

Original Ideas Don't Exist - mikekarnj
http://www.mikekarnj.com/blog/2010/04/27/original-ideas-dont-exist/

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rosshudgens
I liked this quote, taken from DHH from 37signals: "“An idea is such a small
part of a business that it’s almost a rounding error”. If you only have one
competitor, you're OK. If you have 4,000, you aren't.

Something bigger to consider is what the barriers to entry are - even if you
only have 1 competitor now, can 50 other companies do it comparably in five
months if the idea blows up?

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ehsanul
_For every idea you come up with, there are probably ten other people in the
world executing that same idea._

This just may be true. It's best to use this to your advantage. When you think
you have an utterly original idea that will open up a new market that nobody
is working on acquiring, you can become complacent. But when you know you have
a competitor who is doing almost the exact same thing, it makes you work that
much harder to beat them.

I recently had the experience of finding my first serious competitor in a
market I didn't think existed yet. But this just pushes me to get out there
ASAP with a better product.

If you have a startup, finding out about competition may be the best thing
that could happen to you.

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Qz
Again with the microscopic fonts.

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MrRage
Amen. Good time to use this: <http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/>

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mikekarnj
Sorry about that guys. Just increased the font on the article.

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Qz
Much improved.

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huherto
I don't believe in original ideas either. On the other had if somebody is
already making money with the same idea it means that money can be made. You
should embrace competition as it serves as a validation of your idea.

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lionhearted
Nice post overall, but his point about poker got me thinking about when I used
to play:

> In poker, there are simple rules you can follow to put yourself ahead of 90%
> of other poker players. One of my favorite rules revolves around removing
> any attachment to the value of poker chips. When playing poker, the chips in
> front of you have absolutely no value, they’re just a medium for you to win
> chips from other poker players. Most players don’t play their A-game because
> they’re trying to “make the money” and don’t want to risk losing all their
> chips (which they end up losing anyways).

This is a good strategy to get from being a beginner to get a more skilled
place. You should be playing stakes that you have the bankroll and emotion to
be able to play reasonably aggressively, make correct plays, and afford to
lose at. So, this is decent advice going from being a new player who is afraid
of losing his money to thinking of the chips more abstractly and playing
correctly.

However, play is considerably different at higher levels, and you should take
and process information accordingly. I haven't followed poker so much
recently, but when I was playing David Skalansky was generally considered to
have written the definitive guides on playing well:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sklansky#Books>

Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players was one of the most incredible books I've
ever read in my life, and though I don't play more than a couple times a year,
I should probably re-read it at some point because it teaches you how to
think.

I read Hold'em Advanced before Small Stakes came out. Reading Small Stakes was
even more eye-opening - Skalansky came right out and said something like, "You
shouldn't be using advanced plays at lower levels, instead you should adjust
to the quality of opponent."

It was huge - I'd been trying to make elaborate, tricky plays in low stakes
games and getting killed off of it. Small stakes talked a lot about managing
your own psychology against bad players, and then just play hands that make
strong hands, and bet for value a lot. Adjusting my play downwards let me
absolutely destroy low stakes games after that.

I've never played incredibly high stakes, but at mid/high stakes you've got to
think about folding to a 3-bet on the turn even with a decent hand sometimes.
Small stakes you should only be betting if you want to be called, and then
probably should call down after that. Calling down in a mid/high stakes game
is going to brutalize you, but you should generally only be putting yourself
in a position where you want to call down in a low stakes game.

Anyway, I agree with the general sentiment of the post, just wanted to riff on
cards a little bit after reading that. The main point is abstracting the money
considerations away is good for becoming an intermediately skilled player, but
considering the stakes is valuable again at the higher levels of play.

And definitely check out Skalansky if you like cards, poker, game theory, or
math at all, they're really marvelous books.

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mikekarnj
Great points about poker.

Poker is kind of like rock, paper, scissors. At the beginning levels, you know
the other person is probably going to throw rock on the first throw. So your
best move is to throw paper (since scissors is thrown 30% of the time on
average). This works well as a strategy against beginners.

If you're playing against a pro player, or something that is knowledgeable
about the game, this is where being "several levels deep" will come to your
advantage and this is the level that professional poker players will play in
games. "Is he going to throw rock, or does he think I'm going to throw rock,
or does that mean I should throw scissors, etc etc."

I think in beginner games, 3-betting on the turn is an easy fold, but you'll
have to start second guessing yourself when playing in a higher-stakes game
(as most people try to bluff you on the turn). This is why a lot of people
lose a lot of money in high-stakes games. What worked in the lower stakes
won't necessarily work in higher stake games, which is why you have to play in
a comfortable bankroll. You'll make a lot of mistakes.

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jat850
I think your points relating rock, paper, scissors are especially interesting
given your reference to Rafe Furst, who probably would also have a thing or
two to say on the same subject :)

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mikekarnj
No comment :)

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joubert
Leonardo da Vinci

