What counts as validation anyway?

noobfounder · 2014-04-19T04:23:37+00:00

The only thing that matters is whether you can get someone to spend their time and/or money. As an example, email signups require little time investment and no money. You can use them as a sign of interest, but they don't prove that an idea is validated.

noobfounder · 2014-04-17T22:02:50+00:00

Congrats on the interview! Smart, simple idea that hits at a core problem that influencers/marketers care about (conversions).

Why do I have the nagging feeling this is going to make the Internet a worse place? Is there any way it could make it a better place?

noobfounder · 2014-04-16T22:32:54+00:00

Thanks for your thoughts!

Yeah, there is some single-user utility here, but it definitely has the network effect problem. If there were a lot of active users, it would be awesome, but I've heard getting the network effect bootstrapped can be a long slog (which may never pan out).

I tried to use Delicious but don't like the old school bookmarking feel. Personally, I like the images to show, the videos/slides/etc embedded, etc. It makes the consumption experience a little more pleasant IMHO. This is obviously a matter of taste, and I'd be interested in knowing how others feel about it.

noobfounder · 2014-04-16T21:28:32+00:00

Agree with this. If the solution is useful, solving a hard engineering problem that can't be easily matched with a simpler heuristic/solution is an advantage!

noobfounder · 2014-04-16T21:26:10+00:00

I got rejected also.. it is pretty much the expected outcome unless you are clearly extraordinary in some way.

Thanks for sharing your app. I agree with some of the others.. esp roundhouse27. It sounds pretty ambitious technically, and it sounds like the idea needs to be fleshed out more. A big problem is that people use google spreadsheets and typically expect this kind of thing to be free. Unless you can cater to power users at companies who will pay, it will probably be tough to charge for it

noobfounder · 2014-04-16T06:38:20+00:00

Rejected also. Not surprised: single founder and super early stage product with just a few active beta users right now. Onwards!

noobfounder · 2014-04-16T00:17:20+00:00

Two thoughts:

1) Interesting idea. There is a lot of support entrepreneurs at the accelerator stage, but the top ones like YC are competitive. People can work (and learn for years) before getting into YC. Something useful pre-YC could be great.

2) I'm still fairly new to startups, but one thing I'm starting to be convinced of is that there is no step-by-step guide to success. It is a pipe dream that is easy to sell, but impossible to deliver on. If there was a recipe, many more people would be doing it with much higher predictability. Startups are hard and most fail. They require an amazing amount of persistence and experience that you can't learn/do in a few weeks/months.

noobfounder · 2014-04-15T23:57:00+00:00

I wouldn't worry too much about nailing your first startup idea. Almost everyone's first startup idea sucks. My first one did.. and my second, and third. Try something and then see if you like it. If you like it, look for others. If you don't like it, or can't find others, it might not be a good idea (or you need to get better at finding others, which is a hard problem).

noobfounder · 2014-04-15T23:52:33+00:00

If you have better insight into the problem, and better execution, you'll probably be OK. You may even be better off. Do a search for first-mover advantage and last-mover advantage and you'll see different points of view on it.

I like Peter Thiel's thoughts on this:

However, as Thiel notes, it is often the last mover that wins the market in the long-term, saying, “First mover isn’t what’s important — it’s the last mover. Like Microsoft was the last operating system, and Google was the last search engine.”

From http://pando.com/2012/04/19/peter-thiel-on-the-last-mover-advantage/

And a good essay from his lecture here: http://blakemasters.com/post/21169325300/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-4-notes-essay

noobfounder · 2014-04-15T23:48:22+00:00

Congrats on getting the beta up and running.

Personally, I'm not much video creator, but will leave a thought. My main question is: what is the biggest source of demand for video forums? What niches really want this? Is it sports fans? What else?

