Ideas Are Overrated: Startup Guru Eric Ries' Radical New Theory

Kiopa_Matt said:
And also the most likely model to make your business go from $500k/month to $0 very quickly. It won't be a model that I'll pursue, that's for sure.
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I don't really believe in "new" ideas, just the repackaging of old ones. Human beings are simple creatures with simple needs and desires, and a strong bias for novelty. I don't think this will ever change, which is why a site like Myspace did so well offering people the online equivalent of being able to decorate their rooms or highschool lockers any way they wanted, and show it off to their friends.

Who else is reinventing the wheel now? Pinterest? I don't see the original thinking there, I see focused re-purposing of existing systems.
 


Kiopa_Matt said:
And also the most likely model to make your business go from $500k/month to $0 very quickly. It won't be a model that I'll pursue, that's for sure.
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Your whole business model is founded on this premise and you dont even know it
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
So basically, jump in, start small, and grow at a sustainable pace?

Wow, talk about a genius! I'm absolutely certain nobody else has thought of that method before.
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I know right!

I'm reading his book now, the lean startup and honestly so far it's been pretty dry and boring. I watched his video presentation probably when this thread was first created and that was pretty much all i needed to know "Build a protoype before you go buckwild and build a product no one wants"

I'm 1/3 of the way through the book right now and the only useful shit i've got was to "Test" your two most valuable peices of your startup, the Growth and the Value. If you test those and yield positive results your good to go, and your eliminating your "assumptions" that everyone wants your product, or that everyone needs your product.

the rest of what i read was a bunch of garbage about him talking about huge corps and the government, and IMVU.

it's a totally overatted book so far IMO. but that could change once i'm done

TLDR; the book is a pain in the ass to read, and not very enlightening
 
IceToEskimos said:
I don't really believe in "new" ideas, just the repackaging of old ones.
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What??? That makes no sense. If everyone had the same mind set, we wouldn't be communicating together right now while being say 12,000kms away from each other, we'd still be pissing & shitting in buckets which we then throw out the window, there'd be no such thing as satellite communication, etc.

How can you not believe in new ideas? New ideas are what's transformed every aspect of our lives into what we see today.
 
leadsupplier said:
I know right!

I'm reading his book now, the lean startup and honestly so far it's been pretty dry and boring. I watched his video presentation probably when this thread was first created and that was pretty much all i needed to know "Build a protoype before you go buckwild and build a product no one wants"

I'm 1/3 of the way through the book right now and the only useful shit i've got was to "Test" your two most valuable peices of your startup, the Growth and the Value. If you test those and yield positive results your good to go, and your eliminating your "assumptions" that everyone wants your product, or that everyone needs your product.

the rest of what i read was a bunch of garbage about him talking about huge corps and the government, and IMVU.

it's a totally overatted book so far IMO. but that could change once i'm done

TLDR; the book is a pain in the ass to read, and not very enlightening
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Thanks - saved me buying the book.

Isn't this pretty much what 37Signals' book Rework says, anyway?
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
What??? That makes no sense. If everyone had the same mind set, we wouldn't be communicating together right now while being say 12,000kms away from each other, we'd still be pissing & shitting in buckets which we then throw out the window, there'd be no such thing as satellite communication, etc.

How can you not believe in new ideas? New ideas are what's transformed every aspect of our lives into what we see today.
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Technological advancement is very rarely an idea that can stand on it's own, instead it typically attempts to serve a pre-existing idea in a novel or expedient manner.

This is the difference between someone like Steve Jobs, who found ways to improve and combine existing technology, and someone like Thomas Edison or Julius Edgar Lilienfeld, who actually invented something truly original.

Human beings have been able to communicate electronically over long distances since 1866, I'm not sure there is anything "new" about the idea.
 
Fuck you don't need a whole book for this shit.

1. Create product with 1 compelling feature, polish the shit out of this feature.

2. Launch your fucking product.

3. Listen to your users, incorporate features that 90%+ of your users need, ignore the other 10%

4. Polish those features

5. Profit.
 
cheshire said:
Fuck you don't need a whole book for this shit.

1. Create product with 1 compelling feature, polish the shit out of this feature.

2. Launch your fucking product.

3. Listen to your users, incorporate features that 90%+ of your users need, ignore the other 10%

4. Polish those features

5. Profit.
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Yeah, Also know as: "Doing a Motherfucking Survey"

You see all these FREE webinars that say...

