Ian Landsman is Starting From Scratch, March 11, 2005:
How to Start a Startup
If you're in the market for a powerful and user friendly Help Desk solution, please take a look at my company's flagship product HelpSpot."In particular, you don't need a brilliant idea to start a startup around. The way a startup makes money is to offer people better technology than they have now. But what people have now is often so bad that it doesn't take brilliance to do better."
"Another way to say that is, if you try to start the kind of startup that has to be a big consumer brand, the odds against succeeding are steeper. The best odds are in niche markets. Since startups make money by offering people something better than they had before, the best opportunities are where things suck most. And it would be hard to find a place where things suck more than in corporate IT departments. You would not believe the amount of money companies spend on software, and the crap they get in return. This imbalance equals opportunity."
- Nice new essay from Paul Graham. He echoes alot of what I talk about here: Starting a MicroISV (glad to see I'm on the right track)
Discussion
"...offer people better technology than they have now..."
I think this is missing something fundamental, shouldn't it be:
"...offer people a better solution to their problem..."
There are plenty of companies that built great, innovative, technology - often better technology than their competitors, but completely failed. Why? Because if you don't solve a customer's problem you won't make any money.
I know of plenty of successful vendors that sell to large corporates and have technical solutions that suck. However they have great relationships with the customer and understand their business completely. That's how they make money.
Created by Chris on 03.11.2005 11:03 am
Good point. I kind of took better technology to mean better solution in the context of his article, with the Google example and so on. I totally agree that offering them a better, easier solution and understanding their needs are what it's all about.
I also think those companies you refer to are the ones he's saying may be in trouble at some point. If their technology is really smoke and mirrors then there is opportunity for someone else to come in with something better.
The question I have is if these companies understand their customers then why do they let their technology lag? Shouldn't they use that information and those relationships to improve their products?
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Created by Ian Landsman on 03.11.2005 11:03 am