Ask HN: anyone else sick of startups for startups posted on HN?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4904648

by padseeker • 14 years ago

69 45 14 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I've seen 3 different "Review my startup" posts on hacker news in the past week that was a startup whose sole focus is curating content for startups. I hate to sound like an ass, but it feels a bit like navel gazing or preaching to the choir. It would be one thing if those startups are doing something truly extraordinary, but so far I can't even say that.

I realize that hacker news is the ideal place for marketing to other startups, so kudos to you for knowing your market. But it feels a bit like when I played in a band and most of the audience watching were in other bands. If you are going play to a bunch of other musicians you better be amazing and blow people away or have something that will make jaded people remember you, i.e. amazing musicianship, great energy, brilliant songs or talent, even something unique like using different instruments like accordion or tuba. Otherwise you are wasting your time.

Similarly the expectations for building a startup for startups is very high, and these little projects for curating content for other startups when there are already some brilliant sites for startups does not bode well for your idea. Sorry to sound like ass, believe it or not I'm trying to help.

pestaa• 14 years ago

I somewhat agree with this sentiment, but the `musicians playing for musicians` analogy just does not make sense -- it implies the target audience (the other startups) has the same skillset the new product demonstrates.

However, I too feel these new startups are ends in themselves, but then again I'm not in their target audience.

jasonkester• 14 years ago

The thing is, businesses like that work.

Compare the tool seller you describe to this other "review my startup" that happens to be on the "new" page at the moment:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4904624

With no additional information, would you expect a company selling a product that fixes a real problem that real businesses with real money actually have and are willing to spend money fixing to be more or less profitable than the startup in the linked article? How many Instagrams does instagramfixerthing.com have to connect to how many Twitters before they are matching the revenue from a single $50/month plan from a boring tools company?

B2B makes a lot of sense. So that's why people build B2B companies.

padseeker5• 14 years ago

B2B is great - my startup is B2B. I'm just saying I am seeing a lot of startups whose sole market is other startups. And they are not impressive. Wouldn't you say the hacker news crowd is a bit jaded? Review my startup is great, but not sure if the startup you built is a startup for startups is the right direction for most of these people unless they do something amazing. And so far I have not seen it.

frankdenbow• 14 years ago

The conventional wisdom is to start with a niche, do well, and expand. They may not be impressive to you yet, but certainly some of them have the ability to do more that what you can see initially.

zalew2• 14 years ago

Like Oracle sells software to companies making software. It's called B2B.

The quality of those 'startups for startups' thingies is another thing, obviously some of them will fall more into a 'wannabe for wannabies' category, but it doesn't mean the model is broken.

When it comes to 'preaching to the choir', I feel like all those 'why you should start a company / learn to code' are exactly that.

btilly2• 14 years ago

The key to B2B is finding customers that actually have money.

Startups, practically by definition, generally don't.

jeremyjh2• 14 years ago

A startup with no money is not in business. Yes they have limited funding, and they have to use that funding wisely to build their product and customer base. But if you sell them a tool that will clearly help them to do those things, they will spend money. Heroku is the canonical example of this. They extract a premium price from many small startups who value a hassle-free production environment more than a few hundred dollars a month they could save by hosting themselves.

zalew2• 14 years ago

If something is affordable and saves you money one way or another, it will sell even to early stage startups. Think Basecamp.

halis• 14 years ago

Well I think it's important that people bring these ideas they have to fruition. Because you don't know what is going to be completely disruptive going forward. Look at Twilio. Anyone following their entrepreneurial dreams is to be commended in my book.

ZanderEarth32• 14 years ago

"If you are going play to a bunch of other musicians you better be amazing and blow people away or have something that will make jaded people remember you, i.e. amazing musicianship, great energy, brilliant songs or talent, even something unique like using different instruments like accordion or tuba. Otherwise you are wasting your time."

I look it at more from the angle that if you want to become a better musician you should play with musicians who exceed your ability and learn from them. HN isn't the big stage in my opinion. Maybe it's more of a jam session or an audition, where you can show what you've got and display the potential.