"Ask us a question and we'll try to cover it in our Webinar?"

They aren't trying to do you a favor. They are gathering intel for their product. When enough people ask for the same thing, they add that "feature" to their product and solve YOUR issue for you.

You basically told them how to make the product. They then turned around and sold it to you. Funny thing is, most people couldn't believe how well it answered their "specific" issue, when they were the ones that told them what they wanted... Hahahahahah!
 
Meatytreats said:
Yeah, Also know as: "Doing a Motherfucking Survey"

You see all these FREE webinars that say...

"Ask us a question and we'll try to cover it in our Webinar?"

They aren't trying to do you a favor. They are gathering intel for their product. When enough people ask for the same thing, they add that "feature" to their product and solve YOUR issue for you.

You basically told them how to make the product. They then turned around and sold it to you. Funny thing is, most people couldn't believe how well it answered their "specific" issue, when they were the ones that told them what they wanted... Hahahahahah!
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The book says users are dumb and they have no idea what they want.
 
Gooddeal said:
The book says users are dumb and they have no idea what they want.
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I never said you ask them what they want. In fact, I didnt go into what type of questions to ask at all.

And it's not a single person question. It's a mob question. You gather the info from hundreds/thousands of people and you group their responses to figure out the needs/wants YOURSELF!

As far as surveys go...
In order to create a great survey you need to ask people the right questions. Fears, desires, goals, etc... Once you have that, it becomes the sales copy!

It's a very basic process, but it takes skills to master!

Pretty much like anything else it requires work and trial & error to pull it off correctly!
 
mpbiz said:
The book is called The Secret of Selling ~ Anything

You can DL it at harrybrowne.org

Your welcome.
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Interesting.

He had another book that he published called "How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World" which is supposed to be really good. You guys should check that one out too since it's a free e-book now.
 
I read a ton of books regarding startups and early stage strategy, so here's a few others I recommend:

Four steps to the epiphany (Eric Ries was a student of Steve Blank, might as well go to the source)
Nail It Then Scale It
Blue Ocean Strategy
Start Small Stay Small

99% of people don't really understand what a minimum viable product is, but if you read the above books you'll figure it out. It's a really nice framework for launching a company efficiently and not investing months/years into it before you realize you won't be gaining any traction.
 
Wicked Ice said:
Ideas Are Overrated: Startup Guru Eric Ries' Radical New Theory | Magazine


Ries: The mistake isn’t releasing something bad. The mistake is to launch it and get PR people involved. You don’t want people to start amping up expectations for an early version of your product. The best entrepreneurship happens in low-stakes environments where no one is paying attention, like Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room at Harvard.

Wired: Does that mean it’s better to have just a few customers when you’re first starting out?

Ries: Exactly. It means that you can get to know those customers extremely well and you’re not under pressure to succeed. You can take your time to figure out what’s working and then really blow it up later.
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I think a lot of people - who keep overthinking everything - should grok this.
 
dchuk said:
99% of people don't really understand what a minimum viable product is, but if you read the above books you'll figure it out. It's a really nice framework for launching a company efficiently and not investing months/years into it before you realize you won't be gaining any traction.
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Thing that is great about being in AM is that everyone sort of builds "mini startups" aka campaigns using a similar methodology to the lean startup. With AM:
1. Launch your LP quickly (don't spend a shitload of time on the design etc only to find it doesn't convert)
2. Send traffic to it.
3. Revise/Refine
4. A/B split test it
5. Rinse/Repeat Steps 2-4
6. Profit

They say the same thing with a lean startup:
1. Launch MVP as quick as possible
2. Get market feedback
3. Build features that people want or possibly pivot
4. A/B split test changes
5. Rinse/Repeat Steps 2-4
6. Hopefully profit

Obviously the above isn't quite the exact steps to the Build/Measure/Learn feedback loop, however it's very similar to AM but on a much bigger scale.

Love startups, if anyone is interested in working on one then hit me up.
 
Eric Ries is a smart dude, although pretty into himself. I'm in the middle of The Lean Startup right now and it's a great book - highly recommended.

He writes the book in almost a textbook sort of way, but it really helps you look at what you're doing from a solid business perspective. I think a lot of us at wickedfire could benefit from taking a step back from our businesses and really evaluating everything. This guy can help.
 
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