Dear Google, Thanks For Copying My Startup But You’re Doing It All Wrong

http://willweinraub.com/post/66100105668/dear-google-thanks-for-copying-my-startup-but-youre

by willaaye • 13 years ago

196 129 13 years ago

zbruhnke• 13 years ago

Well written and thought out post, I hope you get to sit down with the right people at Google tomorrow Will.

Best of luck with Live Ninja, as an early beta user of hangouts and someone who had never seen Live Ninja before this AM I have to say i am truly impressed with what you guys have built at Live Ninja

willaaye5• 13 years ago

Thanks so much! That really means a lot.

SergeyHack2• 13 years ago

BTW, your motto is not perfect IMHO.

"Experts" and "expertise" in "Find Experts. Sell Expertise" is too general. I would try to come up with more concrete examples though I realize it's not an easy task.

octaveguin• 13 years ago

Maybe I missed something but it sounds like a rant from a company that wishes they were bought but weren't.

There doesn't seem to be any insight into how google is 'doing it wrong' other than a kind of 'they don't have the experience like us'.

willaaye5• 13 years ago

Not the case. I'm surely not going to spell out exactly what they are doing wrong publicly in the post.

We are competitors now after all. :)

danielweber• 13 years ago

I really really wished he would have told me what his product does a lot sooner. I don't read LiveNinja's blog every day. In fact, I had never heard of them before today.

I got to "Google copied us, and they suck," and then I simply lost interest.

I have had bigger companies copy my stuff before, sometimes including the typos, so I can feel for his tough position, but this doesn't sit very well.

a-priori• 13 years ago

I'm surprised Google didn't aqui-hire these folks and turn LiveNinja into Google Helpouts.

obvious013• 13 years ago

Google already had the tech infrastructure for Helpouts. They would have aquihired them for their tiny user base and/or their domain-specific knowledge.

While, the author of the article has learned a lot over the past year - I think it is a safe bet that the information was not worth a lot to google. First, they could easily discover the same information after a few quick iterations. Second, there is a lot of organization debt during an aquihire which would make the knowledge transfer very expensive.

sfpirate• 13 years ago

Compare Evernote with Google Keep. The latter, which came out later, converted me to use the former. You have nothing to worry about. A big company sucks at copying ideas. An innovative big company gives incentives to defensive maneuvers like this, but never sees them through to an offensive maneuver unless there's billions at immediate risk. If anything, Google is doing you a favor by shining the spotlight on a mediocre solution. All you need now is the product to tap into that dissatisfied channel. They just validated the significance of your market for you. Good luck!

SergeyHack2• 13 years ago

I think Live Ninja team realize this and they made this really good PR move. It really deserves upvoting IMHO.

TillE• 13 years ago

Google Keep is great for shopping lists and maybe a quick sticky note or two. Everything else, not so much. I'm shocked at how little it's developed in the seven months since release.

Google are pretty well established in a few big categories, but aside from Android, I can't remember the last time they were really successful in muscling in on some new territory.

Shooti• 13 years ago

Google Keep is more of an iOS/OS X Notes competitor, not an Evernote competitor.

kin2• 13 years ago

Great attitude. I've known a start-up or two that either pivoted or dropped their project altogether at the news of Google releasing a similar idea.

Google is great at engineering, but the new iteration of Google Maps is proof IMO that they're not a great at products.

With that said, I'm sure y'all at Live Ninja will throw the knock out punch.

bluetidepro• 13 years ago

I know it's slightly off topic, but your comment "... the new iteration of Google Maps is proof IMO that they're not a great at products." I'm curious as to what you don't like about the new Google Maps? Personally, I think that while it took a little bit to get used to, it's great and works way better than before. I'm just curious to hear your two cents on what you don't like about the new maps. Thanks!

Semaphor• 13 years ago

(not op)

It's half and half for me. On the one hand it look awesome and many thing became easier to do. Like finding a route.

On the other hand it feels a bit like an Apple product to me. The old maps was more intuitive, now it's as if they want me to do things exactly the way they planned it and every other way is wrong.

pfranz• 13 years ago

Here are some of my personal rants on the new interface.

I hate how it zooms on every single search. Before, it would only move the map when your search result wasn't visible on the current map. If I'm searching for something, 90% of the time it's in my area and I want to know where it is relative to everything else. Now I always have to zoom out to get context (and they keep moving zoom UI element around--it's gone from top-right, to top-left, to bottom-right).

