And then, suddenly, it works

The other day a friend was demoing a new app he was working on. My first reaction was: “Yeah, yeah. This is nicely executed version one of those ideas I’ve seen 50 times.” My second reaction was: “But I could say that about pretty much every successful startup I’ve seen over the last 10 years.”

Most of the time, important new ideas don’t succeed on the first attempt or even the first ten attempts. But then they do, and it seems to happen suddenly. It’s hard to tell why this is. It’s probably a combination of timing (riding some fundamental shift in technology or culture), and execution (getting the product just right).

An idea getting tried over and over tends to be a positive signal (which is one reason that competition is overrated). It’s very easy when you spend lots of time around startups to get cynical. You could tweet and blog predictions that every new startup will fail and how the ideas are derivative and you’d be right 95% of the time. The hard part – and what matters for founders and investors – is figuring out the right mix of timing and execution to finally get it right.

Anonymous

Getting the timing wrong is as bad as getting the product wrong. You can execute flawlessly, but if the market (or even the technology) underpinning the idea just isn’t ready, you’re going to fail.

http://www.godatplay.com Godatplay

Just learned that one the hard way myself (not flawless execution, but timing is #1 problem)

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

Yes, sometimes it feels good to think “too early == visionary” but in startups too early is as bad (or even worse) than too late.

http://veespo.com David Semeria

Totally. I can imagine people being seriously underwhelmed by the prototype of, say, Twitter. 140 characters, seriously?

When, in fact, that was actually a key feature which, when combined the following model, and certain other pretty ephemeral conditions, led it to take of.

I think this is why funds like DST aren’t quite as dumb as some people (initially) perhaps made out.

The trend is your friend.

Matthew A. Myers

What matters is the narrative behind features / functions. Filling in Gap X that no one is doing yet – but would allow, Y and Z to occur – which has A,B,C network effects.. etc..

The issue here is very few investors, at least beforehand, would take such a pitch seriously — but people/firms like @USV:disqus
had theories that these ideas supported (and wanted to support/invest in this kind of level of infrastructure), and therefore understood the magnitude and value of something like Twitter succeeding.

Nowadays there are many investments made in such a way that have been highly successful, so there are more options for people to receive investments; I imagine not a lot of people don’t necessarily understand the whole picture as well as they might need to though. But the good VC and founder matches that occur will allow for some very successful and neat tools/networks to be built and grow, and more and more gaps will be filled in.
Matthew A. Myers

What matters is the narrative behind features / functions. Filling in Gap X that no one is doing yet – but would allow, Y and Z to occur – which has A,B,C network effects.. etc..

The issue here is very few investors, at least beforehand, would take such a pitch seriously — but people/firms like @USV:disqus
had theories that these ideas supported (and wanted to support/invest in this kind of level of infrastructure), and therefore understood the magnitude and value of something like Twitter succeeding.

Nowadays there are many investments made in such a way that have been highly successful, so there are more options for people to receive investments; I imagine not a lot of people don’t necessarily understand the whole picture as well as they might need to though. But the good VC and founder matches that occur will allow for some very successful and neat tools/networks to be built and grow, and more and more gaps will be filled in.
http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

DST clearly bet on the right trends. One interesting thing about VC is that there are times when it makes sense to move to different stages of investment to best capture the trends.

http://procause.com/ matthewhughes

I kept thinking about currency as I read this…

Bitcoin is so interesting but maybe their timing just wasn’t right?

Maybe someone will do it better soon, maybe Bitcoin will…?

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

agree. currency and payments that don’t rely on existing credit card system etc seems like one of those things that is just a matter of time.
Matthew A. Myers

I would say that the tipping point is when consumers are comfortable with it. Lots of factors likely involved in why they would need to be comfortable of it – pressures like bad banking / monetary systems, etc.. and technology of course.

Matthew A. Myers

The other thing that comes from having previous examples being created is you can study them to see what you like, and what you don’t like – and then improve on it all with the most recent understanding of where the web is going, and how it all fits together / should fit together. I think timing and execution will happen if it’s meant to happen, when it’s meant to happen.

I thought 6 months ago I’d be in a much different position than I am, though the time has passed has allowed me to learn and further evolve my ideas, deepen my understanding – sit with it all – and the timing just feels ‘more right’ now.

I feel the only reason timing wasn’t right was because I wasn’t ready. The market’s been ready for a long time now, and other forces are allowing me now the chance to build what I want to solve the problems I want, and with relatively little capital.

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

Yes, but it is very hard to figure out exactly what was right & wrong with past attempts.

Matthew A. Myers

I’m not sure I agree with that statement.

For myself I feel it just comes down to the domain experience a person has. A quote from an creative writing teacher I had in highschool has stuck with me, and guided me for awhile now: “write what you know about.” Turning that into “develop what you know” fits very well. If you’re passionate about something then you’ll know it well, too – and likely have been involved in it for quite awhile.

I have design, coder, marketing, and network effects behaviour experience – and many products simply have issues with design and workflow – where not all elements are at 100% that they could be. Every feature/function has a measurable impact — it’s having someone who’s “intuitive” that can put it together without needing to test every design element or usefulness of a feature that can quickly reach and build successful products. Nowadays too with the excellent, and relatively cheap, tools that exist – it just makes someone who knows what they’re doing be able to do it that much faster — which just made me think of Pinterest.

