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Comment by mtmail | Hacker News Reader

Quick note, the third submission was automatically blocked by the HN algorithms. Posting the same three times in 24h is too much.

> Show HN: I'm building an open-source order management system and marketplace API

> Show HN: I'm building an open-source Amazon

> Using open-source to disrupt marketplaces

View on HN

Yes I saw that. The last one was a blog post I made in 2019 describing the vision in detail.

> a blog post I made in 2019 describing the vision

Hence I think you have, regrettably, answered your own question.

Its all very well having a vision, but executing it is a different question.

The sort of thing you propose requires a lot of time and a lot of money to develop. Let alone maintain. Let alone market and sell.

Look, its like all those "Bloomberg killers" that come out of the woodwork as often as the seasons in the financial world. There is a reason why only Bloomberg and Reuters are at the top tier, why the second tier is so narrow and why everything else is junk. To replicate Bloomberg would take years in time and billions in cash.

I admire your ambition, but perhaps rein it in a little ?

Execution starts with vision. I don't see a problem with thinking big, it inspires others that want to help become part of something great.

> Execution starts with vision.

Yes I agree.

But the OP had the vision in 2019.

We are now at the tail-end of 2022.

I still see a vision and not much execution.

Meanwhile, the Amazon that the OP is pitching themselves against has continued to move onwards and upwards....

As I said. The vision is fine. But the OP needs to realise that executing it will require a lot of time and a LOT more money !

I think if you start with vision, and you have passion for something the logistics around making it happen will manifest, or it won't if its not ready/needed. It depends on where your idea takes you and sometimes ideas need to be iterated to figure out where you are going. IMHO is too early to be focusing on the negatives of what may or may not happen. That comes later and it should be made in a positive direction, "Where are we going to get the money to make this happen", rather than, "Yea man, that's going to cost you a lot money". When comming up with ideas, the latter doesn't really help, for me.

> I admire your ambition, but perhaps rein it in a little ?

As much as people may say they hate salesmen, we still want to be sold something. As a consumer, it's your job to be skeptical. It's their job to sell.

Engineers have this self regarding view of every other side of the tech business. That actually -- "Only the tech matters" while being incredulous as to why certain tech succeeds while others fail. It's because vision and sales and business acumen really matter.

I think of it this way. Launching a marketplace today is very difficult, but what if we made the backend of a marketplace open-source and used that as leverage. One that could be your backend for all operations. You can choose to enable the integrated marketplace or not, but the system is yours. It’s about bringing power back to the sellers.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. - Margaret Mead

> It’s about bringing power back to the sellers.

But let's be honest here. What sellers really want are buyers.

That's why sellers list on Apple, Amazon, Ebay etc. despite the fees.

They are paying for the virtual equivalent of a shop-front in the premium mall. They get the payment handling. They get the anti-fraud technologies. And with Amazon they get the forward and reverse logistics.

Its about SO much more than how open the backend software is.

> Its about SO much more than how open the backend software is.

Wrong. I own a small shop in Vermont and I love recompiling my shop software every morning to get customers. I tweak a couple of things - - yesterday I lowered tcp_orphan_retries - - and, boom, more customers!

You're right, but sellers are realizing that they are helping Amazon, eBay, etc. more than those platforms are helping them. For example, if you use FBA to fulfill outside orders, Amazon charges a higher rate. You're locked into their pricing and their marketplace.

I would say 85% of sellers on eBay and Amazon have their own storefront now to be in more control. They also funnel these orders into an OMS.

Yes and no. What I want is buyers and reasonable fees.

I stopped putting stuff on Ebay due to ridiculous fee schedule ( listing is free, but then you get hit with tons of seemingly random invoice, which is automatically deducted without a real way to challenge it ) and I was regularly thinking of putting a store up myself, but I don't sell often enough to justify it. I once played with an idea of a weird garage sale app that basically let your address list what you have available for sale, but it seemed like a lot more work than I was willing to put forth.

This.. could work. I will admit I am tempted to try the self-hosted version.

edit: changed sellers to buyers

> Its all very well having a vision, but executing it is a different question.

This also relates to the clickbait-y "I'm building an open-source Amazon" positioning, which I don't think serves you well.

You're building (I think) an e-commerce platform upon which someone can build online shops ("nano-Amazons"?). Where the "open-source Amazon" pitch is difficult to take seriously, I think there probably is space for new e-commerce platforms.

