

Should I tell you that your startup idea sucks? - pzaniewicz
http://blog.123ship.it/2013/03/should-i-tell-you-that-your-startup.html

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creature
Sometimes, you don't have to tell anyone their idea sucks. You can make them
reach that conclusion themselves by asking the right questions - or you'll
realise it's not so sucky after all.

"Hmm. How is your idea different from X?" (Instead of "but X does that
already, and has a 12 month head start.")

"But what happens when Y?" (Instead of "As soon as Y happens you're screwed.")

"Do you really need W & Z?" (Instead of "You're overreaching. You don't need W
and Z in your first iterations.")

Questions let you find out if you're missing the bigger picture, and hopefully
let them figure out for themselves what the problems are. If they blow you off
they're probably beyond telling anyway.

~~~
RougeFemme
Agreed. But if can't figure it out and/or they blow you off, point out what
you believe their problems are and encourage them to get a second opinion.

~~~
rwallace
If they blow you off, they're telling you they don't want to hear bad news.
How to react at that point is a matter of judgment; I've personally found
telling people things they don't want to hear is tiring enough that nowadays I
save it for emergencies, so in this kind of case I just drop the pointed
questions, and nod and smile and say something pleasant that's vague enough
not to be untrue.

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daleharvey
Pretty much never

Every successful startup was pitched at some point to some experienced startup
person who thought it was a crap idea.

Ideas change, and are a very small indicator of success to start with.
Successful startups are exceptional, just because you have seen 'yet another
social image sharing site' fail 50 times doesnt mean the next one will.

Pointing out challenges and not feeling personally excited by a startup is
absolutely fine, but saying something sucks and shouldnt be pursued is
generally arrogant and naive.

~~~
joonix
I would imagine if someone told me about a "microblogging" platform where
people would submit posts via SMS to a shortcode I would have brushed it off
as foolish.

~~~
atwebb
A lot goes into to how the founders handle the "advice". Lots of items in this
thread relate to how the commentor would explain something to someone else,
but I think that the key is how you consume what you're told.

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arethuza
Two things that actual banking and travel industry experts told me in 1995:
"nobody will do banking over the Internet" and "nobody will book travel on the
Web".

The reasons they provided sounded completely plausible - but turned out to
also be _completely_ wrong.

So I'd be careful about "experts" dismissing ideas based on _their_ incorrect
assumptions.

~~~
davidroberts
But for somebody starting a company in 1995, online banking would probably
have been a bad idea.

~~~
nimblegorilla
E-trade had $11 million in revenue in 1994. By 1995 there was clearly a market
for online transactions to people that had the vision.

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ifuller1
There are just so many good ideas that are originally decreed as failures that
it seems like madness to try and stop somebody from trying. The Xerox R&D team
that was told the gui would never really catch on. The investors that told
Amazon nobody would purchase books of the internet. Even the Yahoo execs that
turned down Google in 1997. Of course some ideas, like the chocolate tea pot,
might seemed so doomed to failure that it would be cruel to not call them out.
That is until chocolate tea pots become the next big food trend. For more
concrete evidence of why this is a bad idea though you should look to the
performance of stock market traders over the last 30 years, for the most part
their average performance rarely deviates from a 50/50 success rate.

~~~
tanzam75
Unlike the stock market, the startup world isn't even close to 50/50. If you
say that they will fail, you're much more likely to be right than wrong.

Note that Google had no way of making money in 1997. It was actually Overture
that pioneered pay-per-click search engines -- and Yahoo bought Overture.

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jroseattle
To the OP: if you feel that this knowledge imparted in the context of a
72-hour hackathon is of any importance, I have to question your overall
context.

A hackathon is a social event with some potential learning involved. Any
decent product and/or idea is going to have to survive beyond a 72-hour
window. Your contributions during this timeframe, compared to the overall
success/failure of a product, are meaningless.

Not trying to bash here, just recommend you don't overthink it. Go the
hackathon, be a cheerleader and have a good time. And take the opportunity to
sell all their mobile games as a challenge to yourself, much like a salesman's
interview: sell me this pen!

------
Jare
You can ask the right questions ("what problem does this solve?", "What are
you going to learn by doing this?", etc) but if it's not your startup or
project, you are not there to provide or judge the answers on your own.

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billN
Yes, you should.

There is no space in the market for drama queens. If you can't give negative
feedback now because of their feelings, how do you expect to give it to them
when their company doesn't meet targets & expectations?

Negative feedback is priceless. It's toughening, it points people in the right
direction and, sometimes, it helps to laser-focus (especially when it's
pointless - eg remember when people asked for GANTT charts on Basecamp?).

------
edw519
_should I focus on encouraging and motivating them to realize how cool it is
to create your own product_

No. You shouldn't have to motivate someone to see how cool something is.
Expose them, yes. Motivate them, no. If they can't see how cool it is on their
own, then they shouldn't be doing it.

 _should I help them create a product that has a chance to succeed?_

In a hackathon? Really? What is the purpose of a hackathon, to create an
outcome or to enjoy the process and the compansionship and maybe even learn
something? Personally, I can't imagine a worse environment to create a
successful product.

 _it could be devastating for a newbie_

That's a pretty perverted use case for the word "devastating". A serious
accident? A loss of a loved one? _Those_ are devastating. Being told your idea
sucks? If that's devastating to you, maybe you don't have the backbone for
this and should be doing something else.

 _I was always very gentle with this situations_

Don't be. You're not doing them any favors by coddling them. They need brutal
honesty. If they don't get it from you now, rest assured that they will from
someone else later.

 _it's almost impossible to succeed with wrong assumptions, too big scope or
incomplete team._

I would rephrase that "it's almost impossible to succeed _this time_ ". They
will likely learn much more failing on their own than blindly taking some
mentor's advice. When you taught your children to walk, did you ever let them
fall? Personal failures provide the best feedback to toughen up and grow.
Don't take that away from them.

 _They wasted the weekend_

You can waste a weekend getting drunk and watching TV, but you can't waste a
weekend at a hackathon. Lighten up.