I cannot figure out how to use street view anymore. Looking at it now, I can kind of access it next to photos of a venue, but many times the venue is on a street corner or down an unmapped alley so you don't get to choose where you're looking from. They no longer show you what is mapped and what isn't and you cannot change your view from a top-down map. Last week I was searching near two similar street names (foo ave and foo st, for example). The one I wanted wasn't mapped and it snapped me to the other street, but I didn't know this.

They added a loading screen to the main page. Before you'd see tiles as they'd load, now you see a grey screen and the whole map fades in. This is terrible if you have a spotty connection. It also takes you longer to orient yourself since you can't see any landmarks until the entire page completely loads. Thankfully there still is progressive loading when panning/zooming (which, I think, was one of Google Maps original killer features).

kin2• 13 years ago

I'm more than happy to elaborate.

Web Client: First of all, I hate how control are at 4 opposite corners of the screen. On any screen size it now takes longer to go from one control to another. I used to be able to zoom down all the way to street view. Now I have to click on a spot and hope that the street view option comes on. I used to be able to right click and search nearby. Now when I search in an area and want to see a list of results and I can't change the search area without going back and forth. It's one thing to change the aesthetics and move features around. But to completely remove features is really annoying.

Mobile client: My use case is when I'm in motion. I want to see where I'm at currently. It always shows where you last were before it fetches a GPS signal. Sometimes, it even shows me moving in the opposite direction at my old location before it finally updates and animates to my location. This leads to confusion while I'm driving or walking. The animation is really annoying because sometimes I'm super far from my previous location and I have to wait for the app to animate to my position and on top of that zoom down to a default zoom level which should never be assumed because different zoom levels have different contexts and this assumes a default.

When I do searches for anything, it automatically zooms to the top hit. I always have to zoom out or even stop it while it's mid-zoom. They've removed tons of features like layers, seeing things along the way during navigation (useful for gas stations along the way home), etc. For the mobile client, I can really go on forever.

There was nothing wrong w/ the old maps looks wise. Yes, the new maps "looks" nicer but it's actually frustrating to use and I'm sad to see a lot of features go.

highace• 13 years ago

tl;dr: Please buy us.

Having Google enter your space must be one of the most crushing things that can happen to a small company. The feeling these guys felt when they saw the announcement must have been mortifying. Even if you have a superior product, like LiveNinja says they have, Google will outmarket you by so many orders of magnitude you just disappear into nothingness.

latj• 13 years ago

Please buy us or give me a job.

willaaye5• 13 years ago

That's a terrible way to think. Drew Houston knew Microsoft and Google were already in the midst of building competitors when he applied Dropbox to YC.

I hope fellow entrepreneurs dont ever get discouraged when they see larger companies follow them on the same trail. It means they are on the right track more than anything else.

Dropbox didnt get discouraged and neither should any other startup.

chourobin• 13 years ago

Another example is Facebook Poke and Snapchat.

WA• 13 years ago

I think you're comparing apples to oranges here. Dropbox was different and still is and came after Google and Microsoft were building their stuff.

In this case, LiveNinja was first, Google copied it, apparently building the exact same product.

So, I'd read the original post as "please buy us" as well.

bcoates• 13 years ago

Are there a lot of products where Google's forced out the competition? All I can think of are search, maps, and webmail (a long time ago) and web analytics (closely coupled to their core business).

The rest of the stuff I can think of is either competing but not dominant (phone OSes, browsers), or bought as a winner (doubleclick, youtube). They don't seem to have honed their Microsoft-ish emulate-and-destroy skills.

He's probably not bluffing that Google moving into your space is a good thing for your company.

ye• 13 years ago

Also google reimplementing somebody's working business is one of the most evil things I can think of in IT.

Google has pretty much unlimited resources and an army of bored overqualified engineers. They can literally take any successful online business, implement it themselves, and push it forward with their search engine.

