How to create a successful startup in two days? No

Recently, there are quite a lot of topics around startups in general and specifically projects that are being created or created in a couple of days, over the weekend, in a week. In my opinion, this is a rather strange activity, since all CD-Ejector have been created for a long time, and their authors have already earned their millions. Or not?

At the dawn of the development of computer programs sold over the Internet on the shareware principle, the special term CD-Ejector appeared. So called a class of programs that can be done quite easily and which allow the user to perform simple actions with a computer. A characteristic feature of such programs was the fact that they were easy to “clone”, as a result of which similar programs appeared countless. I don’t know if there are millionaires among their authors, but I would like to say that now such an approach is unlikely to bring success.
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Any project that can be done in a couple of days or weeks is very easy to clone. And even if such a project really turns out to be interesting and useful to people, then someone else may well implement it. And no patents will play a role here.

At the same time, a project in which you have invested a large amount of effort, time, and (maybe) funds, having just turned out to be useful, will delight its creators. After all, to clone such a project will be quite difficult. Want examples? Let's start with a simple one. Game developers for phones that released their creation in 1-2 days are unlikely to become millionaires. But those who spent months on the project, at least have chances for it.

There is an example from my own experience. When developing the PVS-Studio code analyzer, we are not ashamed to post a lot of articles online about it and about the problems that it solves. After all, it is quite difficult to clone this product (despite the presence of competitors) and we are not afraid of it. At the same time, we ourselves spend a lot of time and effort on our product, and we hope that it will pay off.

By the way, in general, it is quite difficult to clone complex technological products - this is a kind of protection for the authors of such projects. But at the same time, investing a large number of forces in the products, the authors expect to return. And to count on returns when investing days or even weeks in the development is hardly fair.

The same applies to the often discussed fears about "my idea is stolen." Any idea is priceless, it has no price. Interest is one or another implementation of the idea. And when project authors are afraid to talk about them, it looks weird. Returning to the example with our PVS-Studio analyzer. All the diagnostic rules are open and recorded mathematically (article: http://www.viva64.com/art-1-1-3036179579.html ). The basic part of the analyzer ( VivaCore code parsing library ) is also posted on the site as open source. And all this does not threaten us, for we know how much labor is required to use all this. This, of course, is not about the fact that “the source code is not compiled, but the formulas are wrong” :-). Everything is correct and everything works. It’s just that you need to apply a huge amount of energy, and not to hope to get a ready-made result in two days.

So, the summary of the post. Do not expect to create a successful and sought-after product in two days (as it is often called for in advertising and startup texts). All such products are already created in the nineties and two thousandth. Now is the time for more complex decisions. After all, no one hopes to create a car now in 2 weeks?