

Don't change the world - michokest
http://micho.biz/dont-change-the-world/

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thaumaturgy
Follow the advice in this post if you're looking for short-term profits and
long-term mediocrity.

If you're in business _just for the money_ , then the points in this post are
valid. But, then you should probably also be concentrating your efforts
somewhere else entirely. Give up software and become a loan shark or a banker
or something.

If you're in business because the idea of doing anything else is boring and
distasteful, if you admire people who set out to write a page of human history
and accomplished it, then there is nothing of value at all in this blog post.

~~~
philwelch
I think worldchanging vs. just making money is completely orthogonal to
software vs. banking. For instance, microlenders like Kiva probably "change
the world" orders of magnitude more than the typical internet startup.

Of all the businesses that add real value to my life, the number of them that
"changed the world" can fit on one hand. The others are just honest business,
and there's nothing wrong with that.

~~~
jtheory
Kiva isn't a good counter-example -- the reason they're "changing the world"
isn't because they're doing banking as usual with good foresight into where
the current customers want to go next; they've turned normal banking practice
on its head (both in the source of the capital, in who borrows it, and how
much they borrow), and that's precisely why they're important.

Though personally, I won't even argue that a startup needs to be "world-
changing" to change the world. For example, a startup that simply makes it
easier to get bottled water delivered directly homes in such a way that soon a
huge population is drinking only bottled water...

...and no one (immediately) needs to fund the incredible environmental cost of
trucking water everywhere to everyone even though they already have perfectly
safe, good-tasting water available from their tap...

...so yes, that changes the world.

This is why I personally found this article depressing (for @#$%s sake, why
not sell people water purifiers if they don't like the taste of their tap
water??)

Every business changes the world -- mostly in a small way, though that's
nothing to be ashamed of. Some in a big way. But _all_ of them in some way.

It's really, really worth putting at least 10 minutes thought into whether
your startup, especially if it's gloriously successful, will make the world a
generally _better_ place (even if just "people generally doing good things
will have an easier time of it"), or will it make the world a generally
_worse_ place ("we found a way to stop people from returning merchandise they
don't want", or maybe "we make wasting time more addictive").

The OP doesn't even seem to consider putting 10 seconds into this aspect of
choosing a business -- into which you'll invest many years of your life. Ugh.

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guard-of-terra
Bottled water business is a fraud.

I routinely see a plastic bottle of water costing 1.5x more than a glass
bottle of fine lemonade at the same shop.

It goes like this: people drink a lot of bottled water -> big market -> two
big bottled water brand nuke the marker with advertising -> shops begin to
carry branded bottled water and drop unbranded bottled water, which costs 2x
more -> a lot of people buy a half liter of advertising daily.

The problem is: They siphon money from peoples' pockets to the advertisers.
They spend those to increase the level of noise.

And I believe the water quality is dismal, i.e. it's the same tap water and
much worse than reverse osmosis filtered water from my tap filter.

I think it should actually be regulated and illegal. Then we'll get less noisy
adds in our lives and two times cheaper bottled water from a variety of
vendors, with its quality up.

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richardburton
I have two main problems with this blog post:

1.) The example used - The increasing consumption of bottled water is
observable and the options available to those entrepreneurs are reasonable.
However the real question is this: who was the first successful entrepreneur
to _capitalise_ on the idea of bottling water? That person definitely changed
the world.

2.) The repeated confusion between cause and effect - When Apple brought out
their affordable personal computer it helped to kickstart the trend of
personal computing. If that is not changing the world then what is?

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shadowfiend
The real issue here is that there are (at least) two ways to go about starting
a startup. You _can_ go for changing the world, and in that case you must face
the fact that you could fail and end up with a niche business. You can also go
for maximizing profits. The latter may not result in a world change, or it
may. It simply changes your focus. Failure is still out there—both of these
approaches can lead a completely nuked business. Hell, both can lead to a
niche business if you don't do them right.

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peter_l_downs
> Consistently over time, the most successful entrepreneurs I’ve seen weren’t
> fighting the world – they were merely building the best sails to move faster
> than anybody else.