It's not illegal, I know, but it is unethical.

computer• 13 years ago

Given the probably smallish market for helpouts for a giant like Google, I think we should see Helpouts more like a marketing thing for Hangouts than a full-fledged competitor in this space?

jfasi• 13 years ago

I'm actually curious about what sort of mistakes Google is obviously making here besides being a competitor to LiveNinja. Did I miss something or is this post just vague trash talking?

exacube2• 13 years ago

It's a pretty dry post, it sounds like the author wants to talk to Google to see if they can "work together"

ebarock• 13 years ago

agree! it seems that he is just "running-to-dont-loose-the-company"

grimtrigger• 13 years ago

Read it twice, not a single differentiator between the two products was named.

mdrn• 13 years ago

If he were to acknowledge the main differentiation he would lose a lot of Android users. Hangouts, will be integrated in all 4.4+ devices providing a huge direct market for Google. In just one service announcement, Google has successfully outsourced their support department.

deelowe• 13 years ago

yeah. Seemed vague to me.

xpop2027• 13 years ago

It's really nice to see Miami as a tech community getting attention lately.

nostromo2• 13 years ago

There have been a number of similar startups and companies, so it's a stretch to assume that Google stumbled upon your company and decided to copy it. (Not to say they don't do exactly that -- but they target big proven markets, like Dropbox and Groupon and Facebook.)

It's easy to forget that at any given moment, lots of smart people are independently identifying a market opportunity.

The good news is that the revenue for Google will be so low it will likely be shelved when they put more wood behind fewer arrows. I suggest writing your "We're sorry to see Google Helpouts go, here's how to import your profile" post in advance.

obvious013• 13 years ago

The article never argues that the Google is copying his startup (except facetiously in the title). He rants that Google launched a product in the same space and appears to be making the same mistakes that he did on his first iteration.

nostromo2• 13 years ago

it was much earlier this year when we noticed your employees signing up for LiveNinja
I’m really happy a small team based out of Miami was able to inspire you in the way that we did

danmaz74• 13 years ago

Google might have copied from many startups, but this one was the fastest to paint itself as the anti-Google. Light article, but smart move.

cylinder• 13 years ago

The color theme (green buttons and favicon) is identical and the front pages look very similar.

wahsd• 13 years ago

"...I’m pretty underwhelmed." pretty much summarizes every single Google asset ever. Don't worry, Helpouts (who the F comes up with those names, Google), will be dumped in the dustbin before long as Google starts finding interest in the next thing that it only haphazardly cares about.

exacube2• 13 years ago

Man doesn't explain what Google is doing wrong.. I think OP just wants to let Google know that he is a competitor and considers himself ahead of the game.

ggjain• 13 years ago

Hey Will,

Kudos and Best of luck. Sometimes the smaller nimble player are the key for a solution, which a decade back Google was, and now you may have that chance. Get it going, make it big and put a $X Billion price on the door.

...and yes don't go for knock out, make them sweat. Cheers!!!

_wmd• 13 years ago

Wish more companies cut to the chase and simply advertised themselves as e.g. "exactly like Google Helpouts, except Not Google"

The "not Google" tag in itself is enough to drive me to click, where previously I didn't even know what Helpouts was, and had been ignoring the links. "Gee, another free product I'd need a Google Account for, I immediately don't even care what it does"

madoublet• 13 years ago

This sounds like a good rallying cry, but as someone who is seeing both products for the first time, I would say that Google does a much better job of communicating their product. In fact, I would not have not know what SiteNinja did if not viewing the Google product first.

wtvanhest• 13 years ago

I have to be honest, one thing google is doing right is actually having the product on the first page. I would seriously consider changing your front end. It is crazy busy with self promotion when I'm already there to see whats going on. Hopefully I remember to check it out in the future but in the 10 seconds I looked at your page, I had no idea where to go to get started and browse the listings.

Google does this much, much better.

oftenwrong• 13 years ago

I’m pretty underwhelmed.

Why?

This is more like a squeeze bunt back to the pitcher and you’re out at first base.

How so?

What I’m seeing when I look at Helpouts is some of the exact same mistakes we made over a year ago, while our company was still in private beta.

For example?

...you built Helpouts all wrong.

Go on...

Will people buy some of these Helpouts? Yes. No doubt. But it’s not going to scale in the way you hoped. Not like this.

Like what?

deathanatos• 13 years ago

Did he ever lay out concrete examples or reasons as to how Google is doing it wrong? I gave up digging through all the fluff.

cloudwalking• 13 years ago

No.

lem72• 13 years ago

I stopped reading pretty quickly in and then scanned through it... It doesn't look like he gave any real takeaway and it came off as just a veiled insult to google to me.

cwills2• 13 years ago

I get the impression he would like to sell this information to Google, in an acquisition.

samtp• 13 years ago

Unrelated, but:

I really love competition, and as a competitor I only want to compete against the best of the best. It’s like Mike Tyson in his prime saying that he wants to box with you.

