Do good and throw it into the water…

I have long wanted to write a similar note, but did not dare to put my thoughts, metaphors and arguments to the broad court of social habits.

“A startup is a newly created company with limited resources and building its business on innovation and innovative technologies.” I very often reflect on the essence of these words. For some reason, many people from whom I have heard the word "Startup", for the most part, do not understand what its main purpose is. Quite funny comes out when the next news portal is called a startup. Or for the tenth time overcooked content is innovation.

For the most part, the following scholarship and my own impressions are inspired by this article . And, most likely, it is even some kind of "answer", as, if possible, to avoid what is happening.
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If you consider yourself a startup, you have your own “innovative” project, every day you look with envy at the next news about “good corporation” and in secret from your wife you save money for a week off with a laptop in the attic - tell me how many questions do you ask yourself? No, you are not trying to quickly find a solution, but simply make a list of those pressing issues that you once have to solve, starting to reinvent the next bike in your cozy garage? And where in this list is the question "Who needs it?".

And what does all this mean?

For the most part, Internet projects, like any other organization, must solve their clearly defined problem. The news portal solves the problem of informing via the global network about incidents and events in real life around, the educational site solves the problem of people acquiring any fundamental or applied knowledge, the video site solves the problem of entertainment, or any journalistic tasks. And so with almost any site on the network. I do not believe in a higher power, but if a project is created, it must have some kind of its own task and a clear idea of ​​its simple and understandable solution. It must be a small, cherished function that this project performs well. No, it’s not even good — it does it like no one else can in this plane anymore.

And here we are waiting for the first rake. A rake of misunderstanding, what the project will do, what is its purpose, what tasks the usual, passing visitor will be ready to solve this project, and what tasks are beyond the scope of its scope, and in general, how will the decision be made. And all of us, like all fashionable startups, instead of deepening and consolidating our already existing function, are trying to expand something, adding new functionality, screwing on new, mostly useless functions, breaking into smithereens over new problems, and Mostly we can even forget what the initial idea was. Because for the most part, it has already disappeared into what exists today and it is not clear to anyone that initially this huge machine with commenting on each pixel and cocking even dogs from space was once just a drawing machine on someone's screen. .

Your project should solve its problem, and solve it as best as possible. If not - this is a direct road to great failure.

On the issue of innovation ...

By the way, it will be said - does anyone still think that any Internet project is innovative? Almost 15 years of open development only in my memory - and we are still on the blade of attack and ahead of the rest? No, it’s still better to leave the rose-colored glasses a little to one side and look at things realistically - the Internet is not at all a wonder from the snuff box. This is the same part of our society as TV, radio, ABS in the car and a jar of Pepsi in the fridge. Yes, once, at the time of gray BBS and modems on 9600 Bod, any connection through the TCP / IP stack was considered an innovation, but now it’s impossible to say that any new Internet site is equivalent to a startup.

Then why is it still used this word right here in the network?

It seems to me - only because, and for the most part, due to the fact that the network itself, as a universal means of communication between people, allows us to build some already established relationships in a completely different way. There is no need to go far for examples - the same online store was once a very non-sour innovation. Reading in 98 a note about “the first call at the Amazon office”, I, frankly, was overwhelmed by the wow effect of everything conscious and, having slightly noticed, was imagining how I buy myself the first book without getting up from the computer. It was very cool. And this is also another type of innovative communications. At least then, in the year 95, it was a miniature revolution.

Now it is routine.

Now let's think together - will there be such a grain in your project? Will it be possible to grow from this grain a technological revolution in any process of human activity around, or not?

These questions are more than important, because it is the revolutionary development that you have laid that will not allow your project to die with a sudden death when hosting is closed, but to live and be healthy and, with time and resources invested, also bring profit to its owners.

Have you invented a new process of interaction between the user and the sales system? It's great, but how does this process differ from all that is already there at the moment? Two mouse clicks to buy instead of three? Then I have bad news for you. But if, when working with your interface, a person only needs to think about filling the basket instead of two mouse clicks - now this is yes, wow effect and envious glances in the competition.

Judge for yourself why the truck for hauling cargo with a bag on board is a routine, and the exoskeleton is already an innovation? After all, the purpose, in fact, is the same - helping a person to move heavy loads, which the person himself, due to his physiological limitations, is not able to carry for a long time.

Keep it simple, dude!

Simplicity is really not enough. In general, the solution of any issue, any problem should be as simple and clear as possible. Probably, at this point a part of those innovations, about which we spoke a little earlier, is laid. We are all every day and regularly forget about KISS, although we try to preach it at every corner.

Every person on our planet every day there are millions of problems. Starting there not a mean dog, ending with unrest and mental aberrations about the oppression of blacks in Algeria and sexual minorities in Peru. But everyone at the subconscious level wants simple solutions. Yes, it is oak, in one button labeled "Make good." And if your implementation of an idea does not correspond to this seemingly simple principle to the maximum, there is little good that will come out.

