Readit News logoReadit News
reice commented on Ask HN: What was your biggest startup fail?    · Posted by u/spikey_sanju
bruce511 · a year ago
If you can't find people before you make it, then you won't find them after you make it either.

Which makes this an excellent question. Indeed perhaps the most important question to ask before you build anything.

Too many programmers subscribe to the school of "if you build it through will come'. (Hint: that's not how it works.)

Firstly you don't have to show anything to potential customers, (and even when you have it, it's better not to show it.) You are selling benefits, not features.

Secondly, how to find them is exactly the hard problem you need to figure out (it'll be different for different products.) For me personally, I the late 90s / early aughts, I traveled to user groups (all over the world.) Turns out that "showing up" spread the word very quickly.

(That worked for me because it's a niche area and nobody else bothered to travel, so I stood out.)

The key lesson here- if you can't define your market, and if you can't reach them, you can't sell to them.

Every business has hard problems. This may be yours. Solve this problem first, not last.

reice · a year ago
This is actually a really informative answer!

This quote really stod out tho: If you can't find people before you make it, Then you won't find them after you make it either.

literly every time i just wasted money in business was because i didn't work by this quote!

reice commented on Are there any positive uses of our online data beyond targeted advertising?    · Posted by u/acobb99
acobb99 · a year ago
Interesting ideas. So you're learning more towards the recommendations (and eventually agent) use-case. I find having to provide ChatGPT / Claude with context before prompting to be a real inefficiency and them having access to your online history would streamline this more.
reice · a year ago
Oh yhea indeed, It's super anoying to tell the AI every damn time that I don't want it to write me python code for every example !
reice commented on Ask HN: What was your biggest startup fail?    · Posted by u/spikey_sanju
reice · a year ago
I once developed an app and a site before i really knew people would actually want to pay for it!

rookie mistake! lesson learnt:

don't make before you sell

reice commented on Are there any positive uses of our online data beyond targeted advertising?    · Posted by u/acobb99
reice · a year ago
This is actually a very good question! made me think for a while now!. In my opinion a great use of our data would definatly benefit us while making a desiction now of course this isnt so realistic but hear me out! an AI that is always listening and records every step that you make online. and then uses its super advanced model to help you make descisions you ask it to make. like what should i but who should i date or if this or that is healthy, maybe with an advanced algorrithem it can find what you are going to do in a couple of seconds and load something into memory to make you os faster? I know i just typed a lot but this is actually interesting

u/reice

KarmaCake day6August 18, 2024
About
I like malware analysis and reverse engineering!
View Original