Wanting to box Mike Tyson in his prime is a death wish. Maybe not the best analogy...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-478QGV9pc

mildtrepidation• 13 years ago

If Mike Tyson says he wants to box with you, that's a compliment (either that or he just really doesn't like you). Actually agreeing to do it, that's where the death wish comes in.

incision• 13 years ago

"Wanting to box Mike Tyson in his prime is a death wish. Maybe not the best analogy..."

Probably not.

Though, the thing that Iron Mike brings to mind in the context of startups for me isn't his impetuous style, impregnable defense or ferocious offense. It was the way so many of opponents we're seemingly defeated before the bell.

Tony Tucker gave strong evidence he wasn't invincible and Buster Douglas proved it. They did it by maintaining composure and confidence in both cases.

The lesson, I think, is to understand the challenge in front of you, attack it intelligently and be fearless in doing so.

tschellenbach• 13 years ago

So over at Fashiolista we felt really scared when google launched boutiques with the crazy 100M acquisition of like.com

They announced partnerships with many celebrities, got PR on every major tech and fashion outlet.

In the end Fashiolista ended up dominating its space and google boutiques...

So stop your attempt at getting bought, get back to work and show these guys :)

EGreg• 13 years ago

Love it. Gutsy, and getting your story to be linked with Google, so it will be picked up. That way you'll get more traffic to your startup. And as a side benefit you can get Google to possibly make an investment bid in you.

shadowmatter2• 13 years ago

I'm not going to lie, I didn't like this post as much as I wanted to.

The author says that Google is making the same mistakes that LiveNinja made over a year ago. And that LiveNinja has learned a lot and iterated since then. At this point, I'm ready to believe that LiveNinja is the more mature product. That if I have a need, I should probably go to LiveNinja. I'm ready to be sold... But then the author does nothing. He don't actually tell me WHY LiveNinja is better. Instead, he mentions Google Answers, Buzz, and Wave.

Why not drop the ad hominem, and sell to your potential customers instead?

marveller• 13 years ago

My sentiments exactly. I was expecting an explanation why/what exactly LiveNinja is better.

valvoja• 13 years ago

It would have been a great article if they had mentioned 2 or 3 concrete things they have learned. Lets wait for an update...

Vekz• 13 years ago

Agreed. All this article really gives me is a brand comparison of both products. I know what to expect from Google, and Helpouts is probably familiar in the brand vein of Hangouts. However after reading this article I'm left with a sour brand impression from Liveninja. I get that vibe of nerd machoism from the tone of the article and the product name, ninja pirates and robots oh my.

beginagain• 13 years ago

I'm glad that he didn't...in a hopeful sense anyway. I would have preferred this post to come after they truly did crush google in this space, as I think it is an inspiration to the small/new guys who intimidate and bully themselves from ever doing something because they just think that google and friends will swoop in and do it faster and better.

I have my reservations, but I hope that these guys create a better product and end up being bought out by google in the long run.

hbharadwaj• 13 years ago

Maybe he wants Google to buy his company

shadowmatter2• 13 years ago

But explicitly spelling out to your wealthy competitor all the ways in which you kick its ass likely improves your chances of being acquired.

Segmentation• 13 years ago

This is exactly the intent of the blog post.

"Hey, we're better than you. We've been here for awhile, we've already solved the mistakes you'll be making. Oh btw, we won Startup World. Why don't you just acquire us already?"

Aldo_MX4• 13 years ago

I have mixed feelings, right now I'm experiencing a similar story with a project I have, and at this point I'm frustrated because whatever feature or differentiator I add, my competition takes it, at this point I feel like I'm the one shaping my competitor.

I can only spend ~4 hours/week to this project and I'm the only person behind it, whereas my competitor has ~20 active contributors, so I'm starting to get dismotivated enough to continue with the project...

Considering that my competition is stealing whatever I do, and considering that I don't have the resources to compete with them, I don't see much options...

scott_s• 13 years ago

Collaborate?

benihana• 13 years ago

my competition takes it, at this point I feel like I'm the one shaping my competitor.

