
Startup idea checklist - adrian_mrd
https://www.defmacro.org/2019/03/26/startup-checklist.html
======
karmakaze
The ordering of points can be very important:

    
    
      Product
      1. What are you building? 
         <= 70 chars
    

From the post I can tell the author is just organizing deeply considered
thoughts. For a consumer of this checklist beware about thinking of the
product first. By putting this as the first item, one can fall into the trap
of shoehorning this answer into all the following points.

As I'm sure others here have mentioned, fall in love with a problem not a
solution or product. Usually it's best to find a narrow set of users who have
this problem and explore around the problem to get a better picture of it.
This can often lead to a different product solving a more key problem.

~~~
coffeemug
Author here. After rereading this (I haven't looked at the list for months), I
agree. It should be "who are the users? -> what is the essence of their
dissatisfaction? -> what are you building for them?"

~~~
coffeemug
Fixed now.

------
Waterluvian
It's amazing to me how effective it is just to write down these things.

I'm planning to rebuild my deck and I've been thinking and brainstorming for
days. But just the act of writing down the step by step order of what is
already in my head made me discover all kinds of holes in my plan.

There's a magic there. You can be convinced you know something intimately but
if you write it all down I almost guarantee you'll find holes.

~~~
aaronm14
You (and others) may enjoy Adam Savage's new book. He was one of the
Mythbusters guys. In one of the first chapters he writes about his love of
lists and checklists, and the impact it makes on the process of "making." I'm
only a few chapters in so far but it's been a fun read so far.

It looks like there is an article talking about this specifically here on
Wired if you want to dip your toes in: [https://www.wired.com/story/adam-
savage-lists-more-lists-pow...](https://www.wired.com/story/adam-savage-lists-
more-lists-power-checkboxes/)

~~~
m33k44
Also there is Dr. Atul Gawande's "The Checklist Manifesto".

------
xondono
Maybe it’s because I’m too negative, maybe it’s the cynical engineer in me, or
maybe my ideas aren’t so good to start with, but every time I think I have a
‘good’ business idea, I tend to slaughter it through in a couple of days.

Not one of them has passed my test..

~~~
sovande
One trait most successful founders have is not being overly analytical. This
correlate with higher education as well, the higher, the more analytical.
Creating a successful startup is basically a lottery and it almost does not
matter what idea you come up with. In this metaphor, smart and analytical
people will not buy a lottery ticket because the cost vs the chance to win is
just too small. But if you don't buy a lottery ticket you most certainly
cannot win the lottery.

~~~
vikramkr
I disagree. The trait needed is being intensely analytical but only with the
right data. Its physically impossible to sit in a room, look at an idea or a
lottery ticket, and analytically reason your way to knowing it is good or not.
The only way to know is to get data on it from the real world, something you
can't do with lottery tickets, and unlike lottery tickets, startups are not
negative sum and there aren't rules to win and odds that you can't shift - the
whole point is shifting odds of success.

~~~
sovande
I don't disagree, _once_ you have crossed the rubicon. When Julius Caesar
_actually_ crossed the Rubicon, the risk was immense and there was no
guarantee of a successful outcome. That's what I mean, going all in on a risky
adventure is not for everyone and if you analyse and think too much about it,
few will want to take the jump. However, once you have crossed and are in the
"battle" then of course you will use all the tactical advantages you can and
try "shifting odds of success".

~~~
jacques_chester
Julius Caesar didn't cross the Rubicon because he wanted to gain new power or
wealth; he wanted to defend his own personal liberty and a sense of wounded
pride.

