In-N-Out Burger's six secrets for out-and-out success
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But I don't think their success is of the type that most people here would be looking for. They are essentially a very large small business. They've expanded very slowly and to this day are only in 4 states (after 61 years in business)
Basically if you want to know how to build a successful niche look at In-N-Out. But anyone who wants a big success is better off looking at Mcdonalds (sad as that fact is)
But we can also benefit from understanding the difference between Profit, Growth, and Profile - In-and-Out has taken profitability at the expense of Growth and Profile (I've never heard of them); McDonalds has Profile and Growth, but not so much profit.
The three aren't mutually exclusive, and we can have it all. I don't want it all myself; I look at examples like patio11 and go - 'That's pretty cool'. Niche success over Zuckerberg success works for me.
Also: I don't think PG is quite on the same level of Gates, Zuck, and the Google guys. All three made a product that became an enormous success on their own. PG made an online store that another company bought. I'm not trying to insult him; in fact, that's a better person to run a company like YCombinator in the first place. PG is proof that you can succeed several times in your life without becoming a superstar.
Zuckerberg, from accounts I've read, had a big vision, was clear on it early, and made it happen. I don't want that, and to be honest I probably couldn't make it happen even if I did. That's OK.
Re: pg, you're probably right. In this forum it was worth throwing his name out there, but I wouldn't use him as an example in other places where that list would be appropriate. Multiple successes - he's a good example to use, as you point out.
In-N-Out is a burger joint with a niche meaning they have a few million customers. Those customers come by maybe once or twice a week to get a meal. Apply that same number of customers to the software industry and you'll have trouble surviving because they're either only going to pay you once or in the case of websites pay you little to nothing. So my conclusion was that an In-N-Out level success would not be what most software developers would be interested in.
So that was it. The logic isn't exactly air tight (if you want to be a one man show you could do perfectly well with a few million visitors) but it was what I meant when I posted
My favourite story here is someone I know who runs an online drag-racing simulator game sort of thing. Lots of social interaction, trading parts, earning in-game money, etc, all subscription-based.
He doesn't have a huge number of players - but he's found enough die-hard supporters that he enjoys a very comfortable standard of living (certainly makes more than your average software engineer).
You don't need to make $0.01 from a million people if you can make $10 from 1000 people.
Oh, and there's more to software than the web - this is something that I think people are forgetting in the day and age of Google and Twitter.
It's arguable how much of a bond they've built with their customers, considering their rapid expansion, but when I ate at a recently opened one near Seattle, it was packed.
The common link, in my opinion, is that both chains go all out for quality (Five Guys, for instance, posts the city of origin of the potatoes used for their fries on a daily basis). And the food truly is on a different level versus your average fast food place. In the end, success for both seems to come down to the old maxim: make [burgers] people want.
It made me wonder what all the In and Out buzz was about? Five Guys for me is the best burger joint!
Did anybody else notice this and pause? That extra comma at the end was in the original article and made me think the whole number might be a typo, but wow. I hope the number is true.