I think the above is why a pre-requisite for a lot of investors state they like founders/entrepreneurs who have been “working on the problem a long time.”

I wanted to ask you too — Do you invest outside of the Founder Collective or should I shoot them a message? I’m applying to an incubator in Toronto that starts mid-March, deadline is March 1st – but if I don’t get accepted (I’m a solo founder though I think I can present I am a special case) then I’ll be immediately seeking funds elsewhere to turn a prototype into an MVP.
http://www.kleemi.com Bruce Wayne

Agree with you….and this is a big issue for investors as well as the application creators….how does the investor know that you have it “right” or that you are close to having it “right”…at what point does the application creator say to themselves that the app is finished and that there is a need to wait for others to catch up./understand….I have seen many applications in the past that had it “right” and they never caught on because they were to far ahead….there was not a an easy existing analogy for what the app was doing so there was a large understanding curve to climb…..I have created some apps that were a bit ahead ….and many times interested investors would want more meetings because they “sensed” something was there…….but because there were no easy analogies for them to hold onto they would pass on the investment….

http://about.me/johnrevay John Revay

Timing if not every thing, goes a long way, the Apple Newton might have been considered an iPad alpha.

I forget if Jobs was at Apple when the Newton came out – guessing he was not

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

jobs wasn’t there then. that was a sculley project.

http://about.me/johnrevay John Revay

So timing and and teamThanks Chris I guess bad eample

http://about.me/johnrevay John Revay

Didn’t Sculley go on to work w that other other flying leading edge company Kodak

http://www.alearningaday.com Rohan

He HATED the device.
Or atleast that’s what his biographies say.

http://engag.io/ William Mougayar

Yes and No. If it’s 10 tries, there’s something fundamentally wrong. If you’re trying too hard and changing too many times, it’s time for a very hard reset. When things go well, the market tells you and every user sucks your app up. If you’re not getting “some” positive signals, that’s not a good sign even from the get-go.

Iteration is one thing, but zig-zagging your way is another. It may be time for a new idea. Been there, done both.

http://www.cdixon.org chris dixon

I meant 10 startups trying something, not 10 pivots (is that what you thought I meant?)

http://engag.io/ William Mougayar

Yes, that’s what I thought based on this passage: “important new ideas don’t succeed on the first attempt or even the first ten attempts”. Sorry that I misinterpreted. btw- i’m posting this reply via Engagio, my 2nd startup. I’ll email you an invite.

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http://www.alearningaday.com Rohan

Yup. Easy to be the cynic.

Interestingly, there is a good book called ‘The Knack’ by Norm Brodsky, an experienced entrepreneur. He says he only gets into a business that’s been around a 100 years so he doesn’t have to invest in ‘educating the market’.

That’s often a big factor in timing!
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http://twitter.com/FoapApp Foap App

I agree and think that the timing and an excellent team is the two most important ingredients.
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http://www.kleemi.com Bruce Wayne

Great Post !!!!
I have been working on different iterations of a search/read/write platform for a few years and at many points in the process I was told that the big guys were to well entrenched or that the features I had developed were to far ahead for users to understand or that the revenue model was not clearly understandable etc etc…..The good thing about all of this is that generally I view the creation of applications as works of art so I will continue on the the path…. Interestingly enough the application is starting to gain some traction with a growing small community and some revenue generating partnerships that will be closed in the next quarter….One of my take aways from this experience is that creating tech because you have a passion and drive to follow your path allows for the possibility of improvement through iteration as the project resides in a mental framework more aligned with an Artistic process where iteration is a part of the creative process….
http://arnoldwaldstein.com/ awaldstein

Every time I try and get scientific about this topic is falls apart.

I think it’s an intersection of just pure don’t-give-up belief, cultural/behavioral shifts and luck. It’s rarely technology.

Sure you can just take advantage of a hole and fill it like we did with Creative back then and moved sound for games to the PC or 3D for a movie biz that needed a kick, but its mostly not that logical.

Think about video chat. There’s been scores of companies trying to do this including Facebook forever. It makes logical sense. An evolutionary step. Behavior seems there. Tech platforms are there. It’s not happening.

I still dig deep for logic and rationale but spunk, creativity and luck are always the lock that matters it seems.
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Anonymous

Here’s the relevant section of an answer I posted recently on Quora:

“A lot of the discussion seems to revolve around the notion if failed ideas will keep failing or not. I don’t think time itself is the answer. It is really important to understand why an idea failed in each case – and then explicitly write the real causes for this failure – this can be social, behavioral, economic, legal, technological. These become our “failure assumptions.” These should be why the idea failed, as opposed to execution-specific reasons why an instance of it failed (“a founder left”).

If these assumptions become invalid in the future either through a change in the ecosystem, or a different approach to the problem that idea category may in fact succeed (if executed properly).

To give a simplistic example:
Groupon & clones did very well in part due to unique economic circumstances: - The Great Recession built up inventory levels thus intensified competition among local businesses to attract customers & the difficulty of unloading inventory to recoup sunk costs. - Customers also became more price conscious as they fell on hard times. - Service businesses also incur a minimum monthly cost simply to operate / keep the lights on, and need to maintain a certain volume to keep afloat during hard times.This is no guarantee of repeat business. “
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Chris Dixon