

TC Disrupt Experience - Seriously, What Problem are You Solving? - osuburger
http://www.zachboerger.com/post/31422688826/thoughts-on-tc-disrupt-seriously-what-problem-are?6fbe7100

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callmeed
Wait, what? You're writing a rant about other entrepreneurs not solving
problems when your startup is "google alerts for video games and movies" with
no apparent business model?

 _> > You need to be a painkiller, not a vitamin._

If you read that article, he actually says "very few are (painkillers)" ...
being a vitamin isn't bad, it's just easier to market a painkiller ...

 _> > I feel like an asshole for saying all this, because I never want to talk
badly about fellow entrepreneurs._

The fact that you have to add this to your post is a good clue that it may
have been unwarranted or poorly worded.

Look, my startups don't cure cancer but I like to think they solve problems
for people. If people ask me for honest advice about their startup or pitch, I
will definitely give it. But I don't go to conferences and then publicly rip
the participants (or most of them).

~~~
bpatrianakos
Going to a conference and then publicly ripping the participants (while being
or not being a hypocrite about it) is just about as trendy as starting a
startup. I bet there will be 199 more posts strewn about HN just like this by
the time the conference is done.

Edit: I want to add that everyone loves to repeat all the smart things they
read on other blogs on their own blogs in some vain attempt to seem wise but
how many people actually get it or even follow their own advice? Saying
something isn't the same as doing it.

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diego
"What problem are you solving" is dogma. At the earliest stage, a startup is
an experiment to see if people want something.

There are tons of examples of companies that started as toys, and ultimately
became businesses. In hindsight you can always come up a description of the
problem they were solving at the time, even if nobody knew the problem
existed. You could do this for Twitter today: they solved the problem of
(exercise to the reader).

~~~
bpatrianakos
Thank you for this! That's one thought I had but forgot to mention in another
comment below. Dogma is the perfect word for it too. I also believe the people
repeating that dogma are doing it either out of ignorance or some attempt to
make themselves feel important and world changing. That's where your second
point comes in - those same people will do all sorts of mental gymnastics to
explain the problem which may not even exist. Your example of Twitter is
perfect too! They now say its some novel communication platform. Well, I'm
pretty sure it started as what basically amounted to Facebook status updates
on a site called Twitter. Now people are rewriting history to make the legend
true.

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dchuk
While it's important to initially form an idea around a problem to be solved,
the focus really should be on building a product to solve a problem in such a
way that it would be painful for your customer to stop using your product.

That's how you create enough demand to properly charge for your product versus
offering it for free and it being considered just a really cool idea.

That being said, there's quite a few "startups" launching every week that are
really just neat projects or ideas, but aren't proper
startups/products/businesses. That doesn't make them bad, just not in the same
category as something that charges money. They're essentially trying to solve
a problem they created themselves...said another way, they're a solution in
search of a problem.

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davidsherry36
I think some of this gets back to talking to customers asap and getting over
the fear of them telling you that they don't want your product. The faster
they tell you what pains they really are having, the faster you can move in
the right direction. But good pitches need the one sentence "here's who we
are" followed by the one sentence "here's how we're solving your problem". Get
that correct and people will at least know why you are worthy of taking their
cash. And as he referenced, vitamins = where you spend spare change, health
care (painkillers) = large $$

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timjahn
I agree with you.

But we're wrong. We're just saying this because in our eyes, these "problems"
aren't worth solving. We're not interested in them.

matchist (matchist.com), my current venture, wants to help freelance
developers cut out all the bad things about freelancing. We want to save you
time, money, and headaches.

I love this problem. It NEEDS to be solved.

But you might think it's the stupidest problem around.

~~~
SparksZilla
I don't identify with your problem, but I totally believe that it's a problem.
I was at Disrupt and saw a lot of really cool companies solving real problems.
That said, I also saw a lot of sexy apps and sites that really aren't
addressing problems at all. They do cool things, look nice, and work well, but
they really aren't addressing problems. Thoughts?

