
Organic Startup Ideas - adamc
http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html
======
cpr
I don't know if the Gates/Basic example is really organic.

I happened to be hacking late at night on the same Harv-10 machine in the old
CRCT machine room (now gone, replaced by the Gates/Ballmer cheese wedge
building), during the period where Gates was building his 8080
assembler/linker/simulator and developing Basic using those tools. (I do
remember teasing him about toy computers at the time.)

My impression was that he wasn't trying to actually use the Basic himself, but
saw that for these hobbyist computers to make any headway, they were going to
need a higher-level language. He was already a very proficient 4004/8008/8080
assembler hacker and a PDP-10 assembler whiz.

I.e., his Basic development was not organic but fairly coldly calculated as an
obvious business effort.

(He was "yay close" to being expunged from Harvard (worse than being expelled)
for using their research machines for profit, and he had to give back the $10K
that MITS had advanced him. 'Twas a bit unfair, as I saw several different
commercial efforts running off that same machine (all of them late-night
denizens of the computer room like me), and no one ever squawked about them.)

~~~
maukdaddy
Well, I think Gates ended up having the last laugh ;) He's actually worth more
than Harvard's endowment.

~~~
cpr
Yes, especially since Harvard's endowment (already down 30% or more) is wildly
overstated due to all the illiquid assets they own.

~~~
maukdaddy
Quoted as $5 billion in real estate alone. Given the market you can assume -20
to -30% at least on most RE portfolios.

~~~
cpr
I was thinking more of the whole derivatives scam they were partially
responsible for cooking up in the first place.

Those are clearly worthless, and account for a big chunk of the endowment.

They just can't bring themselves to admit it yet.

[Edit] I guess I'm shedding crocodile tears for them. I've no love lost for my
alma mater, which, while academically valuable, is really nothing more than a
soulless multinational corporation. They long ago gave up any semblance of
trying to actually educate the whole man.

------
shalmanese
I think I'll have to disagree.

Organic Startups have one huge advantage: They're significantly easier to
build.

Organic Startups have one huge disadvantage: They're significantly easier to
build.

The space for people-like-me startups is severely crowded due to an over-
abundance of people scratching their own itch. On the other hand, markets that
are the diametric opposite of silicon-valley-tech are ripe for the picking by
any halfway competent team. Look at Club Penguin, acquired for $700M, all
because they focused an "unsexy" niche.

The second type of startup is harder to build but it's not _that_ much harder
to build. More importantly, it's variably harder to build.

Some people are going to be naturals at it and not see what the big fuss is
all about. Others will never have the necessary social intelligence. But the
vast, _vast_ majority of people will suck at it to begin with but then get
better the more they try.

I've always been a big proponent of taking the road less taken. While every
other uber-hacker is learning erlang & haskell, why not learn how to become
better at designing for people who are not yourself?

~~~
pg
_The space for people-like-me startups is severely crowded due to an over-
abundance of people scratching their own itch._

Empirically that doesn't seem to be true. E.g. there were not a lot of other
startups doing Facebook at the same time as Mark. A couple, but not a lot.

Probably the reason is the point I mentioned in the essay: most people ignore
their itches because they don't seem good enough sources of ideas.

Ironically, if people start doing what I suggest, it could cause what you're
claiming to become true. But we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

~~~
BerislavLopac
_there were not a lot of other startups doing Facebook at the same time as
Mark._

Actually, I'd say there were. Not "doing Facebook", but scratching the same
itch Mark was, which is connecting students on campuses. Some of them failed,
some went in different directions -- Facebook itself has grown into what it is
over the years.

~~~
patrickk
Incidentally, Zuckerberg wasn't scratching his own itch; he took the idea of
some other students who's site he was supposedly was helping them to build,
and ran with/stole/took 'inspiration from' (depending on your point of view)
the idea himself.

[http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-
in...](http://www.businessinsider.com/how-mark-zuckerberg-hacked-into-the-
harvard-crimson-2010-3)

[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/judge-ends-
facebook...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/judge-ends-facebooks-
feud-with-connectu/)

It's quite a Microsoft-esque tatic I think, i.e. of questionable morals, but
potentially a great business move.

