## count the cost [The Tarot Cards Of Tech](http://tarotcardsoftech.artefactgroup.com/) Gaze into the future of your product and consider the impact of what we create See also Ethics vs Technology, Black Mirror ## demo [Joël Spolsky](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2007/11/16/how-to-demo-software/) (2007) How to demo software ## new ideas [Y Combinator: Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund](https://web.archive.org/web/20130324023453/https://www.ycombinator.com/ideas.html) [A Startup A Day | Each day I'll post an idea for a new Web 2.0 startup](https://astartupaday.wordpress.com/) [Home - Springwise](https://springwise.com/) [TrendWatching | Consumer Trends & Insights for 2024 and beyond](https://www.trendwatching.com/) [Brain Rape : I did not believe until I experienced it | by Entreprecoder | Medium](https://medium.com/@nosyDev/brain-rape-i-did-not-believe-until-i-experienced-it-817d87f6925e) ## note the trends [Ask HN: Any hardware startups here? | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36583419) [Super apps are proliferating across emerging markets | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32877435) [Why super apps are proliferating across emerging markets | Afridigest](https://afridigest.com/super-apps-in-emerging-markets/) ## API APIs create an environment where anybody who wants to develop on top of their platforms can do so. No need to send you a formal request, just take those APIs and innovate. Then, if someone builds a great new service or capability, we'll work out a commercial licensing agreement so that everyone makes money. Internet : This is the first time when children are authorities on something really important. ## competing "Complain about the way other people make software by making software." - Andre Torrez - THIS IS BASICALLY "THE BEST REVENGE IS SUCCESS" ## crowdsourcing Ken Thompson made Unix out of small, discrete programs meant to do one thing but to do it well. Such an architecture would eventually allow hundreds of programmers to work together in a totally decentralized fashion - in much the same way thousands of contributors work together today in a decentralized fashion to form a single reference work, Wikipedia. Breaking labor into little units, or modules, is one of the hallmarks of crowdsourcing. TopCoder - unique model for community based software developement. They broke tasks down into the smallest possible discrete parts, the smaller the block, the more ways they could use it. A Job has to conform to a given individual's "spare cycle", or excess capacity - The hours between work and sleep. Mathworks (The company that developed MATLAB) - In an office full of developers, if one person solves a problem, everyone else will gather around to see how they did it, have their "aha" moment, then factor it into their own code. (Context - Matworks held a tourney in the 70s to solve the 'Travelling Salesman Problem' where people would submit algorithms to solve the problem and the most efficient algorithm would be declared the winner. But participants were allowed to steal each other's code in order to create a better solution). Based on the above, Mathworks noticed that the best algorithm at the end of the contest period exceeds the best algorithm from day one by a magnitude of one thousand. Active users are rare, but they sit at the top of pyramids of other people who are working to solve similar problems. ## growing into the role Every technician suffering from an Entrepreneurial Seizure experiences the same thing: 1. Exhiliration 2. Terror 3. Exhaustion 4. Despair - a terrible sense of loss, loss of special relationship with their work, loss of purpose, loss of self. Everybody who goes into business is actually three people in one: The Entrepreneur dreams The Manager frets The Technician ruminates While each of these personalities wants to be the boss, none of them wants to have a boss. The Entrepreneur lives in the future, never in the past, rarely in the present. He's happiest when left free to construct images of "what if" and "if when". In business, the Entrepreneur is the innovator, grand strategist, creator of new methods. Given his need for change, the Entrepreneur creates a great deal of havoc around him, which is predictably unsettling for those he enlists in his projects. The entrepreneur builds a house and the instant it's done begins planning the next one. The Manager craves order, compulsively clings to the status quo. While entrepreneur sees opportunities, manager sees the problems. The Manager creates neat orderly rows of things. The Entrepreneur creates the things that the manager puts in rows. The Manager is the one who runs after the Entrepreneur to clean up the mess. Without the Entrepreneur there would be no mess to clean up. Technician is the doer : "if you want something done right, do it yourself". As long as the Technician is working, he is happy, but only on one thing at a time. He knows he can't get things done simultaneously, so he works steadily and is happiest when he is in control of the work flow. If the three were equally balanced, we'd be describing an incredibly competent individual. The Entrepreneur would be free to forge ahead into new areas of interest. The Manager would be solidifying the base of operations. The Technician would be doing the technical