Startup
What to do after my three-step plan? (Debt elimination, reliable car, emergency fund.)
I think I'll found a startup company. I have a killer idea, and I'm pretty sure how to turn it into money.
Some of the geekiest people I know nearly plozted when I showed it to them, and one of them actually sent me gifts in the mail. The only problem is that I can't pay them so it's currently a handful of Lisp code that trailed off when we all had a Sudden Attack Of Life. We got that far because tech geeks want to work on something intensely interesting, and never mind the practicality. The underpinnings of my idea might be the geekiest amalgamation that I've ever heard of. (Never fear, the users won't have to care about that.)
But today I stopped thinking small and realized it might not be so impractical.
A. The incentive. Currently, the A industry is popular for doing something the human mind has always needed, on a scale never before seen. The users would throw themselves on knives for it, but they are widely mocked for paying so much. I don't know why the A industry doesn't think to use it as both carrot and stick for some other thing. Nobody in A is doing B or C.
B. The problem solver. Where A is a carrot, B is the stick life hits you with. Where A is the part that is more a reward, B is a solution to a problem. It's being done the hard way because it's the only way. The entire field seems cynical and tired of trying and failing, but they've never tried A or C. Everybody gets by with what we have or does without. When I was thinking small, B was not even part of the project. I was solving the problem of me and a few of my friends. I just thought of B this morning.
C. The trick. This is a new technique invented recently. It's a way to do things that has never before been seen. The current site using this technique is like the unfortunate inverse of a company that does A. They use the C technique but bungled it because of the way the human psychology works. They have their own versions of the problem-solving B, but didn't think of the incentive of A. So the users say "you've got to be kidding me. I'm out of here." C took the most revolutionary idea and turned it into mind-numbing pain. It's jaw-droppingly impressive in test cases, and I know the idea is sound.
Everybody sees A as A, and B as B, and C as C. But can't you take a problem and a reward, and combine them with a trick? I'd like to start my own A and B sites, and connect them with the C technique. The A industry may as well be also doing B's job and spare all the fuss and expense, by doing it C's way. C's technique will then stop being so boring and the users will like it, so it will finally succeed in the field rather than just the lab. Besides, then our part of the A industry becomes free of charge, because B becomes cheaper (and very probably better, but it could hardly do worse), so the B industry will pay the A industry to do it C's way.
Sorry that I don't have market research, but I am willing to gamble that when you change the world, there's got to be money in it somewhere.
But the community of users of the A won't have to know that. Well, it won't be a secret, but they don't have to care. I know what the users of the service will want, and I predict they will like this if I do it right. That part will not be up to the coders, it will be up to me, and the creatives I hire, and I have a pretty good idea who I want to partner with in that respect.
If my primary business model passes its skill roll, the users may not be the ones paying the bills. If the business model fails its skill roll, there are a lot of other ways to monetize a web service. For that matter, I could just have A do D or E or F, but do it C's way. If it rolls a critical hit, who knows? We might be able to pay the users of the A. There is a very specific way in which I might start the Singularity by accident.
I absolutely cannot do this alone. I currently need to get over the problem of no one to program this. So, I plan to take classes in programming to supplement my self-teaching.
Comments
uplinktruck on Sep. 11, 2007 4:30 PM
So when do you seek investors?
matt-arnold on Sep. 11, 2007 5:12 PM
When I have at least one software developer to polish up the code of the 1.0 version, and another creative talent to provide more seed content than I've made already. Startup investors don't like to invest in startups that only have one founder.
fraggedone on Sep. 11, 2007 4:35 PM
And employees?
matt-arnold on Sep. 11, 2007 5:09 PM
Not until there's a need to expand past the two or three founders. Partners first, users second, investors third, employees fourth.
atropis on Sep. 11, 2007 6:38 PM
sounds terribly exciting, all major-breakthrough-like. *is hopeful in the direction of your success*
temujin9 on Sep. 12, 2007 5:33 AM
I'm interested, though I'm curious which A-B-C's you're arbitraging.
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