[timfrietas]

Tough love:

You've done too much reading on the subject already and will learn nothing from reading even more by indulging yourself in the comments here.

And although good teams can find good ideas they have to "try and fail" at things, not just "consider and not try" things. I'm not sure how long you've been at this and which ideas you have considered and rejected and for what reasons, but if it has been longer than a couple of months, you don't have the right team makeup. You need someone with a strong product background immediately to find the intersection of product market fit and what you all are actually good at and will be passionate about building.

I'd love to hear more about what you've thought of and dismissed.

[TAForObvReasons]

I think the problem as described is actually a team problem.

You don't have a good team without a vision leader who is articulating the ideas and steering the company. Like a boat with no captain, labor and capital resources are important but ultimately useless without a captain who has a vague idea of the endpoint and a sense for the roadmap. Try to dig into your collective social networks and see if you know anyone who has a vision but not the wherewithal to execute.

FWIW Money doesn't magically solve a problem, it merely exacerbates a situation. Talent doesn't solve a problem without a clear understanding of the problem being solved. As much as people on HN like to devalue the importance of ideas, it is an extremely important part of the process

[snarf21]

This is the most obvious issue. They don't have a great team. At best, they have potential great team members. A great team implies applying talent and a vision to solving problems. They can't come up with a problem to try to tackle. Most people here on HN have 7 problems they'd love to work on but don't have the time or resources. I also think it is a big challenge to pick a problem you don't understand or have no background knowledge about.

I'd suggest picking an industry with known inefficiencies (health care, education, etc.) and have all three go work at three different companies in that space for a year. Then come back and I'm sure lack of ideas won't be the issue.

Remember, ideas are almost worthless and at best merely a head start. Execution is EVERYTHING.

[darethas]

> Like a boat with no captain

They haven't even left the dock.

[sklinger]

How can they? There's no captain.

[samstave]

They have a dock, and no boat?

[wmeredith]

Yep. You need the product guy.

[0xbear]

Or gal

[rpedela]

Yeah I agree that they appear to be missing a designer or product developer. More concretely, they need someone who is imaginative and can see the big picture from a user/customer perspective.

[vog]

Exactly. And since that piece is missing, I wouldn't describe that team "great", but at most "good" or "promising". Maybe "promising but incomplete" is the best description.

As a team leader (or manager) one of your most important tasks is to choose the members and to get them together. If you didn't fill in all needed roles, you haven't finished that task.

(I wanted to add a Tom DeMarco quote here, but I don't recall which of his books described how to build a software development team - perhaps "The Deadline"?)

[iancmceachern]

www.iancollmceachern.com

[got2surf]

Great point - in every product that you've dismissed, there's a lesson to be learned. Particularly for commodotized products - if there is a way to do it cheaply, what is it? What new technology enables companies to offer their services for so cheap, and where else can you leverage that tech?