Anyone afraid?

[CobraKai]

How often do you have the fear that someone will beat you to a working product?

After posting here the last time, I have decided to work on an idea I've had for a while. The project has been quite a handful already (but so much fun!!) and I'm doing it in the evenings after work. It will involve truly extensive work in the future (hardware, DSP, audio, iPad programming) - but I think it's a very cool (and much needed) product idea. I have started to prototype the hardware (since I remember the fundamentals from before) and my hope is to bring in outside expertise to finesse each component to perfection as I have a working-ish prototype.

But for some reason, I have this terrifying feeling that 3 months into the project that a company will have the exact same product and that's 3 months of work down the drain.

Anyone else have this fear? Is this normal? What did you do to overcome it? Is the solution just to jump in and see how it goes?

[te_platt]

When I was much younger I had an idea for a frisbee-yo-yo. You could play frisbee by yourself! Thirty years later I have yet to see anyone release anything similar. In fact I couldn't get any of my prototypes to work how I wanted. Moral to the story: If other people aren't working on something at least similar to what you are doing it is very likely a dumb idea. Have a bigger fear that there won't be other companies trying to do what you are going to do.

[derrida]

"If other people aren't working on something at least similar to what you are doing it is very likely a dumb idea."

I am sorry, but that is the worst piece of advice ever. Why bother with science if we can just appeal to the idea that what other people think is most likely correct? Why don't we just give up the game now?

[te_platt]

Newton had Leibniz (and others) pushing calculus. Einstein made use of ideas from Lorenz pushing Relativity. Elisha Gray applied for a patent on the telephone the same day as Alexander Bell. Perhaps I should have been more clear. The fact that most people aren't doing what you are is no excuse to give up. If nobody is doing what you are maybe you are a super genius - or maybe you have a dumb idea.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

What he's saying has nothing to do with science. Most new ideas are absolutely, completely, useless.

Now, the fact that someone else has thought of the same thing you are, has put a lot of time into developing it, spent their hard earned money to market and sell it and just perhaps is making a profit from it, means that your idea is probably valid. You're more likely to make money by doing what someone else has profitably done before and adding your twist to it than coming up with something completely unique.

There are many car manufacturers, brands and types of candy, clothing, tools, computers etc. Pick just about any product and you can find a dozen people making different versions of it and they're all making money.

People are suspicious of the unfamiliar. Sell them something they've seen before.

[wladimir]

That doesn't mean that all new ideas are useless. If everyone is afraid to come up with new ideas, simply copying the old ones because it is 'safe', no advance or paradigm shift will ever happen.

Luckily, there are people daring enough to try something new.

[HeyLaughingBoy]

[shrug]

You gotta decide whether creating a paradigm shift is more important than making a profit. Just don't plan on both happening.

[wladimir]

No, you don't have to decide on the one or the other. They can very well be combined. Profit isn't guaranteed either if you simply copy someone elses idea. And if you come up with a good new idea you might make a big profit.

[CobraKai]

haha, point taken. there have been at least 2 products released in the past 2 weeks that are similar to what i'm doing, hence my fear of someone beating me to the punch. hence, my hope that what i'm working on is going to succeed.

on the other hand, maybe you're right and maybe they have tried what i'm trying and it failed and they gave up...

[Ganthor]

Let me know when you get that frisbee-yo-yo thing working, it sounds awesome!

[Pent]

It sounds like a boomerang

[tshtf]

I have this terrifying feeling that 3 months into the project that a company will have the exact same product and that's 3 months of work down the drain.

Apple didn't have the first MP3 player. IBM didn't make the first personal computer. Being first to market might not mean quite what you think.

[brudgers]

>"IBM didn't make the first personal computer"

Maybe not the best example. IBM's first PC came out in 1991. Ten years later they were posting billion dollar plus losses which almost killed it. Profitability returned as they began to withdraw from the PC market.

[mindcrime]

BTW, on this note.. the book In Search of Stupidity makes an interesting argument about marketing high-tech products... the idea being that the race goes to the entity that avoids making the stupid, crippling mistake. In other words, you don't have to be faster, smarter, stronger, etc. than the competition; you just have to be patient and avoid that one big f%!#-up that takes them down.

Ok, that's paraphrased slightly, but that's the gist of it. For more:

http://www.insearchofstupidity.com/

[limist]

For anyone who grew up with 80's and 90's computers and software, there could hardly be a funnier recap of those wild-West early days than this book.