I honestly don't think there is too much promoting of new start ups, but the "Show HN" makes it easy to avoid them if I wanted to.

meaty• 14 years ago

Yes definitely. I'm here for the technical discussion which I think is unsurpassed.

zgembo• 14 years ago

"Review my startup" posts should be moved to http://www.pivoted.co

padseeker5• 14 years ago

I still think people should post "Review my startup" on hacker news. I am just seeing the same exact idea over and over again. I will definitely check out pivoted.co

jere2• 14 years ago

Darn, because my next project is for startups.

brador• 14 years ago

Dude don't let this guys negativity get you down. I love the show HN, as do many who visit here. There is a reason they get to and stay on the front page.

Build it, ship it, see if it floats. Ignore the generic haters.

padseeker5• 14 years ago

don't not do it because of me. Just make sure it is compelling and interesting or creates real value. To hell with this post if you are doing something at least slightly different.

All I'm saying as a HN reader is I am seeing the same type of post - a startup for startups that is not doing anything new or compelling.

jere2• 14 years ago

>All I'm saying as a HN reader is I am seeing the same type of post

Ok, I can definitely see that. I personally hate seeing clones and "me-too" offerings.

My idea, in case anyone cares: naming. The "From Holden" debacle has reminded me how people struggle with naming and I've kicking around the idea of a naming tool for a while.

nighthawk24• 14 years ago

S2S anyone? Startups to Startups!

sharemywin• 14 years ago

S2S4S - I'm working on this startup for startups who market for startups. I'll post your startup on hacker news and filter out complaining and only send you constructive criticism.

johnrgrace• 14 years ago

Lets just jump to the endgame, S2S2B2B2C

edw519• 14 years ago

Hacker News is our gym. We're just working out.

You bring up an great point about excellence and applicability. I agree. Just remember that each of us is in a different place and many of us are not as far along as others. Better to get feedback here first before approaching others in the real world.

The rest of you, keep those "Review my startup" posts coming. We won't be bashful. Promise.

Peroni• 14 years ago

Hacker News is our gym. We're just working out. - Possibly the best analogy for HN I've heard.

melvinmt• 14 years ago

When in search for a new idea one starts looking at a well-known problem domain, so for most of us who work at startups, talk about startups and live amongst startups, solving startup problems is a very natural thing to do. While it does allow us to be domain experts in this field I do agree that this whole thing can feel a bit 'meta' and inflated.

tinco• 14 years ago

In case of a gold rush, sell shovels?

benjlang• 14 years ago

I'm sick of hearing news about different accelerators, there are way too many being posted on HN.

runjake• 14 years ago

I'm sick of a lot of things... but one of them is all the "Ask HN: Anyone else sick of $foo" submissions. If you don't like a submission, don't click it. If you think it doesn't belong, flag it.

If other people were, in fact, sick of topics they'd disappear off the front page rather quickly.

hdivider• 14 years ago

Agree completely. It's not like people need to discuss what to do about the things they're 'sick' of - the mechanism for getting rid of stuff like that is already in place.

Another thing: make a habit of browsing /newest. I actually have that page bookmarked, instead of the front page, just to ensure that I don't simply 'consume' HN.

chrisdevereux2• 14 years ago

Although this post was upvoted by quite a few people...

I think it really depends on the tone of the post. If you don't really see the point in something and it turns out there is a point, it's better to say something and find out, than just ignore it.

Of course, if the point of a "anyone else sick of..." is just to be snarky, then I'd agree. But this felt like an honest question to me.

brudgers• 14 years ago

There's a difference between, "I am sick of..." [as implied by "anyone else"] and "Are there too many of..."

In the first case the question doesn't facilitate investigation and reasoned argument, but rather venting and defensive rebuttal. The question isn't about analyzing the content but a rallying cry.

Mz2• 14 years ago

By your own logic, you could have just flagged this instead of critiquing, yet you chose to reply.

Discussion is often a growth process. Everyone has certain predispositions in how they frame things. It is generally far easier to frame things in terms of "I am (negative towards) X" than to propose a more constructive alternative. I find that one of the challenges of proposing a real alternative without stating what it is intended to be "against" is that people often fail entirely to see that it has any relevance to X. It strikes people as unrelated.

So let's say the OP spent a lot of time and effort to remove the negative framing and posted a "Best Practices" list for "How to post X on HN". It likely would not generate discussion (i.e. Feedback). The three companies which inspired his desire to write likely would not benefit at all since they already posted and there would be no future actionable advice (like "If you are preaching to the choir, you really need to step up your game"). And the odds are rather poor that anyone would bother to take the advice.

