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by nadam 5716 days ago
I have learnt a lot on HN over the last years. But after a point I have realized that following the actual good advices and trends will not help me, because everybody will follow those advices/trends so that I will always be competing in an oversaturated market: most likely I will fail.

I've realized that I can bravely bet against at least some of the trends. Based on my built things and their failures I started to find out the things which are overrated. In my opinion webapps are overrated, internet consumer market is overrated (or at least too risky for small startups), mobile apps are overrated (kind of a 'trash market' a bit), Javascript is overrated, importance of graphical design is overrated, simplicity and usability is overrated (I mean if you are talented, you can get it right quite easily, but you will never be able to create a business just because of simplicity, usability, etc...)

What things are not overrated?

- 'Build what people pay a lot for'

- At least partially solve really-really painful, fustrating, important problems of not only natural persons but also (mostly) companies.

- The enterprise market is very very important. Big companies are not sexy, but they pay a lot for software if they need software.

- Jack of all trade-ness is overrated. I try to gain experience in at least one or two really hard topics, which few people know.

I will see how it turns out. I never say never though. I try to be flexible; and act upon opportunities. Felxibility is not overrated.

2 comments

Nice points!

I think enterprise is not an easy market to enter. Enterprises are very shy of giving projects to startups and also you need to spend a few years fixing enterprise problems to build good solutions.

Another problem is that companies tend to take a long time and to make a decision hence lot of time and money gets blocked in the sales process...

I am writing this based on experience. I am trying to push the model but not too successful yet!

- Rushabh

ERPNext.com

Yes I understand that it is not easy. But I think that the consumer market is also very hard. The problem is that consumers don't really have too much important problems which can be solved by software. I mean they have some, but those fields are very saturated and/or hardly monetizable. Most of them are solved by really big companies like Google and Facebook. I think the b2b market is more diverse, there are more monetizable problems to be solved. On the other hand it is harder to know what companies want. Mostly you cannot just ask your friends.
>> - 'Build what people pay a lot for'

http://www.amureprints.com/img1/doonesbury/2001/db010325.gif

"Boring stuff that people actually need?" "Yup. You'd be surprised how lucrative it is."