That he destroyed the Republic was something of a side-effect. If anyone was
the entrepreneur in this analogy, it was Augustus, who both founded the
Empire, having a brilliant command of public relations, denied having done so.

~~~
sovande
By crossing the Rubicon with his one legion, Caesar put himself on a path of
no return and in open conflict with the Senate and Pompey who vastly
outnumbered him military. There was no guarantee that he would succeed. Upon
crossing he declared "alea iacta est", knowing full well what he set in
motion. Edit: My point here, is simply that not everyone would cross the
Rubicon. Most would turn around, deeming the risk too high. Related to a
startup, the risk for failure is high if you look at the statistics. If it is
a "sure thing" you are not really doing a startup or you are conned. A startup
kind of by definition has to be a high risk venture. Like PG's example of a
merchant ship going to the East Indias in the 17th century.

~~~
jacques_chester
I don't think he intended or expected that the Boni would essentially force
him to wage a war of total victory against them.

Bringing legions to Rome as part of political struggle had already been common
practice for centuries, but it had never fully destroyed the Republic. Caesar
himself witnessed several such occasions by Sulla and Marius.

Edit: responding to edit, my point is that Caesar was not fighting to _gain_.
"Crossing the Rubicon" means taking a risk, but I don't think using it to
describe creating a startup really fits.

He was fighting (illegally, it might be added) to defend himself against the
political tactics of his Senatorial opponents. While he held an Imperium he
could not be brought into court for his actions in holding it, but the Senate
had voted to make him lay it down. Their intention was to bring him to the
courts and ruin him politically and financially. Caesar was simply too proud
and too arrogant to allow that ruin; that he was the foremost general of his
age meant that he was in a position to pull it off.

~~~
sovande
> Caesar was not fighting to gain

Who knows? I believe you are right that he was forced into action when the
Senate pulled him back from Gaul [1] with the intention of bringing him to
court. If he did not have a plan to set himself up as a dictator, at least he
_pivoted_ beautifully once he saw the opportunity and Pompey folded. That at
least was a true startup move. 1. edit: Gaul not Germany

~~~
jacques_chester
Well you have me on the second part.

This has been a fun side conversation, thankyou.

------
mojuba
> Which subset of your target customers are so constrained by the status quo,
> they’ll welcome a buggy product?

I understand this is just a mental test, but really... don't release buggy
products. Don't create buggy products. Firstly, the line between forgivable
bugs and unforgivable ones is too thin. Or sometimes N forgivable bugs become
one big unforgivable show stopper.

Second, you will always have a competitor with more experienced engineers and
a better choice of tools that they'll beat you at least at quality if nothing
else.

~~~
koonsolo
> Second, you will always have a competitor with more experienced engineers
> and a better choice of tools that they'll beat you at least at quality if
> nothing else.

Software development is always about trade-offs. You can churn out way more
features if you don't need to take quality into account. I would welcome any
competitor in my field who is super focused on quality, since they will waste
a lot of time and money that could better be spent elsewhere.

For example, I'm not going to make some code bug-free, when there is a 50%
chance that that feature will end up in the wastebasket 2 months later.

Besides, you talk about unforgivable bugs, but what are they to your early
adopters anyway? I had users lose half a day of work because the save crashed
right in the middle of it. They weren't even angry. They said is was
inconvenient and just remade the whole thing. When I fixed it they were happy.
They are still users now. That's how "unforgivable" these are to early
adopters.

So yeah, don't forget one of the bigger companies had a "Move fast and break
things" policy. In the end it's the market that decides. And according to my
experience, early adopters are super forgiving.

~~~
mojuba
>You can churn out way more features if you don't need to take quality into
account.

Creating quality code should not be at the expense of extra features. Just
hire more competent, experienced engineers and there will be no need to
sacrifice one for the other.

Quality is a function of experience and skill, it is not (or should not be) a
function of development time.

~~~
koonsolo
I was talking about bug quality, not code quality. Sorry if that was not
clear.

And as any competent, experienced engineer knows, those two are less related
than a junior would think.

I agree you have to keep your code clean. But the absence of bugs is an
entirely different thing.

------
macspoofing
Almost every developer at some point will be approached by someone to work for
free for some killer idea that that person had. In those cases, I found it
useful to have them fill out a checklist list this, or put together a multi-
page Executive Summary and a Business Plan. You'd be surprised how quickly you
can get someone off your back and them off their idea, if they now have to go
and do some actual work. And you never have to say 'no' and get that person
offended.

