These "startup advice" articles on Hacker News always come off as cheap marketing. Each one seems to make sense, but are so imprecise and arbitrary that they are absolutely useless in practice. Tomorrow there will be another article that points out that you have to add extra features that your competition doesn't have and that's the way to do it, and upon reading it too will make sense.<p>And about this particular article, can you be any more banal than by stating "do one thing and do it well"? The only difference is that usually people make comparisons to Swiss army knife and in this case it's that ninja tool.
I think the problem is there even if you're focusing on the One Thing. Look at Github. They have issues, wiki, gist, pull requests, search, repo browser, keyboard shortcuts, private repos and so much more. That's still within the One Thing.<p>And of course, Github built those things over time. But the question that still remains, especially on the early days, with limited resources:<p>What new <i>feature</i> should we add next to this one thing?<p>from a list of dozens of features that customers are screaming for... Shall we add a native app? or should we add Facebook integration? Should we add some gamification elements or redo the homepage to increase conversions? and the list goes on.
Reminds me of Paul Buchheit's article: <a href="http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/02/if-your-product-is-great-it-doesnt-need.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2010/02/if-your-product-is-...</a>
I get what the author is trying to say but thought I'd add a bit on the Ninja Wallet mentioned there.<p>I have a Pocket Monkey (<a href="http://zootilitytools.com" rel="nofollow">http://zootilitytools.com</a>) which is similar to Wallet Ninja and have been carrying this around for over a year in my wallet. I personally love this tool and will never leave home without it. Much like as Swiss Army Knife, this thing has been useful so many times for me. Admittedly however my most frequently used part of the tool is the bottle opener. Other aspects of the tool don't get used quite as often. However if I were to carry the rather large tool the author links to, it would not fit in my wallet.<p>gmu3 mentions the issue with airports. I travel <i>very</i> frequently through several different countries including the US and have never had any issues keeping this in my wallet. I've only been questioned once but they were okay with it and let me keep it. It's not sharp enough.<p>The Pocket Monkey is an easy conversation starter as well. Every time I whip it out to open someones beer because there are no openers available they are often impressed of how small and strong it is.<p>Disclaimer: I was given a Pocket Monkey (worth $12) free to review on my own site in 2013.
I tend to agree, but the author picks an odd example. The Wallet Ninja appears to be a product in the vein of the swiss army knife, an IMMENSELY successful product.<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Army_knife" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Army_knife</a>
I don't want to be too snarky, but is this news to anyone? Who is building start-ups that are trying to be everything all at once? Who has that many resources?
I think this is simple advice and often incorrect.<p>For example: JIRA, it's very complicated software. Many of the complicated features I think are essential for it to get into the Enterprise market. Revenues $242 million.<p>Basecamp: Their mantra is simplicity (although they do not actually do just one thing, they have several features as part of their software). Revenues estimated at over $100 million.<p>I do no think there is one simple answer to how to build a successful startup. Focusing on being great at one thing might be a good idea for some businesses but it's not only way to do things and it's far from proven as "the" way to build a startup.<p><a href="http://www.afr.com/p/technology/atlassian_sales_leap_as_revenue_7HYwjBcYr0BZzL0pDn6N4O" rel="nofollow">http://www.afr.com/p/technology/atlassian_sales_leap_as_reve...</a>
<a href="https://medium.com/@hungrycharles/basecamp-the-small-bootstrapped-multi-billion-dollar-company-9573988a1435" rel="nofollow">https://medium.com/@hungrycharles/basecamp-the-small-bootstr...</a>
Actually, it is a little more complicated than this.<p>First, startups do need to find out what is that "one thing". So many startup end up building more features (use cases) since they are searching for "the thing".
That is ok - but the problem is that many startups are not removing features (use cases) even after their metrics show that this new feature is not "the thing".<p>I heard arguments like this:<p>It is wrong to release a user feature and then simply remove it when your testing shows it isn't improving any metrics. Users will feel they are being cheated, even though they aren't spending a single penny for that feature.<p>My answer to that is: "How much money did you say they paid for this?"
In our times, being good at things is not enough anymore. You have to be a 'specialist' and in some cases, chief specialist, and you can only be one, if you have dedicated yourself to it 'solely'.<p>Jack of all trades and master of none. will only leave you among the mediocre. It is easy to be good at multiple things, but as I said, almost everyone is good at a lot things. But a Few are the real class.
I worked for two startups and they BOTH wanted to build marketplaces.<p>One of them had amazing traction with sellers because they said "it's free to sell right now, hop on in!"<p>They failed because they didn't have customers.<p>The other one was an advertising platform, but they didn't have enough advertisers to actually PROFIT from selling their advertising. So they sold lots of advertising... only to pay Facebook to show it (because people want their views and they want them fast) and actually lost money.<p>What if they just focused on one thing? A business focused on referring sellers to marketplaces... a business working to sell someone else's products... they'd both be very successful at one thing instead of failing to provide on both ends
Reading between the lines, but I assume the author would agree on starting simple (feature A only), and only refine or add to that feature when the customer base dictates it. If one customer suggests feature B, another customer suggests features B and C and a third customer suggests features B and D, then perhaps it would be a good idea to starting looking at adding feature B or "pivoting" altogether to feature B.<p>And B may become more successful than A, but you never would have gotten there without first doing A really well.
Now I want a Wallet Ninja (or the Pocket Monkey mentioned by another commenter) -- though, tbh, I wanted it the second I saw it, before the article talked trash about.<p>Having read other comments here, I am kind of wondering how one figures out or defines that "one thing" that the business is supposed to focus on and do well. I don't know of any business that survives by doing literally one thing and only one thing well. So you are awesome at your One Thing, but you can't figure out how to take credit cards or secure the premises or keep people from showing up at work drunk or high. Any of those things can destroy a business.<p>The reason business is hard is because you have to juggle so many things successfully. If that weren't true, we wouldn't have so many articles on how to do this. We would all just be rolling in dough, doing our one thing or whatever.