Scoble: Why I'm treating startups more critically lately

MVPs force founders to (1) talk to customers and (2) actually ship something.<p>Most early-stage founders I meet are working in a vacuum. They have ideas, but no way to validate those ideas against reality. Mostly, they're just wasting time on half-baked visions of world domination. The game doesn't start until you ask a customer for money.<p>It's a bit like whitewater kayaking: You can float around all day looking at the rapids, but eventually you've got to let the current suck you downstream towards the waves and rocks.<p>Now, maybe in Scoble's world, the rules are different. He sees so many startups that anything less than perfection on the first try is a failure. But this suggests that Scoble's market is getting saturated—perhaps we already have enough mobile/social/local apps for tech bloggers?<p>Maybe it's time to listen to patio11, and find markets where <i>any</i> solution at all will make users climb across their desks with a checkbook in hand.

Tons of useless advice from a guy who never delivered a product himself -- excuse my harsh words. Scoble was/is/stays a blogger, always blogging while having a safe job. He never raised, never started a real venture or done an exit. This guy hasn't got the vaguest idea of what it is to quit your job, start a venture and take high risks. Never experienced how the lowest points of a startup-life full of despair can feel. His words are counter-productive, destroy motivation and are just wrong in many regards (e.g. MVP, etc.).<p>Those who can, do -- those who can't, teach.<p>Why should we listen to him?

Scoble is telling you what he wants to see before you show it to him and hope he writes about it, but that's literally miles away from where a startup first gets off the ground.<p>Before even talking to Scoble, a startup should have come up with the idea, have built a first version, launched as early as possible (but only after what you have is better/more useful than what is currently out there), found a core group of users that sticks around and uses the product, and iterated based on their feedback.<p>The fact is, this is likely to take at least a year, if not more. And only after you think you've achieved product-market fit should you be going after the press "big guns".<p>Don't take Scoble's post as advice on how to get a startup off the ground -- take it as advice on how far along you should be before you pitch him.

Scoble is the TMZ of the tech industry. I view him largely in the same sense as paparazzi. He has a video camera and a bunch of followers, but little in the way of substance.<p>His past proclamations, i.e. Google Gears will kill MS Office, Google Chrome OS has already won, put him on very shaky ground with me from a credibility standpoint. That said, I don't discount all future comments from the guy.<p>In this post, he does offer up some sound advice: clear use case, compelling product -- but really, if you're in the business this shouldn't be news to you anyway.<p>Unfortunately, one is forced to look past the short-sighted, the mis-aligned or the presumptive to find any take-away value. Focus on a use-case, but make sure the app works for everybody? Magical applications are those where people make comments right away? Without Facebook or Twitter integration, your app is lame? The narrow-minded-ness of these comments simply reflect Robert's lack of scope on the world.<p>The fact that he's arriving at these conclusions now shows more about his thought process than anything else.

<i>"Instagram? I had five comments within two minutes (and that was back when there was only 80 users on it)."</i><p>Take note: ask your friends back at the HQ to pose as enthusiastic users while you're pitching your next app :)

<i>If it doesn't do something with both Facebook and Twitter (with Google+ to come) then you are gonna look lame.</i><p>Am I the only person who feels slightly bored that about 50% of startups I hear about are basically all about sharing links on social networking websites?

Gruber: Tells you to develop apps for iPhone -- doesn't develop apps for iPhone<p>Scoble: Tells you how to create a successful startup -- never even tried<p>Can we start getting some advice from people who actually do this shit for a living?

I love how he has 7 key pieces of advice for startups to follow if they don't want to fail, and there is not a single mention of revenue, let alone profit, whatsoever.<p>But don't forget to integrate with Twitter or you'll look like a dummy!

I am assuming Scoble is a famous guy. As he expects quality from wannabe entreprenours, I would then expect quality in his analysis, which I don't think (allow me to give a honest opinion) is true.<p>He forgets totally about the business sector. A crappy looking app with some errors would still be years of light ahead of consolidating a P&#38;L from 30 different excel files sent from 30 different parts of the world.<p>Don't know, maybe people are focusing too much on the same thing.

I don't know a single app(?) whose names he mentioned in this article. I simply can not connect these new product/startup names with what they're supposed to be doing for me.<p>Curious if anyone else has this experience.

I'm reminded of a scene in the now-defunct "Playmakers" TV series. It entails a football player mouthing off to an aide who then bets the player that he can get the ball further down the field than the arrogant player. The player takes the bet and launches the ball a solid distance down the field. The aide waits for a maintenance cart to drive past. He tosses the ball into the back of the cart and watches as it rolls past the player's ball.<p>The player assumed that winning the game depended on his arm alone when the truth was many things had to align with that arm to win games. The vantage point from the turf isn't the only one.

If I were to make an app/product, I hope Scoble is the LAST guy in my target audience. I want moms, corporate CEOs, team leads, fitness trainers, restaurant owners, heck even teachers.. anyone but Scoble.

If I say that he sounds like a Hollywood Producer talking about what he wants to see in his next script then I hope people follow the analogy.<p>He uses 33000 people to tell him it's good. So you get things that appeal to the average.<p>There is no place for niche apps and no cult hits in his world. Just the sexy and the summer blockbuster.<p>But there are other lots of other bloggers out there in the world.

My thoughts to his post consolidated: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3243330" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3243330</a>

If your app is targeted at the 40 something marketing demographic, Scoble and his audience can provide you quite a bit of sound advice.

I was hoping to see something about having an actual business model in his advice. Alas.