212 karma · joined October 30, 2018
The few startups solving the same problems that actually win against big players (by winning understand biting a fair portion of the total pie to survive) are doing so by solving this problem fundamentally differently. Your innovative approach must be really innovative to stand a chance against the big guys. This has to be something completely different to stand a chance.
Offering lower price will not be sustainable for you in the long run I think. This will definitely hold you back on the growth side. Not to mention what the customer might think - lower price = lower quality. Besides a big player has a lot of resources! They can squeeze you out of the market easily with your lower price.
I am an unsuccessful former founder :) . But I made some similar mistakes. In my opinion, rocket-marketing and completely innovative product are the two musts for the successful groundwork of any startup.
"Work during the weekends" was masked behind the "be passionate" mantra. Before investors everything was shiny, inside was a rotten apple. Management conducted themselves in a pompous and "self-entitling" way every single day.
Not sure if all startups are so, start like this and than change, or just I had the bad luck of finding one of the bad ones.
Regarding passion, in my opinion, it is for those who really are in for the creation process. Creating something new, something that really changes things. Something that also brings financial freedom or at least makes them feel very very good. Otherwise, there is no such thing as passion without satisfaction. You can’t transfer passion. You can’t make other people passionate (at least not, if you are not Gandhi or someone similar).
As for the GUI, Stable diffusion as far as I know, may reach this point, but not at the moment.