Ask YC: Paul Graham's 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups: Which are no longer an issue when developing Facebook apps?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=81203

by amichail • 19 years ago

7 29 19 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Which of these mistakes (if any) are no longer an issue when developing Facebook apps?

http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

cperciva3• 19 years ago

Personally, I don't think "Single Founder" is an issue for facebook apps -- pg's argument of "It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him" is only valid if you're trying to talk your friends into joining you. (In my case, even though I'm not doing a facebook app, I've turned down offers with a "uhh, thanks... but I really don't need any help right now".) Different startups require different amounts of manpower, just like different startups require different amounts of capital -- I think most facebook applications easily fall into the "one person is enough" category.

As for the rest... I'd say they're all relevant to varying degrees. Probably "Bad Location" is less relevant, since it's partly about finding angels and VC (which are less important since facebook apps generally need less capital); while "Hiring Bad Programmers" is probably more relevant (if you're hiring anyone at all, at least), since most greybeards are old enough to have not drunk the facebook kool-aid.

aswanson3• 19 years ago

I never drank the Single Founder kool-aid either.

Completely off-topic, cperciva, but regarding your startup, why are you giving away your strongest asset (secure backup implementation and code) in order to make money on an increasingly commoditized product (the storage itself)? I would think it would be in your interest to do the opposite. Am I missing something?

cperciva3• 19 years ago

I'm not giving away the tarsnap code. I'll make the source code available for people to inspect (and compile for themselves) so that they don't have to blindly trust the binaries I provide; but it will be under a "you can use this only as part of the tarsnap backup service" license.

Alex3917• 19 years ago

Developing a Facebook app is mistake 19.

marcus6• 19 years ago

Actually I'm pretty sure that developing facebook apps falls under mistake 7 - Choosing the wrong platform.

EDIT: Whoever downmodded this comment, can you please explain to me why facebook is a good platform choice? What advantages does it have over developing a plain old website in your platform of choice? Not trying to start a flame war just trying to understand what I am missing here.

mattmaroon2• 19 years ago

Facebook has a large captive audience and an inherent viral spread mechanism to take advantage of that. Stupid apps that turn people into zombies get trillions of users and couldn't via email. Gift apps, super pokes, etc, can do the same.

More impressive still are apps like Texas Hold'em, which is essentially a mediocre card room for play money. It would never get 10k users as a standalone, but has 300k on Facebook.

rob• 19 years ago

Say that to the people making $500/day++ with their app.

boucher2• 19 years ago

Alright, so 180k a year. Definitely a pretty good paying job. But, honestly, how many people do you think that is at this point, considering that most of the installs are controlled by the top 10 or so developers.

marcus6• 19 years ago

Sometimes you can make a lot of money even if you make a mistake. Sometimes even if you make quite a few mistakes. There are quite a few startups that had the wrong platform and survived, quite a few that had only one founder and survived and so on.

The fact that something is a mistake doesn't mean its a fatal one. And that fact alone doesn't mean it is not a mistake.

The question you should ask yourself is whether your startup be better off if you hadn't made that choice.

lanej03• 19 years ago

What's the revenue model on a Facebook app? You're getting a tiny piece of advertising pie? Sorry, but building a company based off of what amounts to a plugin for someone else's software just doesn't seem like a good idea to me...

... that said, I guess it was done with PhotoShop a bunch of times. But people had to pay up front for that software.

Or are we returning to the dot com days where revenue doesn't matter -- it's all about pageviews?

marcus6• 19 years ago

That was the point I was trying to make. Perhaps you get easier access to liquidity and can gather users a tad faster but in the end you have very little control. You don't own the liquidity you are borrowing it, you don't even have a TOS contract (at least that one that I could find) with facebook, they can shut you down without any warning.

Even if you can make a very profitable app, imagine trying to IPO a facebook app... How do you think investors would evaluate the risk.

I can understand developing a facebook app as a part of a more comprehensive strategy as a complimentary tool to your website. That might be a very powerful tactic but as a standalone product, I just don't get it.

Again if anyone understands this differently I'd love to finally see what I am missing here...

amichail2• 19 years ago

I don't live in a place where VC funding is likely and I don't have a partner. I'm also not good at web design nor do I have good contacts among top web 2.0 bloggers.

And from my startup prototypes so far, I have learned that most users have very little patience, understand little, and generally don't contribute much.

For these reasons, toy Facebook apps seem to be my best bet. I also like the idea of playing with people's minds, easily tweaking things here and there to see what sort of psychological/sociological impact they will have, etc.

lanej03• 19 years ago

Agreed. I was reading the latest Entrepreneur magazine where they had an interview with Guy Kawasaki about truemors.com. He mentioned something to the effect of the majority of their traffic came via. the facebook app -- but the traffic wouldn't matter if there's no way to convert that to dollars.

No doubt on the IPO/TOS front. Imagine if someone develops some facebook app that leads to massive litigation. I'm sure facebook would share in the liability as they are the delivery mechanism. All of a sudden, facebook decides to limit access to only a chosen few developers.

Or better yet, facebook has a soft quarter and decides that developers now need to license the platform for some exorbitant rate.

neilk• 19 years ago

I don't see any mistake that is obviously eliminated for Facebook apps, and problem #7 (choosing the wrong platform) is a significant risk.

However, it's not clear that single Facebook apps qualify as startups in Paul's sense. At least today, FB apps are more like content that plug into an existing distribution network, like movies + distributors or blogs + AdSense.

If you wanted to found a business that made FB apps, many per year, that's a different story. Then you'd be more like a game studio.

DarrenStuart2• 19 years ago

single founder comment is complete rubbish. If someone has the drive and ability then why shouldn't do it. Saying that just because they couldn't talk any of their friends into joining them is so small minded. I have lots of friends but none of them are techie and or interested in startups so does that mean I shouldn't have started my business because none of them are into it? I know Paul has a cult following around here but he really does seem to think everyone doing tech startups are collage grads.

marcus6• 19 years ago

I agree some projects are great fits for single founders but you should be able to convince at least one rational person this is a good idea and is worth investing the time, energy, money into.

It doesn't matter if that person is your spouse, a co-founder, an angel - but make sure at least one person whose opinion you respect and has something to lose if you fail/waste your time thinks this is a good idea.

DarrenStuart2• 19 years ago

totally, people can give you feedback on ideas. If its too big for you at that time store it until you have made some contacts that can help you do it or have the money to hire the skills needed. I work this way.

mynameishere• 19 years ago

I have lots of friends but none of them are techie

I have friends who are techies. I've sent out feelers just to get an idea of what their business drive/competence might be. Answer: Not good. Obviously, I don't live near Stanford, but most people don't either...and it would be insane to pair up with people for the sake of pairing.

nkohari• 19 years ago

I think it really depends. Most of the applications that currently exist on Facebook are defined by Facebook itself. That is to say, the applications add to the features of Facebook, rather than Facebook adding to the application. I think that soon, we will start seeing sites rely on Facebook's API to drive the social infrastructure of their site. In this way, the site would be self-sufficient, but could take advantage of Facebook's platform to add value to their own offering.

I'll bet dollars to donuts that the applications that receive grants from the fbFund will be of this ilk rather than a SuperMegaUltraPoke or Vampires and Pirate Ninjas application. At least, I hope so. If not, Facebook apps will never mature, and will be the flash in the pan that many think they will.

Ask YC: Paul Graham's 18 Mistakes that Kill Startups: Which are no longer an issue when developing Facebook apps?

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