Tap Into Y Combinator's Contrarian Thinking

Re:Tap Into Y Combinator's Contrarian Thinking by 1337biz on Thursday May 23, 2013 @01:23PM (#5758057)

While I appreciate the promotion of contrarian thought and motivating people to think different, act different, dare to be different, these example do not look at all to me contrarian. At best one could argue, that they identify existing phenomenons that were repackaged into a scalable, investable product.

AirBnB: normal people would never be willing to rent out their place--or a single room in their place--to strangers.

B&Bs have been around forever. Roomsharing, Couchsurfing, etc. The idea has been around for a long time, just not as a scalable platform.

Tutorspree: Having a human being on the other end radically reduced the time needed to set up tutoring

Well sure, maybe it is by now "contrariant" for tech companies that a decent phone support can resolve problems quicker and is better for customer retention than online support ticket systems...

FlightCar: Travelers get a free car wash, and don't have to pay $18/day for airport parking.

I like the idea, but it seems to me just a frequent flier version of similar peer-to-peer car sharing systems (RelayRides, Getaround, etc).

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Re:Tap Into Y Combinator's Contrarian Thinking by graeme on Thursday May 23, 2013 @02:44PM (#5758628)

I can't agree more. I had 'the idea' for Airbnb years ago, after couch surfing happily many times.

I'm sure thousands of people had 'the idea' and knew 'not X'. It was really clear to those who had tried the unpaid version there was vast untapped potential in the market for a paid Couch Surfing.

What counted was setting up a system that made the matching process simple, safe, and had critical mass.

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Re:Tap Into Y Combinator's Contrarian Thinking by orangethirty on Thursday May 23, 2013 @03:41PM (#5759046)

At best one could argue, that they identify existing phenomenons that were repackaged into a scalable, investable product.

And how is that an issue? That is being different. Just on a different level than the one you focus on. AirBnB challenges the hotel establishment. Yes, it is illegal in some places, and opens up a lot of issues for its users, but change does not come from settling with the status quo. You have to be challenging in order to achieve something.

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Re:Tap Into Y Combinator's Contrarian Thinking by bennyg on Thursday May 23, 2013 @01:49PM (#5758242)

B&Bs are dedicated businesses though. AirBnB's tenants don't really meet that requirement (on average, though I imagine there are people who just rent out their place on AirBnB).

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Re:Tap Into Y Combinator's Contrarian Thinking by pvnick on Thursday May 23, 2013 @09:16PM (#5760677)

I disagree. While you may feel that the points you made were valid, they are in fact not valid for a variety of reasons.

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