Startup Advice
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Startup Advice
“All the talent in the world is meaningless without an atomic work ethic.”
Kieran O‘Hare • Following the ‘White-hot Fire Inside of You’
Finding Undiscovered Talent
joincolossus.com
For me, 'big' means having the ability to take a chance on an idea that others may not understand or even see as valuable. My team was excited about the idea of using artificial intelligence to help us develop web content and make it more engaging for users. Others in the company were skeptical, but we took a chance on it."
Complicated problems have a solution, and the solution can often be found by breaking the complicated portions into smaller pieces.
And complicated problems often have an emotional component, because there are parts of the problem we don’t want to look at closely, or deal with personally.
If you’re lucky enough to be handed a complicated problem,... See more
And complicated problems often have an emotional component, because there are parts of the problem we don’t want to look at closely, or deal with personally.
If you’re lucky enough to be handed a complicated problem,... See more
Complex or complicated?
On building “Flavored” startups
Enterprise software is (mostly) not flavor-based. Sure, there are enterprise fads like the metaverse, but generally speaking, large companies only sign contracts when it feels like there is an obvious commercial advantage to doing so.
Networks are (mostly) not flavor-based. If you’re using an app because of the content created by its other users, it’s not necessarily a guarantee for success, but at least if it fails it probably won’t be because it hit a flavor-based asymptote. For instance, BeReal leveraged a unique flavor of photo sharing to build a network, but people are still using it because they like the way it helps them stay in touch with their friends. If it were just a single-player utility, it would not have scaled in the same way. Another historical example is Instagram versus Hipstamatic. Both had a cool new flavor called “photo filters,” but one had a network and the other did not. Here’s a more recent example: the network is what sets Substack stands apart from its flavor-based competition.
Tech-enabled services are not flavor-based. If you act like a tech company but really do grocery delivery, banking, education, housing, healthcare, or any other real-world service, your competition is mostly not flavor-based because starting this type of business involves a lot of cost and complexity. (Also, some, like ride hailing and delivery, are networks.) The downside is that your cost structure is probably not as great as pure tech companies, but the upside is that you have less competition.
All of these types of products can involve some flavoring to help them get off the ground. The point is not that flavoring is bad. It’s good! But it has a very specific role. Flavor provides an initial product wedge. It’s helpful for standing out initially but doesn’t provide long-term differentiation or durable advantage.