth in the idea that there are many problems to be
solved that will take a significant amount of time and effort to be cracked.

There probably are plenty of opportunities for hockey stick growth and quick
impact, BUT is that really what humanity needs?

------
mch82
I predict the hardware device startup party is just getting started. Hardware
today is where Linux was 20 years ago. Once people catch on to the shift,
traditional manufacturing companies won’t have a chance of keeping up.

------
Animats
_" All the before mentioned unicorns are solving a fairly narrow band of
problems around connecting people and services and extracting arbitrage from
existing things."_

------
Animats
Why was this flagged? It's central to what YC is about.

~~~
dang
Users flagged it; I'd guess for reasons similar to what the comments express.

------
gniv
I upvoted because I think we should have this discussion, but I disagree
strongly. As an example, I was reading recently about the growth of SAAS
companies. Lookup the stocks OKTA, WDAY, TWLO, MDB, SHOP, etc. They have grown
hockey stick in the last 2-3 years.

In general I think the opportunities in non-direct-to-consumer business will
be great in the short term (there are a lot of inefficiencies that are hard to
solve in-house by the big corps).

~~~
greenyoda
> there are a lot of inefficiencies that are hard to solve in-house by the big
> corps

The problem is that it's much harder to sell to big companies than it is to
sell to consumers. While a consumer may be receptive to an unreliable app with
MVP-level functionality, a big company isn't going to risk the stability of
its business operations on that quality of product. They're going to want
stability, scalability and support, and they won't want to deal with a startup
that's at high risk of not existing a year from now. One exception would be if
the startup offered a unique product that couldn't be replicated internally.
But if all they offer is the promise of better efficiency, what's the point of
risking your business on it?

If a startup has survived long enough to achieve this kind of stability (like
the already-public companies you cited), then it has a better chance selling
to big corporations. But it's going to take a significant amount funding and
growth for them to get to that point.

The companies that are seem to be winning the most at selling services to big
companies are huge, established businesses like AWS, Microsoft and Google.

------
tmaly
Regardless of the point of the article, there is still plenty of opportunity
to build something small and focused. I see it everyday

------
thorn
Why did it suddenly disappear from HN? I could not see it in first 3 pages. It
just was on 23th place of HN front-page.

------
malvosenior
> _Yet our culture still think its ten years ago. Everyone expects a release
> in 6 months, and 20% month over month growth at scale_

It was never the case that this was trivial or easy. During the time period he
lists (2002-2014), it was _extremely_ difficult to reach mainstream success.

"The party" is as much in swing as it ever was. Which is to say if you're rich
or lucky you get to be part of it. It was never easy to have a megahit.

------
nathan-io
Stopped reading at

> All the obvious apps/websites have already been built.

~~~
anotheryou
Maybe read the last paragraph, too. He especially talks about meaningful
software:

> I want to change the world, but real problems are hard. There are huge
> opportunities, in transportation, energy, computing, healthcare,
> manufacturing, but none of them can be solved on the kind of timelines and
> expectations that the startup community have. So many companies I see have
> great ideas, but aren't realistic and serious enough to realize them. I
> worry that we wont solve these solvable problems, because everyone just want
> to party like its 2009.

~~~
nathan-io
I agree with his overall message - it's hard (and takes time) to actually do
something valuable. And I agree that we're in an age where iterative startups
("Uber for X") outnumber innovative startups.

But there is just so much wrong with this article. One of the most egregious
errors is the assertion that the conditions which enabled unicorns are no
longer present.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The only accurate assertion of the article - that it's genuinely hard to add
value - was already obvious.

