> Not just say they want. Not just say they'll pay for.

This is big - lots of people (on HN and other places) say that they'd pay "$x for y" but aren't actually willing to.

I feel like I saw a post that had some pretty good evidence of the disconnect between those two things but I can't find it.

It's the same problem as advertising.

Nobody thinks they're particularly susceptible to it, but everyone still somehow knows that Chipotle exists and serves burritos...

That's a good example actually. I've never seen a Chipotle restaurant in my life but still know about them.

The MDN Plus release is probably the evidence you're thinking of.

Yes, that was the one! Some good discussion in that thread - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30792365

Then you'll just end up with samey expensive garbage. People don't know what they want until they're told what they want. It's important to create a society where ideas that have no current market can be developed. This is how the future is made. Not by making it aluminum and jacking up the price.

> People don't know what they want until they're told what they want.

That's not exactly true. This sentence only covers fro value generating products, not cost saving products.

It's easier to sell cost saving product, but the profit margins on those are much lower. As an example in the article - the product is a cost saving product, but the cost it saves is very small.(Finding the right headache medicine is once in a lifetime $1 investment for most, or even less)

When it comes to value generating products - that is where you need someone who can sell their own idea of value to the masses. That is where this sentence starts to make sense.

It is a value generating product, better medicine is more valuable. If a genie popped up and offered to make sure I always got the best medicine available in exchange for $100 I'd give him the money for the improved health.

It's just that I am not sure this random startup guy and his four doctor friends are such a genie.

This is not the "value" you're thinking of. Value of having perfect health is not the same as business value. Valuable medicine isn't the same as a trip to Seychelles - even though both may cost thousands of dollars.

You're also forgetting that medication is almost exclusively a cost issue. Unless you are taking performance enhancing products - other medication is a cost to getting to your "normal". (Even antidepressants exist to get you to a baseline mental state, not to give you extra - that's performance enhancing drugs)

You already give your doctor that $100 and they literally do the research... and other than getting a better doctor, you will not get any better tool.

But back to the reason for the product and it's very clear where the idea came from. Identifying what painkiller you prefer isn't a constant issue neither it is of great value to the vast majority.

Sure, but in order to do that, you need to know how to teach people how to want; and then, you have to be able to do that. NB, those two things generally comprise two different skillsets.

You need a product that is powerful enough to give you the leverage to change deep-seated bits of human psychology.

Henry Ford knew how to do this. So did Jobs.

$0.02. I don't want to discourage anyone from building something and making money on it; just adding on to your comment.

Henry Ford and Steve Jobs can have the mindless market they've created. Adjacent to that, a system that detaches the need for marketing would unlock more human creativity. Why is google so valuable? Because the system is designed to optimize for Google-like local minimums, and not for creativity or the unknown future.

> It's important to create a society where ideas that have no current market can be developed.

We have. It's the free market.

I’m not sure I agree with you about your extra > and will pay for.

People want Reddit, people want FB and Insta. Do they pay for those? I’m not saying those are good or realistic models to follow but I think the scale of your product needs to be taken into account with your statement. ie landing millions of users can forgive the lack of a business plan _at that scale_ whereas a SAAS platform targeting B2B customers should probably require your statement to be true.

Advertisers want eyeballs, and will pay for it on the spot.

People aren't the customers of Reddit/Facebook, they're the product, that's why social media has such negative effect on mental health, the users aren't a concern beyond how many minutes they dump in for advertisers to pay for.

But would you come up with the idea for Reddit if you approached it from an advertisement perspective? Probably not.

Reddit would be a fairly unique one - it would be hard for anyone to predict a single forum would take over for most other smaller forums. Then again forums in general were already very popular and I bet many made quite a bit from advertising.

They have and it's called Tik Tok, basically just make a platform more addicting

But the users aren't the customers in those businesses.

The advertisers are.

Although you're technically correct [1], your objection is a bit tired – in particular because in this context, "customer" clearly meant "target audience for a product". Building something that attracts millions of daily visitors to a website is much harder than selling advertising space on that website.

[1] the best kind of "correct"

>landing millions of users can forgive the lack of a business plan _at that scale_

yeah, if your business plan lands millions of users you better have more than $40k ready to fund it. Since most people don't have that at hand it's actually a really problematic plan, because you've got to be able to secure the funding for it right when it starts to hit, if you don't you're done, if you do you might have to do it by giving up too much control, if you won't then you're done.

>>People want Reddit, people want FB and Insta. I think in OP's case his issue was that his content required funding to keep up to date and his user base couldn't support those costs with ads. With FB, Reddit etc. the end users generate the content.

I've noticed this a lot - I think people are far too quick to take face-to-face positive feedback at, no pun intended, face value.

To me, it seems like a pretty elementary mistake, but I think that oftentimes people are more subconsciously desiring external validation than accurate assessments.

can't remember where I heard this but the advice was basically this: When pitching your idea, and generating excitement, ask for money (or a commitment) on the spot. There's a big difference between saying you'd pay for something, and paying for something.

The flip side is that sometimes it takes awhile to build the perception of value, hence free trials/freemium models. Get people hooked, then ask for $.

There are many ways to be successful (and even more ways to be unsuccessful).

This chimes a lot with what I've seen, and indeed, what I do myself. I had a few friends plough hard-earned money into a really bad start-up idea (basically an inferior pay-walled Wikipedia), and instead of telling them what I really thought of it, I weaselled out saying something bland, non-committal and mildly supportive.

Hence my rule “only ask for startup advice from friends who have told you previous ideas were incredibly stupid”.

That's true, but it's hard. Many people won't pay for what does not exist. Selling what does not exist is risky. Before it exists, you don't always know, and it's not always easy to produce an MVP people will pay for.

the last 10 years of internet history show however that you can create something that one group wants, which creates value and a product that another group will pay for, they are not necessarily one in the same