

I had that idea years ago - tortilla
http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1122-i-had-that-idea-years-ago

======
vlad
That wasn't a very objective post; there are many times I've seen ideas that I
could have executed but for whatever reason chose not to, and I'm happy with
that decision. As well, who is to say mine wouldn't have been better? This
post reads very incomplete and immature, and even derogatory to young
developers.

I use those instances as confirmation that my ideas are typically realistic
and worthy, but not ready to act on until I get a group of developers and have
functional knowledge of major platforms and content creation tools such that
if I had a group of people and three months to launch something, I would be
able to focus on developing without having to refer to a manual or query
google all the time. I think when a solid dedicated team has been found, and I
can make good calls on which language, framework, platform, and content
creation tools to use through actual experience with them depending on which
task is needed to be solved, and then do it without wasting time figuring out
how to actually use tools, then I will be able to go for 3 months, 6 months,
or even 12 months at a time, without having to focus on analyzing the current
state again (which, after a year, I would have to all over again as much would
have changed.) As well, my team would be confident in me and themselves and
even if turned out that the idea was the problem, my team, our investors, and
customers would love for us to do another one.

In fact, you could say that's what 37 signals did--as they were consultants,
they likely had a group of people develop web sites for other customers, and
we can guess they did this in a 3 or 6 months time frame, and using the latest
technologies, and confirming they love working with each other and can go on
their own ideas.

So saying that a single person should just start randomly programming an idea,
for as long as it takes, is actually not very great advice. Even if it turns
out to be a great and useful program, and saves customers thousands of dollars
for the $30 a year it cost (like something I've developed in the past), a
single person will typically choose to pursue an idea that would not be as
amazing and sell-worthy as an idea that 3 people pursue, and with investors to
boot. The other thing is that as a single developer, my customers loved what I
did, but not something anybody around me cared for, and my parents wanted me
to get a job. So I was alone for years programming an app that nobody gave a
damn around me, but my customers in about 49 states and 10 countries loved,
but I didn't know one person around me who wanted to touch it. In fact,
telling people around me, mostly adults about it (I did this when I was
20-23), would get me fake smiles and agreement of how great it seems to be but
nobody wanted to use it, like it couldn't have been great because I was so
young. I wasn't judged by merit but by being 20-23 years old. And looking 2
years younger than that.

Of course my customers did not know I was young since I never met any of them;
I didn't even use my real name; I talked in e-mails as a 45 year old would,
since that was approximately the age of the target market. But this gave me
the benefit of knowing that I could create a great product that had some
features that competitors didn't even have and a much better user interface,
and could kick ass, if I didn't have to put up with age discrimination and
dumb idiots.

My guess is having cofounders not only confirms your effort to investors but
also each of your parents, and on top of that, it is possible to make much
greater progress and cover each person's weaknesses and insecurities with the
right team, getting to a certain point in a year instead of three, therefore
even further increasing your startup's competitiveness as well as confidence
from yourselves and others around you.

I joined a big company where I'm treated well, and think it was a great choice
--but of course lost a lot of say and independence that I had before. But a
good thing is that I've become used to working with and relying on others, as
well as better at talking with people in my own age group! This means I'm
going to take 1-3 classes full-time in the Fall as a Junior at a University
with a good CS Major, while also working, thus meeting the kind of people I
would want to meet for a future startup, maybe even the January-March round of
YCombinator, something I couldn't have done otherwise going from a single
founder to a multiple founder company--how would I meet these people and learn
how to work as a team? The company gave me these skills. (Where I work, I'm
the youngest, but I also only have an A.S. Degree and was hired solely by my
communication skills and the software I showed to them I already discussed
above, so it's college where I expect to find startup people.)

The other problem with doing something alone full-time and for years, is that
even though it feels good to know you're kicking other companies asses and
getting the perspective of software development from all sides, including
business and marketing, is that you'll eventually realize you've become
totally behind on the latest technologies, because even if you feel like
you're very close to becoming big, you're the one doing all the work and
you're always not getting one thing or the other done. (As well as slower than
if you had multiple developers.)

So I'm using this time to buy software and training to learn the latest
shortcuts and tools to developing art, 3d models, animations, and web sites as
fast and efficiently as possible as well as functional understanding of rails,
django, and Objective-C such that for any given task, I could comfortable pick
a language and just go for it without needing to read things up as I go. I
think that, along with a team, is key, as I've already described.

Now, a lot of people are at this point already, having college programming
buddies and are ready to start, and they should! I think it's the best way to
go. But one-fits-all examples and telling readers they shouldn't bother
reflecting, and should always be going for a startup NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW, is
doing injustice to many people.

In conclusion, reflecting upon one's past and current ideas based on similar
startups when new ones come out can be educational as very motivational, but
the author chose not to be objective. In fact, if ideas are worthless, waiting
6 months won't hurt, though of course you'd probably want a fresher idea by
then--but at least you'd know that you typically come up with good ideas based
on seeing your other ones show up in new startups... and that's another reason
it's so useful to contrast what you'd think would happen versus what startups
came out.

Also, insulting young people is ridiculously immature and unprofessional. Does
David even remember how his company got started--with a bunch of developers
getting a feel for new technology designing sites for others, then choosing
their own ideas to sell to their own clientele? That's exactly what I'm
saying, as well. It wasn't a group of 20 year olds or a single 20 year old
trying to create a great product over a period of years. He beat other web
site design companies (by basically leaving that market, actually), but he
didn't come up with an idea for an app and then start out programming for a
random idea he had no experience would be needed. His Startup School speech
that one doesn't necessarily need VC's? Very valid; I even transcribed it and
posted it on N.YC almost immediately after the speech. His efforts? Excellent.
Some of his posts? Absurd.

~~~
jrockway
Whoa... that was a long post. I don't think he meant to insult you with his
jab at young people at the end. I think he just wanted some clever retort to
end his article with. Sometimes people write things they don't mean because
the statement sounds too good to not write down. (In this case, though, I
think he should have just killed that last sentence. It didn't make sense to
me, and it apparently made you made enough to write a small book about it :)

~~~
jamesbritt
"I don't think he meant to insult you with his jab at young people at the
end."

