Stop Building Apps and Start Disrupting Industries

If you're a small team with limited runway, you can't simply decide to disrupt an entire industry. That's a huge undertaking, and a hopelessly vague one. What you <i>can</i> do is bite off a small piece of the problem, find some customers who really want to give you money, and iterate. Once you have a proven track record and solid revenues, you can aim higher.<p>Once upon a time, VCs didn't insist on taking baby steps, and would fund people who wanted to "revolutionize the grocery industry." That led to disasters like Webvan, and the first dotcom crash. For a good history of how Webvan bit off more than it could chew, see <i>Four Steps to the Epiphany</i>. For some online overviews, see:<p><a href="http://articles.sfgate.com/2001-07-12/technology/17606161_1_webvan-kozmo-delivery" rel="nofollow">http://articles.sfgate.com/2001-07-12/technology/17606161_1_...</a><p><a href="http://www.beyondvc.com/2010/10/dont-build-an-empire-overnight-lessons-from-freshdirect-and-webvan.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.beyondvc.com/2010/10/dont-build-an-empire-overnig...</a><p>Today, you're still allowed to dream big. But you're expected to start small, and build from there.

<i>There are complete industries built on creating zero value for the world (investment banking).</i><p>Maybe he's watched one too many Oliver Stone movies, but I don't think he understands the importance of investment banking. While SV VC's provide capital to startups on a comparatively small scale, investment banks provide capital to businesses on a much larger scale. Love 'em or hate 'em, they do provide a much needed service to our economy.

I appreciate his sentiment and especially his motivation, but I'm not entirely sure everyone who is setting out to build an app must make the strict distinction between changing the world and not changing it. This borders on being an either/or fallacy - who's to say that you can't just build something for personal enjoyment and THEN watch it grow bigger and change the world?

Disruption needs to be driven from industry knowledge. Certainly technology will be the major enabler of disruption, and may be the catalyst to disruptive ideas, but it industry insiders know where to make the changes and how to achieve acceptance.<p>So raising your hand and offering to build the tech is not the hard part. The hard part is finding those insiders who know every detail of the industry, but do not buy into the status quo.

The argument is largely subjective. For one person, making the world a better place is achieved by spending more time with the family to raise good kids that can improve upon their parent's success and keep building.<p>To others, it's creating something like Paypal or Square.<p>To another, it's Kiva.<p>Lastly, as another commenter said, you need money and time. You can buy time with more money, so let's say you just need money. Apps can be used to get that money.

I agree with the sentiment here completely, but sadly, there's almost zero support for true disruption these days from Silicon Valley.<p>FaceCash disrupts the credit card companies and banks. Not a single VC has offered a term sheet to date. (I'm not necessarily upset about this, but it's an interesting fact.) Students would generally rather work for Facebook or Google where they can make more money in a summer. Industry conferences don't want to hear from the people working on the hardest problems; they want to hear from the people who have made the most money.<p>There are some real systemic problems here that, if they don't eventually get worked out, will end up keeping us locked into a steadily declining system in a number of industries.

Disruption is a fundamental change of the business model, economics and user experience.

If you want real disruption, you're not likely to find funding for it.

Stop building apps and start building platforms which can eventually disrupt industries.

<i>snip</i>