You're Overthinking It

Upvoted just for this absolute gem:<p><i>[...] it also depends on where you are on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The lower on the pyramid your product is, the crappier it can look. If your product is core to helping people make money, pirate movies, or sell your useless couch, you don’t need a designer. But if you’re high on the pyramid, ugly/clunky UI makes it impossible to for people to see your vision.</i><p>Never heard this advice in reference to Maslow, but it's truth! I should print this up on cards and give it to a load of my tech and designer friends.<p>The entire <i>"It's like [Craigslist/Amazon/eBay]... but with a beautiful design/UI!"</i> fallacy falls to its knees with this paragraph.

The advice in this article is dangerous for finding success and profit as an entrepreneur if your only knowledge relates to the needs of a developer. Developers are an infamously hard bunch of people to sell products to; as developers, I'm sure we've had all these thoughts:<p>- this is cool, but I could build something better (how many 37signal open source clones are there)<p>- this is cool, but way too expensive (Github complaints)<p>- this is cool, but let me use Google AdWords to get free upgrades (DropBox)<p>- this writing is great, but I'm blocking all the ads on the page (daringfireball)<p>Another problem is that when developers decide to do their own startup, the only domain they really understand is software development.<p>There are millions of people who have problems who can't code - building another bug tracker, productivity tool, email management app, GTD widget might be fun, but the economy of real "business" software that's out there is far larger and more lucrative.

Another approach, if you want to create something for a lucrative market but you're not a user, is to co-create your product with customers. This piece on how to identify a monetizable pain is great:<p><a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanfurr/2011/11/18/nailing-the-monetizable-pain-lets-get-specific/" rel="nofollow">http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanfurr/2011/11/18/nailing-th...</a><p>Clay Collins also advocates for a similar approach that he calls the "interactive offer":<p><a href="http://mixergy.com/collins-interactive-offer-interview/" rel="nofollow">http://mixergy.com/collins-interactive-offer-interview/</a>

I think it's also a good thing to stop overthinking it in regard to Hard Work. The schlep barrier and uggh fields come to mind.<p><a href="http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html" rel="nofollow">http://paulgraham.com/schlep.html</a><p><a href="http://lesswrong.com/lw/21b/ugh_fields/" rel="nofollow">http://lesswrong.com/lw/21b/ugh_fields/</a><p>What are some ideas that you would do if you weren't concerned about "working smarter" or something having to be elegant from the get-go?<p>My most successful product has been a magazine (and let me define that success: very successful in terms of contacts it's given me, unsuccessful financially). The "build process" for that has been neither elegant nor free of mountains of schlepping.

Maybe I should write down every thing I use for a day and glean ideas from that.

I think there is definitely a problem with the realism that Hacker News unknowingly perpetuates. I would imagine people who read Hacker News are less likely to start companies because they are exposed to extremely intelligent people's comments on all things technological on a daily basis.<p>I think people forget that there are a lot of other characteristics besides intelligence necessary for successful Entrepreneurship

...so how would corporate banking systems get built?<p>Although I understand the sentiment, and have followed it with a number of my projects, an aweful lot of companies build and sell software that is not necesarily useful for their own purposes (banking, financial, retail etc).<p>A better and more general rule, and one that has been stated millions of times is simply its really REALLY important to known and understand your client*.<p>The client could be a 'normal' Internet user, or could be a multi-million dollar enterprise, but unless you understand them, you can forget trying to get money out of them! (and if they are a multi-million dollar enterprise, the people you need to sell to are very unlikely to be the people that actually use the system and you absolutely do need a mature product strategy and the necesary resources to even make a single sale).

It's a good point but there's a huge field of potential software and opportunity out there that we programmers are not the users of. Who should build it then?

By the way, that advice in the Steve Jobs biography isn't actually from Steve Jobs. I'm sure the OP knows this, but I just wanted to point out that it was from Mike Markkula's marketing principles paper entitled, "The Apple Marketing Philosophy"

This highlights one of my main problems with social media in general which is that popularity does not correlate well to utility. Even in a relatively niche community like HN there is still tendency towards shallower, more general articles simply because they are applicable to a wider audience so they inherently attract more upvotes. But if you're running a business, the most important thing will be domain knowledge, and the most useful information will not be something found in a blog post that goes viral, but insight and wisdom discovered by insiders who have concrete, applicable experience. Finding these people is of course much harder than popping open HN, but it's possible if you stay focused on smaller communities and networking within your industry. Keep your nose to the grindstone long enough and you will become one of these people.<p>That's not to say that there's no value to be extracted from popular subjects. Of course there is a lot of capitalization to be done on trends and fads, and mass markets are the biggest, but as a daily visitor to HN I think I can safely say that I could come here once every two weeks and gain almost the same marginal value, significantly less than what I'm gaining in daily work experience.

Something that I took away from this (awesome blog post) is perhaps not directly related: don't spend too much time worrying about competitors. Build your thing. Just. Build. It.<p>If you have innovated and not imitated you will have something that no one else has. It's really that simple. You could sit and fret about how easily Google could destroy you, you could worry about the fact that maybe Facebook offers a similar app/service/whathaveyou… None of that matters. Build your thing.<p>True originality <i>always</i> wins out in the end.

I have gone to work at a company within the industry I have built software for.<p>I have enlisted other companies within the industry to use our software before it is completed, so we can get it right before release.<p>My job is to help them reach required outcomes in the fastest and easiest way... this process has helped me to stop trying to imput what i think it best, which only clouds what customers really want to pay for.

Also really good advice:<p><i>A year into my first startup, my first major product epiphany was to never, never, ever try to build a product you couldn’t be a user for</i><p>You have to have the vision, understand everything around it. Relying only on (potential) outsiders doesn't cut it. You need prioritization, focus (" means saying NO"), simplify the UX... You need to be committed. Otherwise you just get "feature creep"

What evidence exists that building a product that you would use leads to a greater chance of success? I can think of plenty of counterexamples of entrepreneurs that have built successful products for an audience other than themselves.

Not disagreeing with the rest of the article, but what's wrong with craigslist? It's super clean, simple, fast, and easy to use. What could extra javascript/flash/ajax possibly add to the site?

Let me just say thank you to the author. I pretty much over think every aspect of my life. Its good to have this little reminder.

You must know who their users and their needs, but not necessarily BE a user.<p>or, you know, you're overthinking the problem. ;)

In 5 words: eat your own dog food.

How does miso make money??

so true ....

Only making products that you are a user of is a great advice. Vote up.

Best advice in seduction also, for all those people who are reading a lot of "PUA"'s material.