Re:Programmers are distraction for your startup
by Guvante on Thursday July 23, 2015 @02:37PM
(#9937633)
> The author also points out several successful products that grew from decidedly low-tech, sub-optimal incarnations.
I don't know if I would call Google spreadsheets low-tech and sub-optimal. It isn't very well optimized but it hits all of the important points for a prototype, cheap, scalable and high uptime.
I totally agree though, the idea that you shouldn't get distracted by the implementation you dream of is very solid and one that is purported as important here all the time (just phrased differently).
Re:Programmers are distraction for your startup
by S4M on Thursday July 23, 2015 @03:07PM
(#9937814)
I think PeterWhittaker is saying that Nomad List's version that was running on Google Spreadsheet was a suboptimal one (a prototype if you prefer). It doesn't mean that Google spreadsheets is low-tech or suboptimal (it's not).
The author is correct, at least for some ideas and some founders.
The author also points out several successful products that grew from decidedly low-tech, sub-optimal incarnations.
Technologists - and I consider myself a recovering technologist - are often distracted by the shiny, by the optimal, by the novel. Sometimes a product is a functional but ugly hack of adequate pieces assembled to prove whether or not an idea works, and, with a few very rare exceptions, is or should never be, at least not out of the gate, optimal.
Sometimes technologists have cool ideas they build out into eventual products that once in a while become the core of a business. That can be a very long cycle.
Business guys just keep doing business, much to the consternation of many of us tech guys.
Product people talk to users, spend money on surveys, hack shit together, and see if things work, if ideas stick.
Are we still fans of "fail fast" on HN? I haven't kept up. If you want to fail fast, do it for cheap, and do it low tech.
IM(NS)HO, of course. YMMV.