~~~
bpatrianakos
The startup gods have proclaimed that you must solve a problem and now
everyone seems to be taking it as an absolute truth. The startup gods are
wrong.

Listen, solving a problem is what we need more of in this world. It's hard,
its rewarding, and the idea of it is sexy though the problem itself may not
be. That said, solving some problem is not the only way to succeed or be
relevant. Some things can be cool and sexy and total non-needs and still be a
huge hit. Some things that are just fun and entertainment are not just
successful but important in our lives! Yes, important! Like Zynga. I fucking
hate them but they make freaking games and they're doing damn well (their
downward spiral is irrelevant and unrelated to my point). How about the
cheeseburger network (you know, Lolcats, I can has cheeseburger and all
that?). Useless, entertaining, non-problem-solving ideas that are big hits.

I honestly say fuck solving problems. You know whats really important when it
comes to starting a startup no matter if it solves a problem or not? It's this
question:

Can I get people to give me money for this?

If the answer is yes then it's a good idea. Solving problems is awesome and if
you think of something that solves a problem that you'll get money from that's
even more awesome. But all this talk of solving problems seems more about
people trying to make themselves feel superior or trick themselves into
thinking they're changing the world rather than anything having to do with
business.

~~~
randomrant
Brilliant. You said it all.

Gaming is a huge industry. Tell me what problems this whole industry solves,
vitamin or painkiller? I would argue that it is a huge waste for the society.
Same goes with alcohol. Do they acutally "create" more problems?

The truth is that people want to spend money to buy vitamins and many useless
things. If you provide them and people buy, you have a business.

The notion of a startup having to solve a problem and the argument of vitamin
or painkiller are stupid and amateur.

For OP, indeed, you are trying to solve a problem. But you create a new
problem for me - I have to remember to go to your site to learn whatever I
want to know, on top of many things I do everyday - cnn, wsj, techcrunch,
gmail, YC news, facebook, twitter. I already get more information than what I
can digest. I cannot remember to go to your site and will not have incentive
to do it. Until you provide something unique that I need, I won't visit your
site again. (I visited yesterday.)

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ssebro
I know you didn't ask for product feedback, but I think your product has a
problem: You need early adopters to start using it, but early adopters
naturally hear about the news and developments that you claim to deliver. In
otherwords, I shared your product with a few coworkers, we signed up, then we
all independently decided that we'd hear about those things naturally, through
other channels. Sounds like a vitamin.

~~~
osuburger
Totally fine with the feedback. Thanks for checking us out! To address your
point though, we've actually found that we have a pretty awesome mix of users
that consists of both early adopters and more "normal" people. For example, my
dad loves movies and gadgets but never reads any tech blogs or hears about
this stuff normally. He likes using our site because he can hear about things
he is interested in but normally never wouldn't have been exposed to. But
again, thanks for the feedback; user acquisition is obviously always an issue.

~~~
ssebro
It seems a little weird that someone who loves movies doesn't hear about them
through any other sources. While I wanted to sign up for some of the movies, I
knew I'd see ads for them on TV, or at bus stops when they launched. I've
literally never missed the launch of something that I cared a lot about,
because by definition I'd be the kind of person they'd be trying to reach. But
the proof is in the data - if you're getting active users, then that's all
that matters. Congrats :)

~~~
marknutter
There are those of us who are interested in launches but just don't have the
time to dedicate to keeping track of their status.

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sopooneo
I'm sure most profitable companies were formed to solve a problem. But a few
absurdly successful ones don't really fit that description. You can shoehorn
them in, but it seems like a stretch to explain the "pain point" facebook
solved. Instead, it seems like in those cases, they provided a new thing no
one knew to want before.

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seltzered_
funny, kelly sutton wrote a similar-ish post on TC Disrupt last year:
[http://kellysutton.tumblr.com/post/10164180568/your-idea-
is-...](http://kellysutton.tumblr.com/post/10164180568/your-idea-is-terrible)

~~~
SparksZilla
Last line of that post is hilarious.

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colindoc84
This is a good idea for a post, but needs specifics.

