What always strikes me about these lists is that if I had these ideas (and I often do), I'd discard them out of hand as non-viable. Yet people behind these startups don't mind staking years of their life on what is essentially a lottery with rather poor odds, and find passion in doing things which, at best, would make me yawn. Maybe I'm just old, I don't know.
Most startup ideas are non-obvious in their very early phase. If there was already proof one way or another that they were good or bad, they would be already done, or already dropped, respectively.
Also, the founders have much more knowledge about their startup. You have what you got from that one paragraph description you read. That's a huge asymmetry of information.
PG's essay explicitly calls us out:
"At YC we're excited when we meet startups working on things that we could imagine know-it-alls on forums dismissing as toys. To us that's positive evidence an idea is good."
I’ve always felt that for many it’s a hedged situation, the ~75k+ salary, networking, and resume bullet points, represents similar or greater compensation than what they might make alternatively.
A C-level position at a YC startup will grant you a 100k+ salary at a YC company that did manage to make it to a series A afterwards even if your company didn’t make it that far.
Even folks working on the problem sometimes think it is non-viable. I question the thing I'm working on, every single day. That's just how it is, even after you commit.
If one can deliver real value to end-users, and the growth takes a phenomenal turn, then different kind of non-viable thoughts would emerge, I'm sure.
But the thing is, I'm actually pretty certain there's close to zero value in the solid 3/4 of these ideas. I concede that maybe I just don't see it, but statistically my odds of being right are much better than theirs.
That is a pretty unwarranted passive-aggressive remark, especially considering you know nothing about the person you'r e replying to and all he said were objective truths.
I'm pretty sure he means that by being a critic on the sideline, you have a better chance of being right, but you have much worse odds of doing something great. Or said differently, if you never try, you never fail, but you also never succeed. I don't think that's an inappropriate response to someone who's saying "3/4 of these ideas suck".
And no, what the person he's responding to is saying aren't objective truths.
Isn't that the whole VC model? 1 big success pays for 99 failures? I think it's more about what could happen if one blows up, than about how big the chance is that it will.
In my mind, I like the idea of funding the companies that are building the type of future I want to live in. That way the future I like has a better chance of happening.
Alternatively, a strategy could fund the ones that are building a terrible, but profitable future, and using the money you make to live somewhere else.
It almost seems like a prisoner's dilemma sort of situation. If you don't fund the baddies, and someone else does, then you'll be poor in a terrible future.
I kinda agree. I just don't see the value in 90% of those ideas even if they are well executed. Maybe I'm getting old too but it seems most of these propositions are based on the premise of making something attractive and getting funding from VCs wanting to diversify their investments and play the lottery.
The lowest hanging fruit in tech has already been taken years ago and the human needs haven't changed that much. We need to communicate, we need to listen to music, we need to move around, etc.
I vehemently disagree with you. There are million dollar checks laying on the pavement, you just have to spend a bit of time outside of software engineering to see it. So much time is waiting executing rote processes by hand across industries, and billions of dollars are spent with the likes of Accenture to build custom applications.
That's rarely because of a lack of technology, though. Entrenched business processes, human bias, "old boy networks", fear of losing jobs, etc. are far bigger factors in things outside of SV often sucking. You can build the perfect solution for a problem at an amazing price and Accenture would still win because the people making the decisions want Accenture, not the actual best solution.
> So much time is waiting executing rote processes by hand across industries
I've personally seen many times how companies prefer doing those hand processes, even after having paid me for developing a solution to solves that. Humans are strange creatures.
The big problems that most people want solved and can indeed be solved have already been solved. For the most part we're now in the phase of solving small problems, refining current solutions, and maybe creating new problems with its own set of solutions.
Of course there are many big problems that haven't been solved because those are extremely difficult and expensive to solve which falls outside of the realm of startups. For example an HIV vaccine, super efficient solar cells, cold fusion, efficient energy storage, brain computer interface, dark energy, dark matter, etc.
Cruise was a small startup that got at least basic self driving working before they sold to GM. IIRC it was <10 people when I rode in one of their converted Audis. Lots of startups are working on NLP. I wouldn't be so pessimistic.
Alright, there was a startup doing self driving trucks in YC this batch. It’s far from a solved problem, and scrappy teams can still make headway.
But anyway, the point is that there are a lot of new opportunities opening up because of that new enabling tech, and many of them are accessible to small companies.
I think most look at the ideas and don't see a safe/profitable path. Most are right but with the right person they can take any idea and make it work. Not because of the big idea but by winning the small battles and the non-obvious battles.
Facebook had a similiar idea to others. But they limited it to Harvard. So anyone who joined was part of a social club that they saw in real life. That gave them trust and people more freely posted. Next they rolled out to only ivy league schools. Next all colleges. Then highschools. When they released to the public the colleges still had semi-private networks allowing them more freedom. Then facebook did something no one thought was possible, they allowed you to login to hotmail import your contacts. Now you are friends with people you may not have talk to in years.
The original idea only shaped a broadvision. Each decision really provided the vision and a path for growth.
The original vision is important. If you tried to take a dating app and follow the Harvard facebook roll-out it wouldn't work because people wouldn't want to be seen as looking for a mate. Dating sites try to connect strangers.
I have feeling, that team is most important here, not starting idea. There is chance, that the teams with currently non-viable ideas will pivot and be successful in the future.
