Hey, entrepreneurs, we’re living in a bubble | Hacker News Reader

Hey, entrepreneurs, we’re living in a bubble

venturebeat.com

78 pointsevo_923 comments

> "American entrepreneurs do have a shot — if we have the courage to learn about markets half-way around the world"

I feel the same way, and it's a big reason I forced myself out of my comfort zone and moved to Asia. (Granted, to comfortable Singapore, but every month I go to a new country to learn about the culture and business environment there.)

There's really some amazing stuff going on over here. I'm going to spend the next 10 years writing about it in these books: http://woodegg.com/

Every month? What are you planning for January?

Pretty much every month, yeah. Right now I'm hiring someone to do the research and interviews, so that I can stay put for a while.

The books look interesting. Do you manage to write them all yourself?

No. I'm hiring people to research & write. I'm funding this and contributing, but not doing it all myself.

Anyone interested, please email me.

I think everyone is tired of the flood of coupon startups, but the argument there is simply it is generally a stupid thing to be focusing your engineering talents towards. This ivory tower argument about the new global middle class is unnecessary and effectively tries to apply a business-centric argument to something that is much more obvious: life is short, why are you working on the 100th daily deal or cat photo site?

Thank you for encouraging me to continue working on the 'big project' and not pivoting to get that cat photo site out. My commitment was waning. (this is not sarcasm, btw)

Go for your big projec. Siri's success has prooved that working on an interesting and deep problems will have its rewards.

I like the idea of the article, but I would be more impressed if the author would have taken a few moments to identify steps one might take to help find solutions for this new "global middle class." I have no doubt opportunity exists, but it isn't as simple, in my opinion, as looking at our (U.S.) own history. The playing field is very different. Maybe a springwise-like site would be a good way to communicate upcoming needs (as opposed to trends) outside the u.s. market?

Well I made a web site about the world and discovered many of my best users are from Africa and the Middle East. I never thought I'd be big in Iran.

Paul, can you share a link please?

http://ookaboo.com/

I haven't done any breakout of ad revenues in different regions but every day I have to "moderate" comments in languages I don't know at all.

To be blunt: how much money do you make from them? Compared to what you make from US customers?

I agree, but it's very tough to innovate and solve problems that you don't even know exist. That kind of information would be very valuable. Maybe that's the first step.

Probably the best way, if you can afford the time, is to go live in one of these emerging market countries for a while.

However, after close to a year of living in Vietnam I haven't seen any obvious opportunities. People here will pay for hardware, but the idea of paying for software/music/movies/services etc is pretty foreign. For example, most people jailbreak their iPhone and get apps for free. Maybe the right kind of targeted advertising could work but you'd practically have to be native to be savvy enough to get that right.

Definitely interesting, since I hear many people suggest moving to another country would yield bounties of startup ideas.

That said, certainly there must be tech startup opportunities beyond pure content and software plays. Aren't there some other pain-points that could be solved?

I'm sure there are things that have just so far eluded my imagination, but it may also be better to look somewhere a little more developed. There's a huge untapped population here but not much buying power yet. The big players like Facebook and Google and Yahoo are already pretty entrenched here too so it's not like you've got an open field to play with.

The easy answer is, focus on making products that involve a hardware component. For example, you could pirate the app for that new Jawbone product, but it is meaningless without the hardware.

That might be the answer, but of course it takes a lot more time and capital to start a hardware business than a software business.

Hi Bubble, you´re welcome!

Whatever the bubble looks like, wherever it will develop, there will always be new creative ideas disrupting the status quo.

I think there´s no such thing as a free bubble. It will rearrange the system and in the fog of all pseudo entrepreneurship, the true creators and ideas will be seen.

Nobody has to be named nostradamus to be aware of cyclic movements in industries. If ever, a bubble can only be a measurement of high financial liquidity and volume of business valuations. Of course, capital remains a vehicle helping new ideas to develop. But if a bubble comes or does´t is totally unimportant, isn´t it?

I think that the money reports in the news attract a lot of spectators and streakers right now that pretend to be part of a game that they define by exit, funding and names. But ideas like Airbnb, Getaround, Square (you name it) are no a result of a movement in volume, like a statistical confidence interval or given percentile of success. They are structures that combine real need with digital supply and shape cultural aspects of society.

I grew up in India. But I can't identify with "entrepreneurs in emerging markets" thing. Where are they? Who are they? What came out of my country - I want to know!

Article is unreadable on an Android tablet, buggy advertising interferes.

Man wtf is this shit? Is this a Demand Media type of article?

There are maybe a dozen or so companies with really high valuations, there are then hundreds or low thousands of web based companies that are trying to be profitable and make it for themselves.

Look at the author of this article, he started an "intelligence platform". Wow, if you can't plug your company into something even intelligent techy people can understand, what about everyone else? Maybe he is in the bubble?

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