~~~
randomsearch
That's a great idea. Do you have a specific link you send them to?

~~~
macspoofing
This checklist is actually pretty good. But I usually ask them to put together
30-50 page Business Plan with an Executive Summary. If they don't know how I
tell them to look online for examples. In one case I pointed them at a local
startup incubator that runs workshops for things like this. All this does is
add up to a non-trivial (but not onerous and with little cash outlay)
investment of THEIR time. And if this small investment of their time is too
much work for them ... well, I guess they weren't that serious to begin with.

So far I'm 5 for 5 when asked for a 50/50 partnership (where I do all the dev
work and my partner is the 'idea man') and then never hearing again about the
idea after I asked they put together this document - all without having to say
'no'. There has not been bitterness on their part, because next steps are on
them.

In the off-chance they will actually do this (and it hasn't happened yet), I
will take it seriously and really consider it. But even if I decide not to
pursue it, I feel like the exercise isn't a waste of their time as they will
be able to use it when looking for funding or other partners.

~~~
dopeboy
As someone in your spot (solicited by ~10 or so people in the past couple
years), this is an interesting response.

On first blush, it seems to set an adversarial tone rather than a
collaborative one. On the other hand, it's good due diligence and probably
filters out the serious from the not so serious.

I mostly agree with your response. I think the only place where it may not
work is when the person wants a thought partner to help think through these
things. There isn't always a strict dichotomy of duties in the framing of a
venture - I think all partners should be involved in that. Different story
when it comes to execution, though.

------
idoubtit
In many cases, customer ≠ user. The customer that buys the product may not be
the one that uses it. The OP makes no distinction.

For example, hardware and software that help teaching are usually chosen by
the school or the university. Teachers may have a word on this, but in my
experience they rarely decide.

Another example is products for children: some of them (e.g. educational
games) clearly target the parents or relatives. Others (e.g. food) focus on
the children, hoping they will persuade their parents.

~~~
wanderingstan
Yes, and likewise all ad-supported business models like Google or Facebook,
where the paying customer is the advertiser.

------
blodovnik
There's a school of thought that you must only build things that solve a
problem or ease a pain or fix someone's dissatisfaction.

This list seems very focused on that and seems to entirely miss asking
questions like "is this cool or fun or entertaining"?

~~~
RivieraKid
Yes, it's one of the Silicon Valley, clichés: "what problem does it solve"?

A common answer is that an existing product is great but it can be made even
better or cheaper. It's weird to frame it as solving a "problem".

~~~
adventured
I'm not sure how it's weird.

Lowering costs is solving a massive problem - for consumers and businesses
alike. There are few greater problems to be solved for the majority of people,
than lowering their cost of living - or cost of operations for a business -
while providing the same or better quality of a thing.

That process has been a fundamental requirement for all of human civilization
as we've known it the last ~5,000+ years. Without it, most of us are not here.
It generates an incredible incremental gain spiral, a compounding of small
surpluses that build and unleash bigger things over time.

For a business it frees up capital which can then be put into productivity,
R&D, salaries and countless other things. For consumers it can boost savings
or enable other purchases and investments that improve life. It enables new
demand which will unleash new goods that were not feasible or viable
previously.

It's all about generating a surplus that can then be directed toward some
additional goal. Better and cheaper is one of the required tenets of mass
standard of living progress.

~~~
fapjacks
That's an idealistic way to look at it, considering the backdrop of human
behavior.