Sometimes, the imperfect, not PC framing furthers the real goal better. Even when it does not, sometimes a 90% solution now is better than a 100% solution later.

Not arguing with you. Just using your remarks as a jumping off point to my thoughts -- because it is easier and more effective (more engaging) than trying to make my point in some more PC manner. (I mean there is no intent to attack you or fight with you. I like debating ideas. Unfortunately, most arguments on the internet are ugly, emotional, personal attacks rather than a healthy exchange of different viewpoints.)

eric-hu• 14 years ago

You point out an interesting phenomena. I was just looking at this other AskHN thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4891470

People rant about how the Reddit downvote system is broken. Maybe this points to a flaw with upvotes and downvotes--the voters are given too little voice. Thus, they 'contribute' to site dialog less by creating disagreement posts to satisfy their own psychological need. This need could be something like 'the desire to express my opinion to a certain depth.'

ef4• 14 years ago

It's not that these ideas are necessarily bad. But they need to convince me that they're not being done purely out of the fear of getting out and talking to potential customers.

Make a product you would use yourself is all well and good, but there are two ways to get there: limit your products to the domains you know, or go out and learn new domains.

I believe the second strategy has a dramatically higher chance of success, because you can pick from a near-infinite choice of domains, many of which are woefully lacking in people who understand software.

nekopa• 14 years ago

Maybe these start-ups will be something extraordinary.

I am sure most of us here have looked at a particular start-up and thought 'No way in hell that will fly!'. For me it was Facebook.

I am not sure of which ones you were talking about, but I did see the one on curating info for start-ups. That could turn into an interesting business: link it with the the topic on 'how would I get started' and it could turn into an uber FAQ for start-up newbies (maybe even keeping HN clear of some noise) Breed it with the idea of stackoverflow and you could have an interesting site which collects info instead of creating new info (there's some great stuff out on the web, but, there is a lot of it). So who knows what it could become.

So three in a week isn't bad. It could be great in the end.

dr_doom2• 14 years ago

You posted a thread asking for help on your startup after being a member for 15 days.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4240543

Seems like an unfair rant. Flagged.

padseeker5• 14 years ago

fair enough. Although I feel like you missed my point. Review my startup is great. And all for people building a startup for startups.

I'm just seeing a lot of startups whose focus is to market to startups. And I feel like many people might be spinning their wheels by building for a market that is oversaturated.

What the hell do I know? Keep building startups for startups and asking for a review on HN. I'm just concerned that those people who are building their startup for startups might be wasting their time. And I myself and finding myself irritated about seeing nearly the same exact startup idea within a week. So flag me, I deserve it.

dr_doom2• 14 years ago

Sorry, my post came off as being a total dick. I didn't flag it lol.

threepipeproblm• 14 years ago

Honest question - before you complained, did you make any effort to understand the origins of Hacker News, and why it exists? Before stomping on a flower, you might endeavor to understand something about the soil it sprang from; as well as whether it is rare or common, and what nutrients it needs. If you do that, you will understand why HN needs startup posts, but probably not you (or me).

HN exists to serve the needs of a specific startup community. There is nothing wrong with this. If the flowers bring forth fruit that can entice we who do not have the needs of that community in mind to eat it, and spread the seeds, fine. But asking the organism to bear forth, say, twinkies, is a waste of time.

codegeek• 14 years ago

Startups for startups is a real need and even pg encourages startup for startups here (item #30) http://ycombinator.com/ideas.html

Now, as far as the quality of startups for startups is concerned, you can always argue whether they are good or bad etc. So you saying that you are sick of sick of startups for startups is probably no different than someone saying "I am just sick of all these Show HN posts" because essentially both are trying to achieve the same thing: get their startups shared with HN community (regardless of quality, purpose, type etc.)

ryporter• 14 years ago

Your complaint seems to have two main components: (1) that the startups exist at all, and (2) that they were posted to HN. While you may be right about the quality of the ideas, I definitely want people to continue to post any and all startups for review on HN. Both great and horrible ideas tend to lead to intelligent, informative back-and-forth in the comments from which I feel like a learn quite a bit even as just a lurker.

Ask HN: anyone else sick of startups for startups posted on HN?

Related Stories