~~~
reynolds
I'm not sure what went through Mark Zuckerberg's head, but I imagine he felt
he could do a better job than ConnectU and was compelled to do so.

~~~
patrickk
_> >....he felt he could do a better job than ConnectU and was compelled to do
so_

If you are aware of the background to the story, it seems like he gave the
impression to two fellow Harvard students that he would help them build an
internal dating site for Harvard, but some time into the project he decided to
stop communicating with them and used the code for what would eventually
become Facebook.

------
Readmore
"The best way to come up with startup ideas is to ask yourself the question:
what do you wish someone would make for you?"

I don't believe this anymore.

After 4 years of trying to follow this advice, and building 4 different web
applications that were things "I wish someone would make." I've given up on
following PGs advice. Perhaps I'm an anomaly, but I'm fairly sure I'm not as
there are so many startups out there that all try to solve the same handful of
problems, and fail.

Most of us are developers, and we have a set number of 'tasks' that seem like
they should be something you could build a business out of and so we all try
to do them. Task Management, Project Management, Time Tracking, Social
communication, etc. There are obviously winners in this space but they are
established, and it is extremely difficult for a small group of developers to
come along and decide to 'solve' one of those problems.

Maybe I'm just not interesting enough, I'll admit that is possible, but I've
found much greater success by building applications that people tell me they
want, and pay me to build.

I also don't have a billion dollar startup, so don't listen to me, but I
couldn't let another article get by with espousing the virtues of just
'building what you like' without saying something.

</Rant>

~~~
abstractbill
_Most of us are developers, and we have a set number of 'tasks' that seem like
they should be something you could build a business out of and so we all try
to do them. Task Management, Project Management, Time Tracking, Social
communication, etc._

Good god no, don't do that! Task management, project management and time
tracking all _severely_ fail the "will it get my users laid" test.

Take some time to pick up a few hobbies and interests that _don't_ involve
programming. This will improve your life in general, and it won't be long
before you see how badly computers suck for people who aren't engineers. Soon
you'll see _dozens_ of ways you can use software to make things better, and a
few of them might just be the kind of thing you could make into a business.

------
jasonlbaptiste
This makes a ton of sense and finding an organic idea is often what I tell
people to do when they're thinking about a startup. Few reasons:

\- Doing a startup is like an iron man competition. When there's something you
want to see built, there's that extra incentive to keep going. If you don't
finish, you don't get the thing that you wanted. Steve Jobs said it best in
his interview at D5 with BillG. Any sane person would give up, but if you
really want to see what you're building exist in the world, you'll keep going.

\- Usually the organic idea stems from some kind of domain expertise ie- If
you used to work in the fashion sector, you recognize severely broken things
that are amazingly obvious from spending so much time there. If you didn't
work in the Fashion industry you would have no clue these things exist.

\- You'll be able to find co-founders more easily. If you've spent time in a
certain sector with a problem you're trying to solve, odds are a) you know
people in that space really well b) they therefore know that vertical well c)
they will recognize the problem as well.

Don't make something people want, but make something you want. Odds are there
will be a good amount of other people like you out there. My first startup was
a non organic idea. We were trying to make SaaS for PR professionals because
it seemed like a good opportunity. Honest truth? I was never a PR professional
and didn't really give two shits if PR professionals had good software. I
could live if that itch wasn't scratched. Ironically, this failure spawned
what is an Organic startup that i'm currently working on with Cloudomatic by
helping SaaS developers get distribution. Life works in funny ways.

~~~
tigerthink
"We were trying to make SaaS for PR professionals because it seemed like a
good opportunity."

What was your strategy for figuring out what PR professionals wanted?

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
So here's the backstory:

Publictivity originally started out as an organic startup- theWeblogWire,
which was meant to connect startups and bloggers together. You wanted to
launch something, we would make sure bloggers got it. We had a really
successful launch (mashable, front page of digg, lifehacker,
downloadsquad,etc. for press and we had bloggers from: all of gawker, weblogs
inc, techcrunch,mashable,etc.). There were even paying customers too! We had
been invited out to the valley to meet a bunch of important people that wanted
to help us/advise us/etc.

Shortly thereafter, one of the cofounders Frank, went to someone he knew from
way back in the day. His friend was the cofounder of pr firm. They thought
what we were doing was great and gave us a bit of office space. One day the
owner pops in and says: we need this software for PR! and we'll give you money
to build it. This was the point Publictivity was born. We (stupidly beyond
belief) shuttered theweblogwire for Publictivity, because it made sense to
concentrate on only one thing + software seemed like a better startup path. We
spent about two months in their offices so we were close to feedback and took
meetings every few weeks to get feedback on how the "PR process" worked. We
ourselves were clueless on Public Relations from a firm standpoint. We knew
how it worked according to being a startup, but that's a fairly different
process.

In hindsight, knowing what I now know just from startup experience, I would
have never started down the path of Publictivity and continued onwards with
theweblogwire. Why? theWeblogWire was meant to cure a need I really had.