------
phkahler
All those future looking goals, who is going to benefit, how great will it be
for them... what's your ticket symbol? I've been sitting on a possibly world
changing idea that would be ruined by money. How do we foster those types of
things?

~~~
kiliantics
Build it as a co-operative where all the workers (and maybe even consumers)
are also owners of the organisation, and have equal say in how it is run.
Combine this with a clear mission and set of principles that all new members
are taught so the organisation will stay on track for its initial purpose and
keep democratic and equitable control.

------
lifeisstillgood
>>> Why now? What’s true about the world that nobody else figured out yet?

I have three ideas I am working on and the one i like best is ... not passing
that test :-(

~~~
anderspitman
Lists like this are models to help frame your thinking, not immutable laws set
in stone. Maybe your idea can still work. If you want to do it, do it. Just
proceed with caution.

------
hartator
> Who is it for?

I hate this question. I think it’s from the marketing from the past. Now you
have one to one relationship with your customers. Who cares what marketing
group they belongs to?

At SerpApi.com, we have this issue constantly from industry outsiders. If you
have the need, you’ll use us. If not, you don’t and that’s fine.

~~~
davidivadavid
"Who is it for" can be answered through needs-based segmentation, i.e. exactly
what you said. Who is it for? It's for people who need x,y,z. You still need
to have a clear definition of that if you want to e.g. evaluate market size,
or do any sort of marketing/sales afterwards.

------
hutch120
Your questions are interesting, but I think are for MUCH later than an idea.
My new idea list starts something like this:

1\. Does this product/service exist and pretty much solve my problem? Then use
that.

2\. If not... I am the first customer... I am building it for myself because I
want to use it. (If it's a network product, then find a partner for the idea.)

3\. _Evaluate MVP_ do I find it useful, am I using it regularly? Does it solve
the problem for me?

4\. Introduce someone else to your product/service maybe a friend or family
and get them hooked.

5\. _Evaluate engagement_ is my friend still using it ... am I still using it?

6\. Build features for you and them.

7\. _Evaluate_ ... do you guys both love it?

8\. Get some more friends using it... if it's great maybe you even start to
get strangers.

Now get to your questions... how can I grow... how can I make money.

------
grogenaut
The top section of the document is similar to amazon's PR/FAQ process, which
having been forced to use to speak to amazon folks, I've found to be pretty
good for getting your thoughts and end customer defined. It's actually pretty
good for junior to mid level engineers as well: it keeps them from focusing on
the pure tech they want to deliver and focus more on the why. I find a lot of
people get stuck on what/how they want to deliver, thus delivering the wrong
solution. I know it helped me out personally.

------
allenleein
These are questions Michael Seibel mentioned that he likes to ask startups as
part of his 2018 “Building Product” Startup School presentation:

Problem

What problem are you solving? What problem will be solved at the end of what
you are doing? What do we expect the result to be? Can you state the problem
clearly in two sentences? Have you experienced the problem yourself? Can you
define this problem narrowly? Who can you help first? What can we address
immediately? How do we get the first indication this thing is working? Is the
problem solveable?

Customer

Who is your customer? Who is the ideal first customer? How will they know if
your product has solved the problem? How often (frequency) does your user have
the problem? Who is getting the most value out of your product? How intense is
the problem? Are they willing to pay? How easy is it for your customer to find
your product? Which customers should you run away from?

Product

Does your product actually solve the problem? Be truthful. How and why not?
Which customers should you go after first?

How do you find people who are willing to use your “bad” first versions of
your product? Who are the most desperate customers as how do you talk to them
first? Whose business is going to go out of business without using you?

Are you discounting or starting with a super low price? Are you consider this
approach? If so, why?

Performance

What are you using to measure how users are interacting with your product?
What 5-10 metrics are you measuring to understand how your product functions?
Why those metrics? When you build a new product or feature, what is the metric
that will improve because of that feature/product? What number do you track to
show how well your company is doing? What is your top level KPI (revenue,
usage)? What are the underlying metrics that contribute to achieving your top
