| tl;dr Work on what you think is cool. Are you all applying for YCombinator? There's so much effusive praise for Paul. ;) He mentions 3 basic factors: the founders want it, they can build it, and it goes un-noticed. "Microsoft, Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook all began this way." I agree with this premise, and he backs up the 1st point really well. The 2nd point isn't really worth arguing. Ya, you've got to have product. What was disconcerting to me was that he went after the pet websites. It made me laugh a bit. As someone who used to work for Dogster.com and Catster.com which were both successful niche websites that were profitable and sold to "Say Media," I'd have to say no to this: 'The danger of an idea like this is that when you run it by your friends with pets, they don't say "I would never use this." ...Sum that reaction across the entire population, and you have zero users.' Zero users is simply false. Dogster.com still has the kind of usage that isn't the home run Paul is looking for in his investments, but it is sustainable. The 3rd point about not-noticing has two excpetions: Hegel and PayPal. Let's stick to the second. Elon Musk noticed it from the very start as a competitor running what was then also a payment system known as X.com. I think when he added his startup DNA into the mix, although it led to an employee revolt and his ouster, it made PayPal stronger. This is where Hegel comes in: the dialectic of history is a pattern that can be seen everywhere, even in startups, but that's another blog post. |