Obviously the only solution is to start putting horrible features that people will hate.

myko• 13 years ago

Are they hiring? I feel like I need more backstory on this. Are both projects open source?

7Figures2Commas• 13 years ago

The target audience for posts like these is more often than not...(wait for it)...the person who wrote the post.

When a big company enters your space and becomes a competitor, the first reaction of many if not most founders is to worry. These types of posts are an effort on the part of founders to convince themselves that the larger competitor has an inferior offering and won't be able to compete effectively.

Incidentally, I think LiveNinja's biggest challenge is the same as Google's: its offering is way too broad. The fundamental purpose of these services is to aggregate "expertise" and market it to consumers on behalf of the providers of that "expertise."

To do that effectively, vertical focus is crucial. This is especially true if you're a startup, but it will also apply to Google unless Google leverages search and YouTube to promote relevant Helpouts providers.

tzury• 13 years ago

Man,your nick name made me laugh. It is a great one.

zaidf• 13 years ago

Seconded. I used to work at Betterfly which is in the same space and our lack of focus on a vertical ultimately really cost us. To our VC's credit, they always pushed us to pick a vertical--even if it was something completely random. Building a general product for everyone is super hard and you risk satisfying no one. When I moved on from the job to my own start-up, the single biggest lesson I took was to pick a vertical!

Aldo_MX4• 13 years ago

To be honest, I would be most afraid of not having the resources to compete, but at this point I began thinking, why not contact a Google competitor?

I mean, if he can prove that Google is way behind his work, then he has an advantage that may provide more value to a company that is interested in competing with Google and has the resources to justify competing at a bigger scale.

JumpCrisscross3• 13 years ago

The trader in me smells fear in this post, not confidence.

To (quickly) test my intuition I compared the language in this post with the last two [1,2] using the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level (FKGL) statistic [3]. This statistic tends to decrease by 0.4 to 0.8 following trauma [4]. The original post was written with the sentence and vocabulary complexity of a 6th or 7th grader (6.9). The other two were more at the level of an 8th grader (8.4 and 8.8). Thus, we see a -1.7 change in the FKGL.

[1] http://willweinraub.com/post/44506341885/the-happiness-equat...

[2] http://willweinraub.com/post/53269730823/stop-saying-you-hav...

[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch-Kincaid#Flesch.E2.80.93K...

[4] http://www.researchgate.net/publication/227792923_Relationsh...

vubuntu• 13 years ago

Why would he provide fodder to Google Helpouts product managers?

He is already 'selling' his product, by writing a blog, by making sure it showed up on HN and pointing out that his product is more mature and Google tried to 'get inspiration' from his product (by creating accounts on his website and probably browsing through features etc).

He has drawn enough attention so that potential users might now try it out for themselves and compare between his product and Google Helpouts.. He doesn't have to list out the features one-by-one that they have found through 2 years of being a live/running product that they believe are strong differentiators. In any case, it wouldn't be the features that will lead to growth of such products. It would be the momentum they generate and mass they can gather that will feed itself and further increase adoption. Making it harder for any late comers to make any significant dent.

Also, he is probably leaving enough tantalizing info out of public, to possibly draw Google to the table for a possible acquihire. You can sense from the tone of his blog that he is neither being too harshly critical (that they copied his product) nor too solicitous of Google's products/services/prowess. Just setting the right amount of tone.

dpark• 13 years ago

Why would he provide fodder to Google Helpouts product managers?

Because the article has no actual content and sounds like self-congratulatory fluff. It doesn't convince me that LiveNinja is better than Google's offering. It convinces me that the author of LiveNinja cannot actually point to one concrete thing that they do better than Google.

davidjgraph• 13 years ago

Entirely seriously, their site has been top of HN for a few hours now. They don't care in the slightest whether the post make more sense, in fact probably better lay the HN counter-argument on a plate with a link-bait headline.