work. Without all three of these personalities being given opportunity, the freedom, the nourishment they each need to grow, your business cannot help but mirror your own lopsidedness. An Entrepreneur does the work of envisioning the business as something apart from you, the owner. The work of asking all the right questions about WHY this business, opposed to that business? Franchise prototype is where all assumptions are put to the test to see how well they work before becoming operational in the business. The system runs the business. The people run the system. The system isn't something you bring to the business. It's something you derive from the process of building the business. Entrepreneur : franchise prototype is the medium through which vision takes form in the real world. Manager : franchise prototype provides the order, predictability, system. Technician : franchise prototype is where he is free to do the things he loves to do : the technical work. ## how computers replace humans Computers are complements for humans, not substitutes. The most valuable businesses of coming decades will be built by entrepreneurs who seek to empower people rather than try to make them obsolete. Computers can find patterns that elude humans, but actionable insights can only come from a human analyst. How can computers help humans solve hard problems? ## information My business - the information business - revolves around the public's stubborn belief that there must be a "secret" to success, concealed from them, possibly by conspiracy, that if uncovered, would change everything. The domain of "information" is tricky, and you can only make money a few ways: 1. selling raw information (e.g., government is a huge purchaser of key intel) - there's plenty of money in it, but it often can be [unethical] - it can also be free in our [overinformation society](mypurpose) 2. sending information (e.g., advertising, journalism) - the information is often undesired, especially in our [overinformation society](mypurpose) 3. giving your own specially-curated information for a fee (e.g., educators, AI services) - your ideas aren't THAT special, and it'll get stolen/pirated once it's out there 4. restricting information (e.g., cybersecurity) - it's a security-based service you're providing, which is something totally different 5. hosting a means of others providing information (e.g., social media, sitebuilders) - it's a reliable service that revolves around free expression of information - these can also all be [FLOSS] or [donationware](NPO) Vaporware. This term refers to the tactic of announcing a software product before it exists, typically to discourage rivals from proceeding with development of competing versions. ## market demand shifts [TX-6 - Teenage Engineering | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31109325) [TX-6 - Teenage Engineering](https://teenage.engineering/products/tx-6) - check comments, there's a good discussion there on how hardware design costs drop as scaling happens [MaskerAid iOS App | Hacker News](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30710501) [MaskerAid iOS App](https://www.caseyliss.com/2022/3/3/maskeraid) - check comments, good discussion on tech's vs world's market demand ## middleman A rent-to-own laptop product. He bulk buys the laptops for $200 apiece and rents-to-own them out for $20 a week for a year. - THERE ARE A LOT OF MIDDLEMAN OPPORTUNITIES, MOSTLY BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE COMPUTER IDIOTS AND DON'T LIKE TO WORK WITH COMPUTERS - IN OTHER WORDS, YOU WIN WHEN YOU CAN USE COMPUTERS TO GET COMPUTERS OUT OF THE WAY ## monetizing [Strava: 7 Strategies To Convert More Freemium Users](https://growth.design/case-studies/strava-freemium-conversion) - Already parsed the rules, now revisit for the ideal practices WORKING IN TECH MEANS YOU CAN HAVE TREMENDOUS INFLUENCE, WITH VERY LITTLE INCOME - THE IDEAL IS TO KNOW WHAT YOU REALLY WANT: MONEY OR INFLUENCE ## note the trends Make a service business on whatever the cutting edge of the Internet is. Start with small businesses. In the '90s, you would've made a website business. Right now you can build an app or make a social media agency. Don't just set up Facebook fan pages for people. Get those people some fans. Set people up on twitter. Then get those people followers. Once you have a few hundred thousand in revenues and you start hiring people, sell the business for $1 million. That's it. There will be plenty of buyers (local ad agencies, bigger ad agencies trying to consolidate, bigger social media firms, small public companies trying to break into the ad space). ## promoting others' innovation Outside developer made : An instant-messaging application that enables IM users to ping Amazon with a request and have it message you back with links to relevant products. Amazon Web Services give developers access to numerous Amazon software services, like its shopping cart, and every fragment of data they could wish for, including text for product descriptions and reviews, product images, and pricing information. AWS evangelist Jeff Barr calls these the fundamental building blocks that external developers use to construct applications. Developers can build any application they see fit. No one has to ask for permission or await approval. No haggling over specs or