~~~
tigerthink
So at what point did you know the publicity software was going to be a
failure? What was the proximate cause of your doom?

------
asimjalis
A tweak to increase the likelihood of profit might be to go from, "build
something that you wish someone would build for you", to "build something that
you would pay someone to build for you." The "pay" filter might be good at
killing unprofitable ideas.

For example, Wozniak's idea meets the pay criteria. Facebook, Twitter, and
most social apps don't. So they need more funding to bootstrap.

------
henning
This makes a lot of sense, but for a lot of developers they might think of
developer tools, since they're developers and developers use and like tools,
which is an area that seems hard to sell in.

~~~
pg
Hrm, that's true. I should add a caveat that it's hard to compete directly
with open source software. You can build things for developers (e.g. Heroku),
just so long as there's something you can charge for.

Edit: did.

~~~
ssp
I have sometimes wondered if I could sell sysprof (<http://www.sysprof.com>).
It's an open source profiler for Linux, and as such anyone can just download
it for free.

However, I could see embedded shops being willing to pay for it just so that
(a) they have someone to call for support, and (b) it will continue to be
developed.

~~~
aeontech
A lot of open source software go down the route of having the software free,
and paying for guaranteed support and/or funding developers directly in order
to get their specific bugs and needs met faster. That's definitely a viable
path; the question is, can you make more than just a salary on it? Some
companies do, but then you have to get into hiring, managing people, which
most hackers don't really have any interest in.

~~~
borism
That's a great point. There's a good income to be made by developing tools for
developers, just not the type of stellar growth that gets you mentioned on TV
(unless you switch from developing for developers to developing for everyone,
like Bill Gates and Paul Allen)

------
mattmaroon
"This suggests a way to predict areas where Apple will be weak: things Steve
Jobs doesn't use. E.g. I doubt he is much into gaming."

I'd agree with that given the initial insistence that native apps were
unnecessary. Every sufficiently popular platform devolves into a vehicle for
delivering games eventually. If he were a gamer, he would have known that.

~~~
pxlpshr
Hmmm, I'm not sure I agree that every popular platform "devolves" into gaming
if you're implying that gaming is a step backward.

I have fond memories playing games on my computer before computing was ever
consider popular. Gaming got me into programming, not visa-versa, and even
tech startups (my first real taste was a gaming startup). And, I'd argue that
gaming has been a significant contributor to the speed at which modern
computing has been adopted by consumers. Honestly, if it wasn't for games
during the 80's and 90's, my upgrade cycle would have been significantly
longer.

~~~
mattmaroon
I said devolves because it becomes little more than a game delivery mechanism.
Facebook is a great example of this. Take away games and it would look more
like Myspace.

------
mwerty
Two counter examples:

1\. Mark Pincus was successful 3 out of 4 times he got funding.

2\. Jim Clark is the only person in the world to create three billion dollar
companies.

What I've read of them suggests that they were exploiting trends, not
necessarily scratching itches.

~~~
reynolds
> 2\. Jim Clark is the only person in the world to create three billion dollar
> companies.

Didn't Marc Andreesen do this too? Or maybe Ning shouldn't be counted until it
exits.

------
waxman
I think PG's larger idea here is simply: "build what you know." And that is
excellent advice.

Either build something that scratches your own itch, or if you're trying to
solve somebody else's problem, understand that problem like it's your own.

My first funded start-up was an online English instruction website geared at
students in East Asia. We had great software, a great idea, and the market was
and still is huge, but I didn't learn English as a second language, and
neither did my co-founder, and ultimately we just didn't understand the
problem well enough from the user's point of view.

------
kylec
> we were comparatively old when we started the company (I was 30 and Robert
> Morris was 29)

How old are typical startup founders? Can 29 really be considered "old" in
terms of founder age?

~~~
silverlake
The ones who appear on Techcrunch are 20-25. The ones founding the businesses
that don't get fawning press are well over 30.

------
axod
I agree completely. The other point I guess is that if you build something
that satisfies a need for you, you're far more likely to use it day in day
out. Using your own product is extremely valuable, and it's surprising when
you hear of businesses that don't use their own products - how will they know
what needs fixing/improving etc.

And making something you want means you likely have a lot of knowledge already
about the space. It's like an author being told "Write about your own
experiences - write about what you know".