This is just one piece of the puzzle. I explained it in another comment:

> I think of it this way. Launching a marketplace today is very difficult, but what if we made the backend of a marketplace open-source and used that as leverage. One that could be your backend for all operations. You can choose to enable the integrated marketplace or not, but the system is yours. It’s about bringing power back to the sellers.

> This is just one piece of the puzzle.

Yes! That is the point, which is why over-selling this as an "open-source Amazon" will backfire spectacularly with anyone who understands what they're talking about.

It's important to know what you're building (from the POV of potential customers) and who your competitors are. https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/software/best-ecomme...

Is my understanding correct that: The leverage comes from lowering the seller’s switching cost to go to/add another market place by intermediating the seller/market place relationship with open-ship. That way when you release the open marketplace open-front you can get easy discoverability and a very low switching/adding cost from an existing set of sellers?

You nailed it! Existing and future marketplaces would adapt to your system, not the other way around.

Cunt it was 2019.

You rein it in a little.

Yikes, please don't respond to a bad comment by doing this! That makes everything worse, and we eventually have to ban such accounts.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> I admire your ambition, but perhaps rein it in a little ?

Yeah, how dare they have ambition.

I bet they haven't even applied for their Ambition Licence or submitted their "permission to try and make something cool" (PTTAMSC) paperwork.

> I admire your ambition, but perhaps rein it in a little ?

Maaaan if we were in the same room. Don't belittle someone who's trying to accomplish something (and following through with it).

I think this might have brought on more by the multiple submissions but I do agree that it's in HN's spirit to support ambitious endeavors.

> Maaaan if we were in the same room. Don't belittle someone who's trying to accomplish something (and following through with it).

I'm not belittling. I'm just saying set realistic goals. "Build an open-source Amazon" without the budget or the manpower ? Its simply not realistic unless you have very deep pockets and a team of hundreds of full-time staff.

If you think I'm being unduly harsh, what sort of grilling do you think the OP will be subjected to when they rock up at a bank or VC fund looking for a few hundred million ?

Just as a quick counter-argument. Amazon did not become today's behemoth overnight. It started as a source for books and then slowly expanded into other sectors as it perfected its execution.

I might agree that the characterization is a little bombastic, but:

1) It is oddly good marketing if mildly misleading ( as discussed in other posts it is not exactly a 'replacement for Amazon store for seller' as I would have initially thought from the initial presentation )

2) Here we are discussing its merits or lack thereof

In short, I agree with your general point, when compared to today's Amazon, but I think it was more of a rhetorical device rather than a 'factual statement'.

No, you're setting limits on another human being, likely because you're intimidated by them even having the stones to go through with it (and you won't/can't). Folks like you are a dime-a-dozen and they are always hollow souls who can't accomplish a fraction of the people they push down.

> what sort of grilling do you think the OP will be subjected to when they rock up at a bank or VC fund looking for a few hundred million ?

Appropriate grilling (financial prospects, executive potential, etc), not being told to "lower your ambitions."

You're 100% condescending and unduly harsh. Obviously the dude is not 'replacing amazon' that's a mischaracterization on their part, but they are doing something definitely legit, and within scope of what a small team can do to start with.

That's why theturtletalks should apply to YC first! I'm sure YC would love to fund an open-source Amazon competitor if they believed in the execution enough to give it, say, a 1% chance of success (or even much less than that, given Amazon's size).

That "bank of VC fund" you speak probably looks at a startup like this very differently after they've been through YC, not just because of YC's reputation but also because YC can do a lot to help a startup like this after funding it.

> Maaaan if we were in the same room.

What does that part mean exactly? Sounds a bit threatening.

> I admire your ambition, but perhaps rein it in a little ?

I hope whatever happened to you to make you think like this is resolved, because it saddens me to see people tell others to pipe their ambitions, goals and visions down because THEY don't see it as a reality.

If everyone believed this, we'd have never advanced at all as a society because nobody would push the boundaries.

Nothing wrong with wanting to showcase what you're working on but don't spam HN when you're not pleased with the amount of eyeballs on it (At least not multiple times within 24 hours with varying titles like you're trying to AB test)

Even if you say that, it totally worked, so they have little incentive to take your advise.

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