What causes the winds to change? There must be some new innovation for people
to want sails in the first place (to butcher your analogy).

> That’s why Groupon clones are making millions a month with unoriginal ideas.
> The business model is already well understood and customers are familiar
> with it. The Groupon model is a trend that extends well beyond the company.

This is all true but ignores the fact that until Groupon _started_ the social
coupon trend, no companies made any money with this business model (because
there were none, or none popular enough to matter).

> Those who built great iPhone apps at the time also know about these trends.
> Their success had more to do with a “force of nature” (millions of users
> thirsty for apps) than with their talent designing apps.

Again, yes, but no one wanted any apps (or even knew what an "app" was) before
Apple decided to invent the iPhone.

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uiri
I think the distinction isn't whether one changes the world and the other
doesn't, it is whether one changes _people_ and the other doesn't. Jake didn't
change his customers. He predicted what they would do next. The demand for his
product would exist whether it was him or someone else who was providing it.
If no one else imported the new brand of water, the demand for Frank's product
wouldn't exist. They'd be fine with their inferior quality bottled water.
Frank experienced such resistance because he had to change his customers
instead of anticipating what his customers would do anyways.

Saying that the change from tap to bottled water at home doesn't change the
world seems kind of silly since it means that municipal water becomes less
profitable. All the empty bottles which are thrown out and which go to
landfills have an affect on the world outside of people. Whether people by
brand A or brand B doesn't have much of an affect on the outside world. If
anything, the post should be "Do change the world, don't change people".

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SatvikBeri
Nobody likes "Don't change the world", but a lot of people love "Find and
solve a customer's existing, urgent problem".

~~~
jtheory
The distinction here is pretty dramatic with the example of bottled water.

Assuming that this business scenario is playing out in some country that has
high-quality, well-monitored _tap_ water, both of those entrepreneurs are in
the business of convincing people to "solve a need" they don't actually have.

In this case, "don't change the world" means "notice that people are easily
suckered into buying bottled water, and do that better".

Whereas "find and solve a customer's existing, urgent problem" could possible
involve selling efficient and low-cost water purifiers (if people in some
areas would prefer better-tasting tap water, I guess? I like mine), or more
likely have nothing to do with drinking water whatsoever.

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repos
Some of the points are valid, but you shouldn't generalize the situation. Very
few people in the 90's woke up with the idea that they needed to be connected
with someone on the other side of the world. But they eventually realized they
did when they were shown the internet.

Yeah sometimes you don't need to be "disruptive", but sometimes you do. And
it's especially hard to realize which is appropriate when you are building for
a profit, a bit easier when you are building for change.

~~~
spullara
His point is that the ones that made the disruptive change like Netscape are
not necessarily the ones that made the most money for the least effort. The
people that saw the trend and momentum and went with it had an easier time and
made more money more efficiently then the ones that actually changed the
world. So even though there are counter examples you can't say they had an
easy time of it or took the simplest path to success.

All that said, I don't find the kinds of startups he is encouraging as
interesting.

~~~
michokest
Great example at Netscape! That was exactly my point. Major disruptions have
already been started by others, and it's easier to ride that wave than
starting a new one.

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mcantor
All this post says is that it's easy to do something predictable and hard to
do something novel.

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billpatrianakos
No no no no no! This kind of thinking is for those in it for the money. If
you're in anything for the money you won't get very far. It's not that this is
wrong advice. Things do work the way he says but no one should be following
this advice. Would you encourage your child to grow up to be mediocre or
encourage the kid to be the best.

If selling a mediocre product is what you're passionate about then by all
means go for it but do not look for the easy buck by doing so because it's
just not there. Time and time again we're reminded as consumers that we don't
know what we want until someone shows it to us. You can give the people what
they want in a way that changes the world.

This whole thing is just wrong. It's hard to argue because it's right in a
sense but at the same time no one should be approaching things in such a
cynical way. Let's all just forget this was ever written and hope no one
listens.

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lenka-penka
hmmm...interesting points

