

Relentlessly Profitable- how great ideas kill companies - n9com
http://spreadsong.com/relentlessly_profitable_how_the_opportunity_cost_of_a_great_idea_destroys_startups

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weeksie
Painful and true. When we started up we thought we were going to sell some
fantastic developer tools . . . then realized that there was no money in that.
Then we developed a niche product that actually pays the bills.

If money is coming in at the end of the month you're on the right track, if
not then you won't be around for long.

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donw
This makes me very interested to see what happens when my company (all two of
us) has a shiny, new product to hit the road later this year.

Admittedly, we're scratching an itch, and very focused on the idea of 'getting
money by making our customers really, really happy.', so the idea of 'changing
the world' is really way down on the list. Even so, I'm expecting a very, very
interesting ride. :)

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iseff
I like this article, and I think it's a good reminder, but it's also a
reminder that you need to weigh each and every business and idea individually.

For example, Google and Amazon were definitely idea companies. Neither made
any money -- and, in Google's case, wasn't even sure about how they'd make
money -- for quite some time. But, both have seem to have done acceptably
well.

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weeksie
To be fair though, both of those companies are extreme outliers. If you start
off with a stack of funding (and lots of great advice from smart and well-
connected people) then you can hop right into the big picture stuff. However,
if you're a small bootstrapping company you absolutely have to get profitable
as soon as possible.

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nico
Just be careful not to get stuck just making money, your company could easily
turn into a consultancy or something alike because you are first trying to
make money. This happened to my first startup, it's still going, but they just
do custom software development. It was a big waste of talent.

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jamongkad
Just out of curiosity why do you say that turning into a custom software
development shop is a waste of talent?

Granted yes I'm very much with the rest of the HN community that we should
concentrate on making products and all.

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nico
Well, I don't think it is a general rule, in my comment I was referring
exclusively to my experience with the group of people I was working with.
These were very talented engineers with a great product idea, yet the whole
thing finally deviated into doing whatever so that we could pay the rent and
the bills. The guy who is still running the company is doing great,
nevertheless the company never sold the product we originally envisioned nor
it evolved from that concept.