Besides the humor, and admonitions against arrogant stupidity (yah, redundant), In Search of Stupidity made clear that competent technical leadership is vital. IIRC, Joel Spolsky's introduction in the book points out that only Microsoft stayed in the top 10 of software from the 80's through the end of the 90's, in large measure because billg understood the importance of e.g., personally advocating for OLE with his software team; while his competitors were busy with yachts and alienating their developer communities.

[mindcrime]

How often do you have the fear that someone will beat you to a working product?

Hah, it's a little late for that, here. Some of the ideas I was chewing on in 2006 or so, were a bit novel then, but probably only a bit. But I lolly-gagged around, didn't stay focused, and never delivered anything. Now there are a billion companies playing in the space I'm interested in (in a vague sense).

At this point, I'm not really focusing on having some ground-breaking new idea that revolutionizes anything, I just want to focus on some specific things and try to be better in a few areas, and maybe introduce one or two ideas / features that may still be a little bit novel.

Basically I go back to what Bob Parsons (of Godaddy fame) had to say (paraphrased slightly) "Don't be afraid of a crowded market, just be better than everybody else."

[rst]

Having just watched someone else give a chunk of "my demo", well... yeah. (And this is for a pure software project, which is rather less capital-intensive than deploying anything involving hardware these days.)

Here's the flip side: if no one else was interested in your area, it's probably not very interesting. Dropbox wasn't the first file-syncing service. Vimeo was started before YouTube. And there were plenty of social networks before Facebook, which was entering an area where there were large and well-funded incumbents when it was literally some kid's dormroom project.

It may be worth keeping in mind Fred Wilson's advice: once you're pretty sure you know what you want to do, put your head down and execute: http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2010/11/your-worst-enemy-is-yourself...

[CobraKai]

I love this advice. Bookmarked.

There are competitors in the field. The problem that I'm trying to solve has been marginally solved (using sloppy shortcuts) but I want to solve it the real way. I think there's a market. It's a niche market, with 2 very established companies (100+ years old) but they don't have (i'm really really really hoping they don't) what I want to make.

[hasenj]

> But for some reason, I have this terrifying feeling that 3 months into the project that a company will have the exact same product and that's 3 months of work down the drain.

Most of my ideas are for things that already exist but I think all existing solutions suck.

So no, I'm not terrified. When facebook came out, there was myspace already. When tumblr came out, there was blogger already (not to mention wordpress). When posterous came out, there was tumblr already.

When Ubuntu came out, there was already debian and red hat and suse and tons of others.

I can't think off the top of my head of a single successful product whose success was solely based on it being the first to arrive to the market.

[stsmytherie]

"Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration...."

"Do, or do not. There is no 'try.'"

Sorry for the trite quotes, but there is truth here. Are pursuing this project because it's worth doing or because you hope to get paid? First to market doesn't assure success. If it's worth building, build it. The worst you can do is learn something new. Your time is never "wasted" if you are having fun, learning, and developing your chops.

[CobraKai]

This is a great attitude, I'm going to read your post a few times to let it sink it. It is worth building. I know I'd LOVE to have the product I'm thinking of. And I know it doesn't exist (yet). And yes, there is lots and lots of learning in this project. Thanks, stsmytherie.

[pdelgallego]

Competition is good, it means that more people thinks that the market that your product is targeting is worth the effort/risk.

[mindcrime]

How can anybody named CobraKai talk about fear, anyway?!?? C'mon man, Cobra Kai never Dies! Fear, does not exist in this Dojo!!!

Your homework, is to go and watch this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8lUt0Ile00

and write "Put him in a body bag" 100 times on the whiteboard.

[tjpick]

it just means you have to compete. Like pretty much everyone else who's trying to make a living.

[jacques_chester]

My awsome multi-billion idea, which I guarded like a paranoid praetorian, has been launched by other companies at least three times now. More if you count flattr.

What I've come to see is that the idea is not all there is. There's also execution (I suck) and timing and most of all luck.

[Mz]

I have the opposite internal psycho-drama: I have bad dreams that I am getting there too soon, moving too fast, and all the bullshit delays in my life (going on for literally years and years) are necessary and valuable to let other people catch up so it has some hope of acceptance. :-/

Meanwhile, I feel like I am "doing nothing". :-/ :-/ :-/