That is why the controversy flares up over design comforts in general and specific interfaces in particular, which is why we are trying to find a compromise between tricked and simple, this is where another key element of your future success lies. Do your job as well and as simply as possible. And this principle lives and develops every day. Take the same interface of the iPod, many search services or console commands in Linux - all of these solutions correspond exactly to the principle described above. In the same console, each small utility performs only one function, but it does it as simply and efficiently as possible. And about Apple products in general, you can talk for a very long time - what is just a simplification up to one control key? And in fact there were the same technology for such an implementation! So why is your project worse? Or than your brains are worse than the brains of those dreamers who were able to embody such ideas?

We delve into the analysis of the target audience, analyze statistical calculations of search queries with a shovel, try to get the most out of every CTR / PR / <insert_ my_arry meter>, urgently tweak the results and completely forget about the basis - maximum simplicity. Do you need all this? Do we really need such deep thoughts if we cannot hold onto the crest of simplicity?

Think of others.

Another, as for me, the most important point in the history of the future company. For whom, or for what are you striving to make your project? For yourself? For the sake of a comfortable existence, ordeal for investors and business angels? For the sake of promoting your product to the market and brutal competition with someone else, as nimble and jaunty as you?

Are there too many questions aimed at your interests? We have not forgotten anything?

But our project is designed to solve someone's problem. You are very mistaken if, by creating something, you want to quickly fill your own pocket. Yes, now we will launch this site on VPS, wait for the flow of visitors, lure them with something interesting and start cutting coupons on advertising or our mega-services. Many projects now look exactly like this, except that commas are arranged in a different order. Do you not find that the very essence of the undertaking is lost in such reflections? If you, through your project, can not make someone's life easier, or, at a minimum, you are not doing this well enough (the first analogy is you are a favor to view advertising), and you don’t think at all about your visitor, but every day You are thinking about your own profit, business models, monetization and other issues - nothing good and worthy will work.

It is here that lies the most intimate feeling - the love of your user. Is it possible to love someone for money? And will your idea be successful among your visitors if you do not treat them with respect and love? After all, what you feel - they feel through the convenience, ease of operation and clarity. Everything. You have no other means of expression, nor can there be one. And that is exactly what you should really master. After all, it is your project that can ease the already tense being of this student, or that old woman with a knapsack. Is not it so? Then it is better not to start anything - after that it will be sad to demolish the source code from the hosting and hang the “project temporarily closed” die.

But, as I said above, the Internet is not a “thing in itself”. In the network, they chat with each other every day, exchange music and photos, write articles and comment on the news quite real people, not virtual nicknames on the screen. And their problems are as real as they are. So why the majority of companies whose field of activity at the very beginning is based on the global network, does not even try to solve something more than the fifteenth way of listening to music or the thirty-second specialized social network of biker futurists?

Do good and throw it into the water. Solve someone's problems, invent new, risky, and at the same time simple and clear solutions to these problems. And in the end, your user will begin to solve your problems. Including - financial. Has it ever been otherwise?

To the fullest!

Any successful project is an everyday, exhausting work on yourself and your brainchild. It is very difficult for me to believe that in our world someone achieved success without realizing what he is doing and without loving his little business. Of course, it is impossible to bring everything to fatalism, but also to forget about what you have done - in no way case. After all, another reason for the loss of users, and as a result, customers - is the lack of development. And after all, development itself is not only an extension. This and the acceleration of work, and new areas of application, and the same advertising service. Every day, convincing their users that they receive the best service themselves as the best people on this planet, you will soon see that they also promote your service as the best to solve a particular problem.

And the question of the solutions of someone’s problems was raised not in vain. Now, it turns out, any startup does not feel any risk. All that he can lose is only 100-150 (or more, someone like) hours of working time. Accordingly, we get an unenviable position. On the one hand, of course, it’s a pity to lose time, but on the other hand, nothing is changing for the worse, right? No one will stop eating less, the daily ration will not change, no one will lose a car and will not fly out of an apartment for a delay in rent. All we do not feel responsibility.

After all, responsibility for your work is one of the fundamental things in self-motivation. Even if something is not working now, it is quite possible that this will happen in the future thanks to hard work and the desire to achieve more, to make life easier for someone and, eventually, to make our life easier with you.

It seems to me that this is why people who are at risk in startups, including their money and material goods, ultimately achieve their goals. It is the desire to risk, even the last underpants, can be a litmus test on a really intelligent person who is not afraid to change someone's life for the better. And it does not matter, this is a new flash-toy, or bedding for automatic cleaning of feet on the threshold of a supermarket.

Perhaps you should try to combine real life and simplify it with virtual? And try to feel full responsibility for your child, and not to remember once every three months that you need to pay for the VPS?

Summary

What is needed to ensure that your project does not end up on the outskirts of the network and does not rest in a Bose?

Actually, quite a bit. You just need to do your project for the sake of someone, with the help of the same innovations and new techniques to facilitate someone's life. Maximum ease of development and maximum return to someone's everyday life. At the same time the last thing to think about yourself and your desires. You need to love your user and with every step you can do it in the way that is convenient for him, not for you. Never be afraid to take risks and invest in your idea every day at 120%. Do not focus on virtual life and try to help your user in real problems.

And in the end you will come to an understanding, even if it will be expressed indirectly through advertising revenue or direct sales.

I think it is in this approach to business that the whole essence of “start-ups” is laid.