Why big founders compete with small makers?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40343645

by jerawaj749 • 2 years ago

3 4 2 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

i find some founders of big startups try to follow the indie maker way by building small products like job boards, link in bio, or voice notes app like what buymeacoffee founder did (launched a voicenote app)

altdataseller• 2 years ago

What's the difference between 'big' founders and 'small' founders that makes you think the former should be pursuing different ideas?

If a 'big' founder thinks an idea will be successful, and there's a market for it, and he/she wants to bootstrap it, and it's something they'd be interested in, why shouldn't he/she pursue it?

Why do they need to go for something more ambitious like a climate change tech startup?

AznHisoka• 2 years ago

All those ideas btw are not small products. Indeed is a billion dollar company and is a job board (yes I know some niche job boards are small but maybe they’re planning to start small then broaden out). A link in bio tool was valued at $1 billion last I checked. And voice notes is something that has a large addressable market too. None of them are what I’d consider small ideas.

Small products would be something like:

1) a directory for AI image generation tools

2) a newsletter and forum for procurement professionals

3) a tool that grades your resume

shivc• 2 years ago

Smaller companies tend to move fast, pivot fast, build and ship fast. A lot of industries have gotten overturned by underdogs. A common theme we see is bigger companies simply buying out smaller players to get the talent, customer base etc.

neverokay• 2 years ago

A lot of simple ideas are not enterprise infrastructure or sales ready. Most devs wouldn’t know how to start that sales process, or bullet proof their app for the enterprise security theater. You need experienced sales people or just be straight up upper class (what YC effectively recruits for) so you have company connections that you can use (collusion and shit).

You can make an enterprise ready todo app and probably be fine as a company so long as that shit has SSO and a scumbag seasoned enterprise salesman. You can sell literal shit with that combo.

A lot of people on this very website sell literal shit to other companies (b2b) because they like, provide SSO to simple ass programs.

No joke. You can sell any shit to the enterprise so long as u have a solid combination of upper class connected elites, animalistic sales people, and sso. You may or may not even need on staff developers long term. Hah.

Why big founders compete with small makers?

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