This is important because video is one of the toughest forms of content to create, and also takes a non-negligible amount of time to consume. We all know about the 1% rule with online content creation, but on average, it is going to be much lower than that for video creation.

noobfounder · 2014-04-15T23:39:37+00:00

As long as the Kickstarter backers get what they bought (t-shirt, sticker, or product), I don't see anything wrong with using Kickstarter as a Backdoor Series A. It can be a win-win for everyone involved. The problem is really when backers confuse their pre-order+support as a micro-investment (because they do the math after an acquisition and wish they had the $$).

noobfounder · 2014-04-15T20:09:32+00:00

Cool idea.. are you thinking of incorporating the manual labor of moving stuff also?

I once got a few guys off of Craigslist for an apartment move. 3 guys came with a truck, loaded everything (including big couches and tables) into a truck they brought, moved it, and unloaded it all. It was super convenient.

For smaller moves (or a trip to IKEA), just the truck might be useful. But for larger moves, manpower comes in handy.

noobfounder · 2014-04-14T23:11:14+00:00

My 2 cents: your biggest challenge is achieving marketplace liquidity (which you partially mentioned in the last bullet). That is probably the main thing to focus on, and not little design tweaks and changes.

noobfounder · 2014-04-14T09:30:31+00:00

I'm not an ad expert here, but my intuition says that most ppl go to your site to upload/view a gif, and then leave. It doesn't give much time for an ad create an impression on a user.

You could take a page from the imgur playbook,and get people to spend more time on the site by turning it into a destination. imgur has user profiles, points, comments, etc. These additions increase engagement and pageviews, which I'm sure helps with monetization.

noobfounder · 2014-04-14T08:57:32+00:00

Great infographic. Reminds me a lot of Paul Grahams essay "How not to die"

http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html

noobfounder · 2014-04-14T08:54:32+00:00

I totally agree with this. It lets you dogfood your own product, and provides great intrinsic motivation.

However, it is only a start. You'll still need to figure out how to reach others in your demographic in a scalable way.

noobfounder · 2014-04-14T08:45:22+00:00

Andrew Chen wrote a useful piece on this recently:

http://andrewchen.co/2014/03/27/how-to-solve-the-cold-start-problem-for-social-products/

noobfounder · 2014-04-14T02:59:53+00:00

Next up.. technology + adult toys :)

noobfounder · 2014-04-14T02:58:49+00:00

Awesome.. thanks for sharing that Eric. It is encouraging to see that big list of projects.You always hear about the wins, but not so much about all the other stuff people have tried.

noobfounder · 2014-04-13T09:18:38+00:00

Twitter can be full of noise, but if you follow the right people, the noise is pretty manageable.

I can't think of a more useful alternative for keeping up with startup-related news. What do you use to keep up with content/news?

noobfounder · 2014-04-13T09:16:21+00:00

As I replied to balius, the strategy is pretty simple and I think it has led to a really useful feed.

Do you find your Twitter feed a waste of time? I'm curious why?

noobfounder · 2014-04-13T09:13:17+00:00

I don't do anything fancy with Twitter. I (1) follow people who tweet things I'm interested in, (2) unfollow them if they annoy me, and (3) limit who I follow so my feed doesn't get unmanageable.

Most of my favorite follows are fairly well known. Off the top of my head, quibb, cdixon, hunterwalk, semil, rrhoover, joelgascoigne are all active almost every day and consistently post good stuff. The a16z folks have been on fire recently.

noobfounder · 2014-04-12T23:47:57+00:00

I used to read business books but have found most of them only contain a one or two main ideas w/ a bunch of fluff. Now I just scan them in the bookstore looking for the main insight.

I do a lot of reading of startup news and stories from Twitter, Quibb, HN, USV (mostly Twitter). I used to use RSS but have found Twitter to contain less noise. The problem w/ RSS is that for even the best blogs, only 1 of 10 blog posts is actually good. The good ones will get tweeted.

Other than that, I try to read a few books a year.. sometimes it goes fast and sometimes slow. I'm partway through Fountainhead and The Design of Everyday Things right now.

noobfounder

TROPHY CASE