It's a thinly veiled marketing attempt and because we've voted up rather than flagged, it's worked. I'd have a big grin on my face in his position today...

kamjam3• 13 years ago

They're never really going to make it big just by making it to the top of HN, are they? They seriously need to be looking at a bigger audience base than that... I presume the link has been making the rounds on reddit et al too?

joshstrange• 13 years ago

Agreed,

I went back and re-read it because at the end I still had the question of "Why is LiveNinja better than Helpouts" or "What is Helpouts doing wrong". I'm not weighing in on either side I just would like to know what he doesn't like about Helpouts.

wpietri• 13 years ago

Because the real audience is not some guy on HN, but the small number of people at Google who could acquire his company and might meet with him while he's at Google tomorrow?

donrhummy• 13 years ago

I got the feeling this post was really an attempt to get google to buy them out.

obilgic• 13 years ago

I have read this 3 times, I still don't know what he is trying to say

notlisted• 13 years ago

I'm sorry, but the post strikes me more as a rant-y whine from a company that isn't competition in a field that is alive and well..

How is Google's service a copy of your product?

Several live support sites have come and gone, way before you even started your private beta, and some are still around ( e.g. http://www.liveperson.com/experts being one that comes to mind).

There are a multitude sites that offer live instructions that thrive ( e.g. http://livemocha.com )

What makes LiveNinja so unique (except a very nice design)?

Edit: links clickable

DavidWanjiru• 13 years ago

A service that enables domain experts to give video advice to paying users is not an idea you're going to be the only one who's ever thought about. So it's a bit iffy to claim that someone copied your start-up. Unless you're talking about specific methods of defining or solving problems in your execution of the concept, which doesn't seem to me to have been the case here. I could be wrong, naturally.

wehadfun• 13 years ago

Why would you link to them?

pseudometa• 13 years ago

When visiting Google Helpouts, I imidiately understood its purpose... unlike going to the LiveNinja website. Watch a video? Aint nobody got time for that.

greyfox• 13 years ago

Author thanks google for copying its product, hope googles outcompetes him? Is there some tragic irony in play here or is this guy just a well wisher?

deong• 13 years ago

I hate to be that guy, but for some reason I'm unable to let this one pass by. It's trivial, and in no way reflects on his point (to the degree that he has one...the article is shockingly light on any concrete information), but for some reason this bugs me.

This is more like a squeeze bunt back to the pitcher and you're out at first base.

You're supposed to be out at first base on a squeeze bunt. That's what a squeeze bunt is. You give yourself up so that the runner from third can score.

AznHisoka2• 13 years ago

A squeeze bunt also results in a run. Which is appropriate because maybe Google is doing this to indirectly improve their brand or another business area.

iLoch• 13 years ago

Maybe LiveNinja is the player on third :)

tomasien• 13 years ago

Explain to me why LiveNinja is better - I've thought that a product like LiveNinja (or now Helpouts) was needed for a while, and you've got me convinced Helpouts is shit and LiveNinja is better.... until you didn't actually explain why.

AznHisoka2• 13 years ago

Keep believing that.. we all know you're shivering with fear because Google entered a market you're in :)

mads• 13 years ago

OP is a fag.

Sincerely Google.

PS. Shadowbanner, you are a fag too!

talles• 13 years ago

"What I’m seeing when I look at Helpouts is some of the exact same mistakes we made over a year ago, while our company was still in private beta."

The guy should to a short intro on the situation, put this paragraph an then lists all what is wrong with Google's approach and why they are the one got it right.

Instead the article feels like a lot of mixed paragraph s with the author feelings or whinings with no point at all.

oh_sigh• 13 years ago

I like how the author says that there are all these mistakes that are being made, but doesn't elaborate on any of them

lacion• 13 years ago

this article is merely piggy bagging on the noise and flow of hits helpouts is generating nothing more, there is absolutely nothing useful in it.

bruceb• 13 years ago

@willaaye Can you tell us why you decided not to have a search bar right in the middle of the page so users can see what is available right away. You push people to signup before they search unless they discover the small search bar in the top right. Does this actually result in more signups?

moron4hire• 13 years ago

Hahaha, I can't stop reading it as Hell Pouts.

wproller• 13 years ago

Hi Will - Like the post... was poking around the site looking for a refrigerator repairman but couldn't find one.

I did find some broken links in the suggested categories... looks like a little syntax slip - you could probably fix in 30 secs.

https://www.liveninja.com/browse/\food-cooking\

The categories are being appended with forward slashes instead of back slashes.

Keep up the good work.

lwan• 13 years ago

For all of the people wondering why he didn't explain what Google was doing wrong, he'll be effectively giving Google the market research that convinced him that Google's doing it wrong. (assuming something's there)

He had to respond to this. To the blind consumer, the two products are the same thing. Except Google made one that sounds like hangouts and the other has the word ninja in it.

whiddershins• 13 years ago

When I signed up for liveninja using facebook, it gave me the facebook access confirmation fullscreen, so the OK was way in the bottom right. I almost missed it.

