I slightly disagree. You need a good idea. When I was looking for funding around 1997, I was pushing what are now three companies, each of with had a very successful IPO or buyout. At that time it was all the rage to invest in tshirt companies (FogDog and Starbelly come to mind) and dog food services.
The hard part of getting going was wedging the idea into the investment environment. So LinkedIn was my business partner's room-mates company. He got nowhere with it because it wasn't Tshirts or dog food. I got nowhere with my payments company after around 50 VC presentations. The ideas were unique and really solid, and no one else was doing that at the time.
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Operations are counter-intuitive. eBay had terrible customer service (actually much improved lately) but still has a lame interface. Facebook customer service is pathetic and even hostile. Twitter customer service is out of it mind bad. Yet, people keep going back to them.
I think it boils down to, can the business still operate with really bad customer service and follow up? Because if FB provided reasonable customer service, they would be losing money like crazy.
haha. you are an entrepreneur that thinks delivering stuff at home or work from restaurants is a great idea. Only two have gone public so far. Grub Hub and Door Dash... How many other ones started? Came down to Matt Maloney of GrubHub, and whomever started Door Dash. Could go on and on. Ideas are cheap. Sure, you need a good idea. But, you need a great entrepreneur to put it in motion and build a company
But any monkey could do that. They have no special skills, just a critical mass of money and stamina.
They are terrible at operations, customer service and delivery. It's a type of mass hysteria/herd mentality. I'm not saying that it doesn't work, but their ideas are insipid. There are plenty of good ideas out there that do not require an assumed infinite investment to work well.
This is where we disagree. They do have special skills; and when they didn't they hired people who did. Investments were done in rounds, at arm's length. No one is in it to lose money.
Whatever they did, say Grubhub, they are still terrible at delivering stuff. Miserable customer service and depised by restaurants and customers alike. Whoever they hired, I wouldn't want doing the simplest task for me personally.
The secret sauce is that they got into a place where everyone has to deal with them. It's not that they are any good at it, but they have enough resources to pretty much force the world to use their niche. They sold $1 for 98 cents and got enough leeway to dominate the market.
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I dare you to call Facebook customer service and try to get them to fix a font issue or something. They just don't do it. They get into monopoly position and go with it all they can. They are not good at operations. They are good at extracting money from investors and customers.
One of the reasons I stopped taking any requests to secure financing, or invest myself, in startups was because so many thought they deserved to be compensated for the idea and I was stunned at their ignorance. I said your compensation will be remarkable if and when you implement it into successfully creating revenue, then profits, but if you don't do that, you're no different than a child with an active imagination.😄🙄🤨😲
I have told many that leadership is more important than an idea.
I slightly disagree. You need a good idea. When I was looking for funding around 1997, I was pushing what are now three companies, each of with had a very successful IPO or buyout. At that time it was all the rage to invest in tshirt companies (FogDog and Starbelly come to mind) and dog food services.
The hard part of getting going was wedging the idea into the investment environment. So LinkedIn was my business partner's room-mates company. He got nowhere with it because it wasn't Tshirts or dog food. I got nowhere with my payments company after around 50 VC presentations. The ideas were unique and really solid, and no one else was doing that at the time.
**
Operations are counter-intuitive. eBay had terrible customer service (actually much improved lately) but still has a lame interface. Facebook customer service is pathetic and even hostile. Twitter customer service is out of it mind bad. Yet, people keep going back to them.
I think it boils down to, can the business still operate with really bad customer service and follow up? Because if FB provided reasonable customer service, they would be losing money like crazy.
The research (See Professor Stephen Kaplan Chicago Booth) shows great people can get good ideas off the finish line. Ideas are cheap.
Then why do all the investment bankers have the same (stupid) ideas at the same time?
Plenty of room for good ideas in technology. It is the inherent laziness of the industry that keeps them from going anywhere.
haha. you are an entrepreneur that thinks delivering stuff at home or work from restaurants is a great idea. Only two have gone public so far. Grub Hub and Door Dash... How many other ones started? Came down to Matt Maloney of GrubHub, and whomever started Door Dash. Could go on and on. Ideas are cheap. Sure, you need a good idea. But, you need a great entrepreneur to put it in motion and build a company
But any monkey could do that. They have no special skills, just a critical mass of money and stamina.
They are terrible at operations, customer service and delivery. It's a type of mass hysteria/herd mentality. I'm not saying that it doesn't work, but their ideas are insipid. There are plenty of good ideas out there that do not require an assumed infinite investment to work well.
This is where we disagree. They do have special skills; and when they didn't they hired people who did. Investments were done in rounds, at arm's length. No one is in it to lose money.
Whatever they did, say Grubhub, they are still terrible at delivering stuff. Miserable customer service and depised by restaurants and customers alike. Whoever they hired, I wouldn't want doing the simplest task for me personally.
The secret sauce is that they got into a place where everyone has to deal with them. It's not that they are any good at it, but they have enough resources to pretty much force the world to use their niche. They sold $1 for 98 cents and got enough leeway to dominate the market.
**
I dare you to call Facebook customer service and try to get them to fix a font issue or something. They just don't do it. They get into monopoly position and go with it all they can. They are not good at operations. They are good at extracting money from investors and customers.
One of the reasons I stopped taking any requests to secure financing, or invest myself, in startups was because so many thought they deserved to be compensated for the idea and I was stunned at their ignorance. I said your compensation will be remarkable if and when you implement it into successfully creating revenue, then profits, but if you don't do that, you're no different than a child with an active imagination.😄🙄🤨😲
I have told many that leadership is more important than an idea.
One of the most critical things you can do in due diligence is understand what the motivation and the personality type of the startup founder is.
It really is a blessing to be old enough that our kids are long gone from schools. Plan B for for the grandkids.
Hoping things will be very different by then and government run schools are not an option for them