Indeed, he himself is too young to be nasty with any credibility.

------
Hexstream
Maybe we should make a list of "common knowledge" (topics that have been
discussed to death and for which there seems to be a pretty strong consensus)
and then refrain from posting/upmodding articles about those subjects if they
don't bring something truly new to the table...

Here's a start of the list: Ideas don't matter, execution does. Stop thinking
about doing and just start doing. Release early, release often. We might live
in a computer simulation. Unit-tests let you make change to the codebase while
remaining reasonably confident you didn't break anything. It's very hard to
start a startup if you still have a regular job so consider quitting.

~~~
prakash
How are the new folks to know what ideas have been discussed to death? And,
sometimes there is a delta of thought that does add value, specifically for
frequently/commonly discussed topics.

Gabriel maintains an excellent collection of topics on his startup wiki:
<http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/startupswiki/Ask_YC_Archive>

~~~
dcurtis
What if we had search?

(Sorry, couldn't resist...)

~~~
IsaacSchlueter
Why, is google down? :P

[http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&...](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-
US%3Aofficial&hs=0v0&q=computer+simulation+site%3Anews.ycombinator.com&btnG=Search)

(Sorry, I couldn't resist, either.)

------
iamdave
Okay, usually I just disagree when folks say there's a certain degree of
arrogance in 37Signals bloggings somemtimes, but I've got to comment that it's
certainly evident here.

I certainly see the point David is trying to make in this writing about the
competitiveness of the startup scene, and it certainly makes sense to know
what's going on out there before you jump in head first you're going to get
burned.

But good lord, if you pride yourselves on building quality products, have a
quality blog behind it that doesn't punch readers in the face like that.

~~~
kirubakaran
Arrogant? No, it is just another 'get shit done' post.

~~~
vlad
He only had success with one item that he was selling to, or using for, his
existing clientele, and developed the rest of the products, and started his
blog, and persona, to capitalize on that.

So the real question isn't what's the best idea out there right now, or if
ideas are worth anything until they're made, but what simple thing can you
make that will give you some traction right now... All his other products and
blog posts are just a distraction from the real, key birth of his original
product, and why it succeeded (he had a clientele, and made the product to
track them), and it is THOSE things that should be noticed and looked at, NOT
what the person does after they've already become famous, popular, and rich.
Well you probably might want to copy those things since that maintains
popularity and stirs up debate, but as far as doing your own startup, that's
what you want to think about... how do you get that initial customer base...
even if the idea isn't something big... and what did the person do in the
initial 3mo, 6mo, 1 year. Better yet, not what he did but why. But definitely
not what they suggest doing 6 years later when the landscape has changed.

David is an expert at what he did 3-5 years ago, with what the landscape was
back then. That is a long time ago. Since then, 37Signals has been a media
company, which ANYBODY can play once they're successful, pointing at
themselves being successful as the reason others should listen to them... even
though they're out of the loop now (I am America, and so can you!). It's the
same thing as a 100 year old company stating they are successful and therefore
you should take their advice and work for them, though everything has been
almost on autopilot compared to the uncertainty of the first year.

~~~
vlad
For those who modded the post down, that's fine.

However, please provide a reply with what you disagree about. I'm very curious
to know. Thanks!

------
Tichy
I am sure most of my ideas are not unique, but on the other hand I don't think
they are so common that, like, every second person alive on earth has them.
Maybe there are 100 other people, or 1000, I don't know. Or maybe only two or
three.

I don't think I deserve anything for having had an idea, but it is OK to kick
oneself if one sees that the idea could have been made into a success after
all. It is one of those occasions where you tell yourself to finally ACT on
the next idea.

Without ideas, common or not, there would not even be the option to act on
something. So I really don't think ideas bashing is a worthwhile thing to do.

What worries me most is that maybe I am missing some secret ingredient to make
my idea a success: being able to play the investment markets? I think it is
possible that two people execute the idea equally well technically, but one
makes millions because he has the right connections, and the other remains an
obscure hobby.

------
wumi
short version: ideas are not unique, so make something good enough that people
are willing to pay for.

the end.

------
goodkarma
I think this is a commentary on the recent court case/settlement involving
Mark Zuckerberg and a few fellow students from Harvard.

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tstegart
What's with the hating on ideas? Ideas do matter. Sure, anyone could have had
the idea of a photo sharing site, but someone had the idea to do it that way.
Someone had the idea to make it look and work the way it does.

Ideas are the driver here. All good companies involve good ideas, and more
good ideas on how to go about executing them. What, does 37signals say "Hey,
look at our execution of our bad ideas!" Of course not.

Anyone can execute shit, but not everyone can execute their idea in a good
way. The way to go about executing an idea in a way that makes it successful
is itself an idea. Execution brought Flickr into being. But all the ideas that
went into it made it great.

Anyone who thinks ideas don't matter in entrepreneurship is kidding
themselves.

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petercooper
37signals are proof of what David is saying. None of their applications are
original, and just based on old ideas (except, to a certain extent, HighRise,
although that's arguable). It's the implementation that counts, not the idea.

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rokhayakebe
Maybe HN needs to change its name to Hacker Advices.