In case that is helpful.

ivan_ah• 13 years ago

I found it interesting that the "use cases" in the G. Helpouts video were exactly the same as the ones in the LiveNinja promo video[1] which was posted 1y ago: guitar, yoga, and fashion ~= makeup.

I guess there might be some idea-copying going on...

[1] http://vimeo.com/37270865

ecspike• 13 years ago

Not really on the guitar one. The main guy who does guitar lessons on Helpouts also did so on Google+ since nearly the beginning.

cletus• 13 years ago

Perhaps I'm cynical but when I see this title I read:

"I'm creating publicity for my startup by mentioning Google and hoping this gets picked up by HN, reddit, etc"

The mantra on HN and elsewhere by now is firmly that "execution matters". Also, not that many things are really "new". They're just a new take on an existing idea or simply better execution. There were a bunch of video sites before Youtube took off.

So I mean no disrespect to the author or his startup. In fact, I think he knows he's doing exactly this: simply raising his startup's profile. I applaud his efforts (both in that and his startup).

I will say though that you never get far by saying why other companies or their products are bad. Speaking generally I mean, not specific to the author or his post at this point. You really need to sell your own product or service on its positives not on other's negatives.

So when I see a post that basically says "X is doing the same thing but doing it worse" the cynic in me just sees another startup that will be on the trash heap of history in another 1-2 years tops.

zxcvvcxz• 13 years ago

Did the author just write an essay saying "you're doing it wrong" over and over without saying why? I was reading for the why and got nothing.

I think that would've been infinitely more valuable as a post.

JoseVigil• 13 years ago

I congratulate the article's author for moving his product in a brave manner. I can also understand the feeling of the author however there are some things he should review. The name he has chosen is limited to this forum and an amount of tech guys, Google could have bought him but not with that name. On the other hand having Hangouts working this idea was only a matter of time before putting the user needs on the table.

nakovet• 13 years ago

For me it looked like a "buy me" post. No content, just empty words.

kenkam• 13 years ago

An awful lot of words to say essentially a) Google has a similar product and a hint of you stole our idea but that's ok, OP likes competition and b) OP has learnt much but won't say what it is (at this point I assume it's because of competitive reasons) and c) he's willing to share some of the insights to the market with Google directly so invalidates my assumption in b).

Regardless of how the blog was written -- this is how I got to know LiveNinja. Kudos for that.

jerrickhoang• 13 years ago

This sounds to me like either a cheap marketing post or a terrible cover letter. No more.

mixmax• 13 years ago

This is a terrific post - If liveninja doesn't work out Will should start an PR agency.

Note these points he manages to get across in a subtle way:

- We're disappointed that Google with all their resources couldn't make a better product. (Our product is superior)

- You made the exact same mistakes we made a year ago (we're a year ahead of you, and you don't know what you're doing)

- We're glad Google entered the scene and validated the market. (this is now a validated market niche, investors take note)

- We really hope for the sake of Googles customers that they'll stick around and not make this an experiment like buzz, wave, etc. (We're in it for the long haul, Google will shut down their service and leave you hanging if they don't see instant success)

- You're dealing with customers who need this tool and are willing to pay for it (Investors, did you read this?)

- I'll be visiting tomorrow because I won an award and the prize was a trip to Google. I'd be happy to have a conversation and help you out. (Why don't you buy my company instead)

Never does he condemn Google for stealing his idea, bullying or entering the space. He comes across as happy for the competition because he knows his product is better. (whether it is is another matter, I don't know)

This is a textbook example of how to deal with a large competitor entering your business niche.

abbasmehdi2• 13 years ago

Agreed. Also, Google's weakness that a startup can exploit is their almost non-existent Customer Service. Google wants to scale massively from day one, so manual, 1-on-1 support can never be part of the plan (unless they go meta and create a Helpouts for Helpouts, probable actually). If Google entered my space, I'd just up the customer hand-holding game and start posting testimonials about it.

Kevin Hale of Wufoo comes to mind: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBWFfxE2658

JumpCrisscross3• 13 years ago

I've had great experience with Google Apps customer service - the person on the phone took the time to understand my problem, went away while he worked on it, and a few hours later emailed me a detailed set of instructions for a workaround he found to my specific situation.