level KPI (new users, retention of users, content created => DAUs at Social
Cam)? Which of these metrics are you trying to move this development cycle?

Product Development

How long is your product dev cycle? What is causing it to be that long? Who is
writing down notes at your product dev meeting? Which category does each of
your brainstormed ideas fit: New features/interactions on existing ones; bug
fixes/other maintenance; A/B tests? How easy/medium/hard are they to do? How
can you restate the hard ideas (disaggregate idea into smaller ideas)? What
parts of hard ideas are useless or hard? Are there other options? Which hard
idea will improve act the KPI the most? Which medium? Which easy? What is the
spec for the product/feature we want to build?

Problem

What problem are you solving? What problem will be solved at the end of what
you are doing? What do we expect the result to be? Can you state the problem
clearly in two sentences? Have you experienced the problem yourself? Can you
define this problem narrowly? Who can you help first? What can we address
immediately? How do we get the first indication this thing is working? Is the
problem solveable?

Customer

Who is your customer? Who is the ideal first customer? How will they know if
your product has solved the problem? How often (frequency) does your user have
the problem? Who is getting the most value out of your product? How intense is
the problem? Are they willing to pay? How easy is it for your customer to find
your product? Which customers should you run away from?

Product

Does your product actually solve the problem? Be truthful. How and why not?
Which customers should you go after first?

How do you find people who are willing to use your “bad” first versions of
your product? Who are the most desperate customers as how do you talk to them
first? Whose business is going to go out of business without using you?

Are you discounting or starting with a super low price? Are you consider this
approach? If so, why?

Performance

What are you using to measure how users are interacting with your product?
What 5-10 metrics are you measuring to understand how your product functions?
Why those metrics? When you build a new product or feature, what is the metric
that will improve because of that feature/product? What number do you track to
show how well your company is doing? What is your top level KPI (revenue,
usage)? What are the underlying metrics that contribute to achieving your top
level KPI (new users, retention of users, content created => DAUs at Social
Cam)? Which of these metrics are you trying to move this development cycle?

Product Development

How long is your product dev cycle? What is causing it to be that long? Who is
writing down notes at your product dev meeting? Which category does each of
your brainstormed ideas fit: New features/interactions on existing ones; bug
fixes/other maintenance; A/B tests? How easy/medium/hard are they to do? How
can you restate the hard ideas (disaggregate idea into smaller ideas)? What
parts of hard ideas are useless or hard? Are there other options? Which hard
idea will improve act the KPI the most? Which medium? Which easy? What is the
spec for the product/feature we want to build?

Doc link:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ungItAgriaQk_lDI4aEJNigm...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ungItAgriaQk_lDI4aEJNigmmn0cSy93NW6rCZvujYM/edit?usp=sharing)

------
chiefalchemist
Really good stuff, even for small and/or personal side projects.

Under Bonus I'd like to add:

Exit - What might that look like?

If nothing else, I think it helps vet the previous assumptions.

------
z3t4
Ask yourself _what do I need to do right now_. If you can foresee the future
start trading instead.

------
viach
Could it be narrowed to a single question "what's your marketing channel?"

------
codingdave
> What would need to be true in 18 months for you to get essentially unlimited
> cheap capital?

I'd first ask, what would need to be true in 18 months to never have needed
capital, and to be self-sustaining as a bootstrapped organization. Raising
funds should be an option, but not the assumed path of all products.

~~~
punnerud
Easier and cheaper to raise some capital when you don’t need it (as backup and
for scaling) than later.

~~~
codingdave
I've heard that, too. But I've never bought into it. Maybe I'm naive, but it
seems to me that giving up any equity when you don't need to is unwise. As far
as easier and cheaper, I have not seen costlier terms sheets due to need.
Easier... maybe, if you are doing so well that it is a no-brainer to want to
be part of it. But then it gets back to the point of giving up equity when
there is no need.

~~~
nikanj
Pay attention to the messenger too. If a VC tells you to raise money ”just in
case”, they might mean ”I want in on your explosive growth”. Nothing wrong
with that, just be mindful of people’s motives.

