

The Startup Whisperer - jl
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/39751/?p1=BI

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nreece
>> At least a third of startups entering the incubator end up changing their
goals, sometimes completely.

This is an interesting inference. A pivot is a much more strategic stance than
abandoning the startup, specially at a time when numerous (established)
founders advise not to quit until absolutely necessary.

>> Graham says young founders are better at building products aimed at young
users.

This is true. Having said that, most products aimed at young users are
incredibly hard to monetize. The other option is to give it away for free,
build a huge user base and hope for an acquisition.

~~~
jonnathanson
On the flipside, the nice thing about older founders, presumably building
products for older users, is that monetization is usually part of the product
from the get-go. Older users have money and need solutions, and a solution can
usually be reduced to "save me time" or "save me money." If you can save them
time, they'll gladly pay you for it. If you can save them money, you can steal
a ton of share from existing providers in the marketplace.

I'm not saying that younger founders can't do this, and there are plenty of
exceptions on either side. But there does seem to be an age-related tendency
toward either product-as-gadget or product-as-solution.

~~~
mgkimsal
Further playing to stereotypes, many of the 'social network' startups we've
seen over the past several years have seems to come from college-age people
(kids?!) and they all center on some variation of "how do I find out what my
friends are doing/listeningto/watching/etc?"

These affairs often have "get a large audience" as a main goal, relying on
network effects for hockey stick growth, and indeed, for the core value of the
project.

Even when I was in college, knowing what my friends were doing was never
really a main concern of mine, and it's _certainly_ not one I have these days.
Perhaps I've always been a bit more money-focused than some friends, but I
have always been concerned with the monetization details of any project from
day one.

~~~
kenrikm
Understandable, however you can't monetize without users it's a good idea to
have a general idea of where you're going to make your money but I would avoid
spending too much time on it and focus more or building something cool that
_can be_ monetized.

~~~
mgkimsal
Of course, but there's a difference between creating value for users and
selling it to them, and creating value _because_ of all the other users in the
system (network effect), and only being able to monetizing users after, say,
50,000 users are active users.