Also it really surprises me if someone is working at a big company 9-5, and
_doesn't_ have a side project. Get a side project all you people! It could
turn into something other people want as well.

------
sinzone
In part this is true, but I will add a third kind: ideas/startups that evolve.

Looking back at YouTube, PayPal or many others (now) most successful
companies, their originally idea was completely different. PayPal changed 4
times during his first year, YouTube at the beginning was a video dating site.
So, I think that another way to build huge companies is more in the ability of
the founders to understand and iterate on first early adopters needs instead
of "I need that" scenario. They have to be as fast as possible to change the
product around what people want. But if they are fast enough a startup that
looks a completely disaster at the beginning could turn into a gold mine.

Thinking about Slide; Max Levchin has changed the company proposition many
times, or look at Airbnb, they were a renting couch website with the focus on
the events and not on travelling, they changed that very fast and now they are
just making a revolution into the world of travel.

The most important part, is to start, with the conscience that your company
could change completely, and you have to accept that before it will be too
late to fit the market.

~~~
tigerthink
Unrelated point, but this sort of evolution is expensive--you often have to
throw away software and marketing efforts, and all you got in return was some
knowledge about what users want. Might not it be possible to figure out more
about what users want by thinking harder/interviewing them and avoid this
waste?

~~~
theBobMcCormick
Maybe. I don't think the idea is to avoid getting it right the first time. :-)
I think the point is not to be afraid to evolve if you find out you _didn't_
get it right initially.

~~~
tigerthink
Of course.

------
alabut
Tim O'Reilly came up with a colorful way to describe the same concept back in
1995: "fishing with strawberries". He explained how he ignored the tired
business school cliché about how you should bait your hook with worms, rather
than things that you personally find tasty.

<http://tim.oreilly.com/articles/straw.html>

Money quote: " _But that's just what we've always done: gone fishing with
strawberries. We've made a business by offering our customers what we
ourselves want. And it's worked!_ "

------
benologist
I can relate to that. I get enormous personal value out of my little startup,
most recently yesterday:

[http://blog.swfstats.com/post/Trickochet-launched-today-
or-w...](http://blog.swfstats.com/post/Trickochet-launched-today-or-why-
SWFStats-matters.aspx)

------
ccc3
I really like the idea of not being too concerned with a problem seeming
initially too small. A funny thing I've found about small problems is that
they are almost always connected to other problems. If you can solve
somebody's small problem really well, they'll be much more likely to give you
a shot at their bigger problems.

------
aarghh
The "toy" aspect may also be related to finding an under-served market - it
may be a "toy" to someone is because he or she may be unaware of a huge need
for the product.

------
callmeed
I feel either this essay is targeted at young founders or there's just a
general bias toward them at YC. Should mid-thirties founders even bother?

~~~
pg
There just happens to be a natural connection between organic ideas and young
founders.

We've funded lots of people in their 30s.

------
mstevens
Reminds me a lot of Steve Yegge's "Business Requirements are bullshit" blog
post: [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-
requirement...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-requirements-
are-bullshit.html)

------
eande
Interesting to read that the focus for good ideas should be more towards
organic ideas. But I would add in order to have a real impact the solution
offered does need to solve a real problem where people are willing to pay for
or do use the solution.

------
bokonist
The best ideas are a combination - ideas that come out of consulting for a
real business with a problem that the business will pay to solve. Like with
the organic idea, the founder will have great original insight into the
problem and possible solutions. But it avoids the trap of the organic ideas,
in which developers all build the same type of "me too app" for people just
like them.

------
DanielRibeiro
Good to see more arguments on the 4th argument of "The 18 Mistakes That Kill
Startups": Derivative Idea, where it was said "It seems like the best problems
to solve are ones that affect you personally".

Which reminds me that the eassys really need some tagging, as there are very
related "ideas" essays, but reaching out for google to remeber what was said
and where takes more time than it should.

------
andr
Summary: If you can't make something people want, because you don't know what
that is, make something _you_ want.

------
srirampc
I am reminded of Steve Yegge's line "ONLY BUILD STUFF FOR YOURSELF" in his
really long essay. [http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-
requirement...](http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-requirements-
are-bullshit.html)

------
quickpost
I like what Gary Vaynerchuk had to say on this:
[http://vaynermedia.com/2009/11/build-an-application-even-
if-...](http://vaynermedia.com/2009/11/build-an-application-even-if-it-
already-exists/)

~~~
jfarmer
I don't think Gary wrote that article.

------
zhyder
It's hard to justify working on just an idea (rather than a startup) full time
though. And not working full time undermines your ability to execute on the
idea (since you're slower, less committed).

------
tigerthink
"It takes experience to predict what other people will want."

I'm pretty young. Will asking people what they want work?

Has there been any scientific research on the effectiveness of focus groups?