~~~
ScottWhigham
Why take such a hard line on your comments? Reading this post, I felt you were
saying, "You clearly and obviously don't know how to handle situations like
these and you don't get it - these poor folks were very unlucky to get you,
not me." You just seem pissed off at OP and have a very holier than thou
attitude in your comments. His take is different from yours, that's all. That
doesn't make him wrong and you right. Lighten up.

~~~
mindcrime
_You just seem pissed off at OP and have a very holier than thou attitude in
your comments._

I'm not seeing that at all. If anything, the author of TFA seems to have
something of a "holier than thou" attitude. It's a bit grating and abrasive,
honestly. If I were to write a reply, it would probably take a tone fairly
similar to the one edw just wrote.

------
meerita
I don't think we need to be rude to say to someone that something is going to
fail or something is not good. It is not a matter of time: –Look, I don't have
a minute for you, so your project sucks. It is a matter of being a good
persona. Simply use others words will make it better on the other people, and
you will not be responsible of creating ravaged developers: –Look, your idea
sounds well but you need this, this, and do this, and I don't see this
happening right now, bla bla. 2 minutes speech is enough and better than
saying "it sucks, and the doors is that way".

Simply, put on the table the facts, those ones will do the reasoning work
inside the enterpreneur brain and tell him his wrong, lost, or behind the
point he think he is. Steve Jobs is dead and I hope in peace. We don't need
any Steveness on this world.

------
orangethirty
No, I will not tell you it sucks (because who knows). But I will definitely
ask you how you plan to make money. People who count on going viral to get
some organic traction through a freemium model don't seem to have the
slightest idea of makin a real sale.

------
superluminary
Some ideas really do suck, and in this case, yes, it's always kindest to say
so before someone wastes their time.

It's a bit like telling someone they have bad breath. Yes, it makes you the
bad guy, but it's the kindest thing to do in the long run.

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davidroberts
I think you should tell them, but not in those words. Carefully explain your
objections. At worst it will be a good filter for teams that don't have the
necessary commitment to carry through on their idea. If they are smart,
they'll consider what you say, see what applies, and make any modifications
that seem justified. If they quit, it's better they give up early in the
process, because there will much more discouraging things hitting them down
the line, and if they can't handle a few reasonable objections, they aren't
going to make it even with a good idea.

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delibaltas
As a contractor I have said this to my client. I did it because he was a 20
years old student and I felt responsible for him. He went on with the project
though. Yes, it was a failure.

~~~
akiselev
This is a big one. When contracting/consulting, if I see a problem with
client's vision or specs (and the problem is within the scope of what I was
hired for), I feel it is my professional duty to tell them (often quite
bluntly) exactly what is wrong and my ideas for fixes or workarounds.

I think this should also extend to any sort of critical relationship, such as
when someone's success or failure depends very much on your actions and advice
(for example, in mentor-mentee relationships as well as someone is paying
you).

There are many good ways of pointing out faults that don't boil down to "this
sucks" and trying to sugar coat, gloss over, or hint at major problems is
doing a major disservice to whoever is on the other side of the relationship.

------
timboisvert
Regardless, civility and decorum should rule the day. Advisors and mentors are
valuable for the introspection and internal analysis they induce. If you can
find a way to encourage people to channel themselves in the right direction
with tact and dignity, go for it. Otherwise it's probably best to just let
people live their own lives, learn their own lessons, and earn their own
success.

------
marcosdumay
I'd say that if nobody thinks that the idea will fail, it probably will. If
it's so obviously good, why didn't anybody succeed with it yet?

That said, you should tell them. You should also tell them that they can
change their idea any time they want, and that they don't need a great idea, a
good one with great implementation is enough.

------
eli_gottlieb
_Should I tell you that your startup idea sucks?_

Yes.

~~~
kybernetikos
I'm not sure.

I mean, I hear a lot of startup ideas on this site, and for almost 100% of
them I think "that's cool, but I can't imagine ever wanting to use it".

Still, people like me don't make up very much of the market place, so I could
think your idea is terrible and be wrong, and I like to see people make
things.

There's a phrase I like (although I'm not sure of the source) : "The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world, while the unreasonable man
attempts to adapt the world to himself. Thus all progress depends on the
unreasonable man."

So for almost any startup idea, I'm going to think 'neat idea, but it'll never
work and I'll never use it', and for most of them I'll be right, but by being
an entrepeneur you've already accepted those odds and you probably have to
deal with enough negativity without me adding any. I'd hate to be a cause of
fewer cool things being made.

~~~
telent
George Bernard Shaw, iirc

On the general question: there is an obvious distinction to be made between
someone asking you for advice on what they plan to spend the next three years
doing, and what they're hacking together on a single pizza-fueled weekend. The
latter is a learning experience and even without your advice they'll fail fast
if they fail, so don't sweat it.