------
dandare
These kinds of checklists may work for a product like Airbnb but will hardly
work for something like Twitter or Instagram where the entrepreneur is
rewarded for fulfilling a need that never existed before.

~~~
lelima
>> fulfilling a need that never existed before.

Phone text messages existed before, Messenger in desktop, even forums that
work very similar to twitter.

I might be wrong but I think the need was there, they improve a similar
product with more features and Voila!

------
riantogo
I would like to suggest a section called constraints. And to me that is the
most important section to answer:

Are you going to go at it full time or part time?

How many hours in a week can you dedicate to it without wrecking relationships
(kids, partner, friends etc.)?

Do you see a path to raising funds or are you thinking of bootstrapping?

If going all in, how much runway do you have if no funding came through?

Did you know that the path to startup hell is paved with "but everyone told me
it was a great idea"?

------
paul7986
Id keep your ideas to yourself!

Especially if they are novel!

------
meerita
I dislike the idea of the startup for "solving a problem". Problems are very
specific, personal and not so broad as other options.

In fact:

1\. Not everyone has a problem.

2\. Not everyone is aware is having a problem.

3\. People bear problems. Even the worst ones (ex. health).

So, why build your startup around a problem. Why don't you better build it
around a "need". A need would be much stronger usage driver than problems.

~~~
randomsearch
One of the biggest mistakes nerds make is to build a project, not a business.
Business have to create value. Most businesses do that by solving problems.

The difficulty with going for a "need" that is not "I need to solve this
problem" is that you have to convince people that they have the need, and that
your product best satisfies it. General needs (Maslow hierarchy etc.) tend to
be vague and served by many different product types. Sure, there are
exceptions, but most businesses solve problems and if you're not explicitly
doing that then you're either taking a more difficult road, or you're not
building a business.

~~~
meerita
Exactly. Slack people created a new communicational need. There were email,
forums, etc. Even chats, but they created a good product that enhanced the
need to have better chat system to work better. They weren't solving any major
problem. That is my point.

------
netdur
.

------
rotten
Is the only reason to create a startup to experience exponential growth and
get really rich and have your own stock symbol?

Or, could someone create a lifestyle business and call that a startup? Where
the goals might be simply to make a living doing what you love without working
for some big company somewhere?

Or maybe could someone create a startup that makes the world a better place
without concern for getting oneself crazy rich?

I am not a fan of the idea that the only driving motivation for establishing a
small tech company is to make the VC's happy.

~~~
tachyonbeam
It's the silicon valley mantra. Grow for multiple years at a loss so you can
be the first and biggest player in your business segment and instigate a
monopoly, giving nobody else a chance to establish themselves. They all want
to be the next Google, Amazon or Facebook.

I remember seeing a silicon valley VC, in an interview, saying that he
wouldn't invest in a startup if he couldn't see a path to a billion dollar
valuation. Of course, this guy has the right to his own investment strategy,
but it also seems kind of idiotic to suggest that every business that can't
have a billion dollar valuation is worthless. There are plenty of niche
business out theres that occupy smaller market segments that the tech giants
will likely never come into. Personally, I wouldn't say no to owning a
significant share of a 600 million dollar business.

~~~
flunhat
The economics of venture capital don't work out if you invest in companies
that you think will be worth less than a billion dollars. There's a really
enlightening blog post that goes through all the numbers (maybe someone can
find it again for me), but it basically comes down to this:

90% of all companies funded by this VC will fail. Of the remaining 10%, some
will be middling successes. One or two companies will be really great. But the
VC has a problem: his LPs expect a return over 10 years (or whatever the
lifetime is) that is as good as the market (simplifying, but this is basically
true). If the one or two companies that succeed only become worth a few
hundred million, he's actually delivered a sub-par return for his LPs. So the
one or two companies that succeed must _really_ succeed, or else the VC is
going to have trouble with their next fund. Someone did the math and showed
that a 10x return on those successful investments is the minimum for the fund
as a whole to provide a good return for its LPs.

All this means that when a VC looks for deals, he can't waste time on
lifestyle businesses and the like. Billion dollar companies or bust. Keep in
mind that this is not true for people who write smaller checks (like angels).