JoelAnair• 13 years ago

If it's a squeeze bunt and the batter is out at first base, presumably the runner scored. That is exactly the purpose of a suicide squeeze. Safety squeezes are extremely rare, and "a squeeze bunt" nearly always refers to a suicide squeeze.

aashaykumar92• 13 years ago

Fuck the competition, don't worry about them--your post shows there is no reason to yet.

If this is a way to get your name out there and you're looking for Google to acquire you in the future, fine but I guess I don't see the point in this post as it's a waste of time writing about competition instead of building and improving LiveNinja. Sorry to be blunt but all the best with LiveNinja, I do hope it crushes Google's stab at it.

markhelo• 13 years ago

Disclaimer: I build Wello(https://www.wello.com) and am ex-googler.

We are a vertical marketplace for connecting you to fitness professionals. We are extremely focused on this segment and our offering in terms of price and trainer quality, etc speaks for itself.

Here are some observations from my point of view.

1. I welcome Google entering this space. I am not nearly as worried as others are. The big challenge that this business really has is that we need to explain to people that you can do somethings over video that you used to do in person. Google has infinitely more marketing dollars than we do. If they can convince folks that this is something easy, we would love to ride their coattails (is that one word?) on that one.

2. For some verticals, Google will do well (my guess, technical help etc). Building a fitness focused marketplace is not the same as building a music learning marketplace. We can make our user experience far more fitness centric than everyone else. Ultimately our users value that. So do users of other vertical marketplaces for online tutoring, etc. When you are meeting a trainer, we can offer health tracking, health data analysis, fitness suggestions based on your prior workouts with us. This is not impossible for Google but they have to boil the ocean first and then make their bets.

3. Working in this space, it has also taught us that while Google will be better at some things (integrating with Hangouts, Android etc), if they are going to move to WebRTC, there are many users who still prefer IE and Safari and are stuck on older versions. If they move to support those browsers, then it is at odds with their WebRTC focus. We can offer an independent solution that uses WebRTC when available and not in other environments to again give a better user experience.

4. Overall, we are cautiously optimistic that this is good for this space. It validates our work for the past year and we are hoping the market is big enough for a lot of niche segments.

Be Wello, Amol

rodolphoarruda• 13 years ago

English is not my first language. I'm not part of the culture that connects the word Ninja to someone specialized on something. When I first read about "LiveNinja" I had to think hard to figure out what this service was about. I don't know how this service could ever be understood/accepted outside the circles where the word "Ninja" makes sense. On the other hand we have a service from a global company that uses "Help" as prefix on its name. IMHO, I see a big difference here.

onelovelyname• 13 years ago

Decided to think about Helpouts from Google's perspective. I don't see it as a stand-alone monetizable business, put into the market to compete with LiveNinja. Rather, it's a strategic move by Google to strengthen its ecosystem by:

1. Onboarding more people to G+. G+ is Google's attempt to create a single social identity for each person across all Google products, thus uniting what can seem like a fragmented Google experience. Having Helpouts (using Google Hangouts) is one way to drive new users for G+ through a specific use case.

2. Developing real-time results for help in Google Search. Imagine what will happen when a user searches "math tutoring today" - Google can offer real-time suggestions from Helpouts using Universal Search and Knowledge Graph.

3. Driving new business accounts on Google Apps & Google Analytics, plus sell more ads. When Google encourages skilled people to create Helpouts, they are basically increasing the number of enterprise customers they can potentially recruit for Apps, Analytics, and oh yeah - search / display ads.

And a random idea:

4. Using recorded Hangouts and posting them into a new category on Youtube. Could increase the overall quality of instruction. Also Youtube could be a great way to source Helpout teachers.

If Google chooses to achieve scale - by integrating with search most likely - it will be difficult for LiveNinja to compete on a broad scale. As previous posts mention, a niche / targeted approach may work better for LN to secure loyal users and deter drop off to Helpouts.

nbevans• 13 years ago

LiveNinja is a terrible name.

augustocallejas• 13 years ago

I found this post highly insincere and filed with veiled bitterness.

Regardless, I see the potential in the market for online expertise and would recommend aligning yourself with some verticals to provide some needed focus.

Dear Google, Thanks For Copying My Startup But You’re Doing It All Wrong

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