schedules. Amazon has a head start in a wide variety of areas such as pricing transparency, RSS advertising, and comparison shopping. RefundPlease uses Amazon's own pricing info to inform customers if an item they've purchased drops within 30 days of purchase. Amazon will refund the difference to boost loyalty. The more data we're able to put in the hands of developers, the more interesting tools, sites, applications will be built, and the more of those that exist, the greater the return to Amazon. We're going to see more traffic, more clicks, and ultimately more purchases. It's not just a science experiment. Hiking Outpost: a specialist book retailer aggregates info about trails and camping sites from around the web, and Amazon handles credit-card processing, order shipping, and returns. Referral fees are 4-7.5%, based on the total number of items shipped. Amazon enhances its competitiveness because there is now less incentive for competitors to build a competing platform when they can leverage Amazon's for free. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Once a platform like Google, Amazon, or SAP gains traction, there is less and less incentive for people to defect to other platforms. The trend is self-reinforcing. More developers create better offerings, attracting more customers. Sharing makes sense if the conditions are right: - Your proprietary offering is failing and open sourcing it could inject the creativity and manpower required to make it succeed in the marketplace. (Sun OpenSparc.) - Opening up IP in one area could boost demand for complementary product and services offerings. (IBM WebSphere.) - Advantages of pooling competencies and reducing R&D exceed benefits of having exclusive rights to the knowledge produced. (SNP Consortium.) - You're seeking a uniquely qualified mind so you enlarge the pool of talent addressing a particular problem. (Goldcorp) - An open platform will encourage innovation, efficiency, and interoperability with ecosystem partners. (Amazon) - Sharing is necessary to establish credentials and to develop relationships with other contributors in the community. (SpikeSource) - Preempting the property rights of competitors shifts the locus of competition or enhances your freedom of action. (Merck's Gene index.) - Openness removes unnecessary friction in collaborative projects and paves the way for participants to focus on the science (Intel's industry-university partnership) Imagine a digital age co-op, with peer-rating systems that dynamically apportion shares to contributors based on the community's assessment of the value added by individual contributors. Annual profits from sales and services could be distributed across the community of contributors. ## scale NOTE: tech has a disproportionate labor/output compared to most work In most work: - 500 hours creates 500 units - 800 hours creates 1000 units - 1500 hours creates 2500 units - It scales proportionally based on reality and improved [productivity] In tech work: - 500 hours creates 10 units - 800 hours creates 200 units - 1500 hours creates 10,000 units - It scales exponentially as the technology starts working - The problem is that you need 10,000 units to break even, and investors get anxious watching Treat a startup as an optimization problem in which performance is measured by number of users. ## specialized technology Proprietary technology is the most substantive advantage a company can have. Proprietary technology must be at least 10 times better than its closest substitute in some important dimension to lead to a real monopolistic advantage. Anything less than an order of magnitude better will probably be perceived as a marginal improvement and will be hard to sell, The clearest way to make a 10x improvement is to invent something completely new. If you build something valuable where there was nothing before, the increase in value is theoretically infinite. If you can develop technology that's simply too hard for competitors to duplicate, you don't need to rely on other defenses. Start by picking a hard problem, and then at every decision point, take the harder choice. THE TURN-KEY REVOLUTION A systems-dependent business, not a people-dependent business. Integrity : doing what you say you will do, and if you can't : learning how. ## tech ideas Most people think the future of the world will be defined by globalization, but the truth is that technology matters more. Success Secrets of Tomorrow's Internet: 1. Relentless Execution 2. Resistance to Compromise 3. What you don't do. (best new net companies understand in their heart & soul what they won't do) 4. Desire to be 3 steps ahead (not just 2) 5. Doing something worth doing 6. Connecting people to people 7. Monetizing from the first moment. (You can't charge money if the only reason you're charging is to make a profit. Charing adds friction and selectivity. If those two elements are a drag on your service, you will fail.) 8. Not depending on a big partner 9. Ignoring the pundits 10. Keeping promises Fatal assumption : if you understand the technical work of a business, you understand a business that does that technical work. The technical work of a business, and a business that does that technical work are two totally different things. The technician is forced to learn how to make the business work, rather than do the work himself.