Hacker News Reader

Comment by ajju | Hacker News Reader

An entrepreneur who caters to something other than a "customer driven market" is a rare one. And even if an entrepreneur can create a whole new market on their own by innovating, it will soon become customer driven.

I am betting on the theory that entrepreneurship itself provides much more space for creativity than most other professions and if you succeed, you'll have a lot of money and time to pursue creativity full time. I have also read about a lot of successful entrepreneurs who discovered that they really need a startup to give direction to their creativity. Thus, serial entrepreneurs are born.

pg is one of the few entrepreneurs I can think of who didn't become a serial entrepreneur in the traditional meaning of the word but still found great outlets for their creativity. Although, at least one of pg's outlets - YCombinator can be thought of as a startup.

View on HN

The best creations are the ones inventors are making for themselves. I was reading the interview with Steve Wozniak in Founders at Work, and what most struck me was how he talked about Apple's biggest innovations as being things either he or Steve Jobs made for themselves, because they wanted their computers to be better.

The guys at 37signals made their products so that they could use them. Mark Zuckerberg made Facebook for himself and friends. I'd imagine the thought process was something similar at Google.

The best creations are the ones inventors are making for themselves.

I agree with this, and this is something many successful entrepreneurs have said. But here's the dilemma I was pointing out (maybe not so clearly) in my previous comment: After your initial success, when your customers clearly want you to add widgets A, B and C but you want to work on innovative product Z instead, it takes a visionary and gutsy person to do that. I realize that there isn't always such a clear cut binary choice.

While it might not be an either-or proposition, many if not most entrepreneurs find their interests diverging from that of the business after initial success. If you're acquired, this is almost guaranteed.

37 signals, Facebook and Google all have one thing in common: the founders are still in control but it's hard to argue that Google still builds what Larry and Sergey want to build for themselves. At best, Google now builds what its employees want to make for themselves. I can assure you that day to day, Larry and Sergei's jobs look very different from their jobs in 1998.

I think to some extent it depends on the kind of thing you're doing that necessitates the additional activity of a startup.

Linus did not start a startup to make Linux. He still hasn't bothered with one, though he certainly could have done so at various points. Similar stories exist with a huge number of open source projects.

Basically it seems like you only have to start one if:

-You don't get enough time any other way.

-You need additional resources to build the project.

-You like the people and energy.

-You want the money.

you've nailed it just perfect with that.

If you want to be successful, make something that YOU need, then find others with the same need and market it to them.

And failing that do something that gives you joy, quite often that leads down fruitful alleys as well.

Mark Zuckerberg made Facebook for himself and friends.

That's not quite true.

First of all, not all of his "friends" agree that Z "made" rather than "stole" Facebook. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ConnectU

Second, whether or not there's anything to the ConnectU case, Facebook is a commercialized version of HarvardConnection.

So, the model seems to be:

    1. (get someone else to) Create something you need.
    2. Take it.
    3. Sell it.

Either (a) Zuckerberg is a douchebag who stole the site, or (b) the ConnectU folks are douchebags who want to mooch off of Zuckerberg's idea. The morals of these potential stories seem to be:

      a) Douchebags will steal from you.
      b) Douchebags will try to mooch off of you.
    a+b) Don't associate with douchebags.  (And if you do,
         then at least make sure to get rich and win the 
         lawsuit.)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com