~~~
cookingrobot
That math makes sense if “90% of investments fail”, which is a reasonable
number if you only invest in companies that need to grow to $1B to succeed.
But if you were willing to invest in companies that top out much smaller,
theoretically you could chose companies based on likelihood of profit instead
of growth, and get a much lower failure rate. The other thing you’d need to be
careful of is drain on your time. You’d need to be much less available to
companies over time, or you’d get spread too thin by too big a portfolio.

~~~
askafriend
> But if you were willing to invest in companies that top out much smaller

Then that person would literally not be practicing Venture Capital.

Venture Capital is a very specific type of funding with a specific type of
risk profile. If you don't like the implications, then don't seek Venture
Capital.

This is what people don't understand. No one is forcing you to be a venture
backed company.

~~~
cookingrobot
Is that a semantic argument - that low risk investments should be called
something other than "venture capital"? What term would be best for that? Note
that VC does have a wide variety of risk profiles - with later stage usually
being lower risk and earlier stage being higher. Who serves the market of
early, low-medium risk (and therefore lower returns)?

------
mlthoughts2018
I see a lot of businesses that don’t create value, like Uber, or even destroy
value in multiple senses, like Uber, that go relatively unpunished by markets
and create huge financial windfalls for executives, investors and some
employees. Similar things have happened with some cryptocurrencies.

Often a business is run solely to generate enough hype to externalize losses
onto an acquirer or public retail traders or unwitting retirement plan
holders, while creating space for personal profit for a small set of people.

~~~
karmakaze
When we're talking 'value' here for startups, we mean value to the user. If
Uber didn't produce any value for the user people wouldn't be taking them. Or
if there was no value for the drivers they wouldn't drive. Whether or not
people get windfalls from the process doesn't change what the end-user gets in
the transaction.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
> “If Uber didn't produce any value for the user people wouldn't be taking
> them”

At current prices, which are unsustainbly low due to VC subsidy, people find
value in the trade of money for the service. At a price that fairly reflects
the cost of delivering the service unsubsidized and maintaining driver quality
of life at a socially acceptable level, nobody would pay for it.

So the game was to lever perceived market value up very high with VC subsidy
and hype, all the while knowing that they are selling a dollar for fifty
cents, just long enough to be acquired or go public at prices that pay back
the original VC subsidizers at a multiple allowing them to profit, while
whomever bought in is left holding the bag when the company is left in an
unsustainable operating position and there’s no more hype-profit carrot to
attract new subsidy investors.

~~~
karmakaze
This is a very possible outcome, but not the only realistic one. Depending on
the rate of development/adoption of autonomous vehicles there may still be a
future without deprived drivers and selling at a loss.

In any case, I am glad for the more efficient use of space and energy that
Uber has provided over the congestion of roaming and standing taxicabs in the
downtown core with service virtually nowhere else.

~~~
mlthoughts2018
Uber and similar ride-hailing services have not led to more efficient space or
energy use. On the contrary, these services have led to serious and alarming
increases in congestion and pollution and diverted funds away from public
transit.

The real economics of taxi services, for example round trip costs for
servicing lower density out-lying regions, implies much higher prices and
lower ride inventory.

Uber and others providing an inflated amount of inventory at unsustainably low
prices is not some sort of shift in transit patterns. It’s nothing but
temporarily selling a dollar for fifty cents in order to compel all
competitors out of the market, at which point it instantly goes right back to
being just as hard to get an Uber in the suburbs as it was to get a taxi there
in the 90s, because that’s precisely how the price equilibrium of that supply
and demand always worked.