~~~
Tichy
The current consensus seems to be that asking people what they want doesn't
really work. Summarized in this quote from Henry Ford: "If I had asked people
what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."

~~~
tigerthink
"The current consensus seems to be that asking people what they want doesn't
really work."

Who besides you and Henry Ford is participating in this consensus? I'm not
trying to be mean or confrontational. The fact that you're speaking of a
consensus while sharing the opinions of only two people suggests that you have
a lot of additional information you're not telling me about :o)

"Summarized in this quote from Henry Ford: "If I had asked people what they
wanted, they would have said faster horses.""

I'm not suggesting that you exclusively pursue the strategy of asking people
what they want for the development of your idea. More like guess what they
want, then ask them if your guess sounds good. Or listen to a description of
what they do now, suggest a change or improvement, and see how they react.

There are two stages to the development of a startup's product description.
The first is (or should be) before any code is written. The second is after
the initial product is launched. I think you can do both stages effectively
without actually being much of a user of the product yourself.

~~~
Tichy
" The fact that you're speaking of a consensus while sharing the opinions of
only two people suggests that you have a lot of additional information you're
not telling me about"

I hope you don't expect me to make a scientific paper out of a forum comment?

I seem to remember an article claiming a similar thing on HN just a couple of
days or weeks ago (by one of the Guru bloggers). They pop up every now and
then.

But since you don't seem to consent, I happily withdraw my claim that it is a
consensus.

In the end I guess it doesn't really matter how you arrive at your good idea.
Maybe some good ideas can be derived from asking customers, others come from
other places.

~~~
tigerthink
"I seem to remember an article claiming a similar thing on HN just a couple of
days or weeks ago (by one of the Guru bloggers). They pop up every now and
then."

Thanks!

Is Guru a blogging network of some sort?

~~~
Tichy
No, I just meant one of the famous (on HN) bloggers.

------
Tawheed
Underlying principle: Focus on problems you understand

------
rokhayakebe
In short: If you do not know what users want, build something that you need.

------
asimjalis
Difficult to apply if you are content and need nothing.

------
jmtame
would this warrant a redesign of the t-shirts? "make something people want" ->
"make something you want"

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
Application/Interview?: I'm going to make something I want.

Demo day?: Make something people want.

Acqusition?: I made something people wanted.

~~~
NEPatriot
To get from something I want to something other people want the link I see is
that other people want what I want therefore I made something other people
want.

------
maximilian
found a bug:

" _There are ideas that obvious lying around now._ "

~~~
gjm11
Not a bug; you mis-parsed it. "There are ideas as-obvious-as-that lying around
now".

------
aneth
The problem with these kinds of organic ideas: startup geeks and developers
are all similar. There are so many developer tools, social tools, project
management systems, freelance and small business accounting systems, and all
the other things that geeks need.

The really great business opportunities are in the areas the Silicon Valley
Kool-Aid drinkers don't even look twice. Many of them are not even fundable by
VCs because they aren't sexy. YC funds some cool ideas, but most of them are
immediately useful to the 20 year olds who come up with them, which means they
are immediately taking on markets being built out by the rest of the startup
community.

Ask a 60 year old manager of a sales force in a backward industry how his
business works and you'll find real "organic" startup ideas. You might even
find an idea that adds value to the universe, and might therefor yield revenue
and profit.

~~~
9oliYQjP
Yup, that is why I don't hang out with geeks (at least computer ones). Most
startup geeks and developers as you refer to them should step away from the
keyboard and join a house league sports team; one with people they can talk to
that won't whine that the iPad sucks because it only has 256 MB RAM. Most of
these geeks should aspire to be as sociable as Richard Feynman was. Not only
will it help them achieve their goals, but it will make reaching them all the
more fun.

~~~
chegra84
This is good for me and you but I suspect alot of people termed geeks are
introverts. Hence being around other people tires them out.

~~~
abstractbill
I'm one of those introverts - being around lots of people I don't know can be
exhausting for me. But the point is, it has a _great_ payoff, so I still do
it.

------
zackattack
The only apps that I've had financial success with are ones that I personally
enjoy using. Also, I'm young: 22.

