Startups: the Crazy Ones, the Misfits, the Rebels ... the Dumb

An anonymous reader writes Many companies emerged in 2014 offering new ways to help people connect, get stuff done, or find that special someone. Slack, for example, offers a chatty alternative to work email. Or Yonomi might actually make an Internet connected home feasible. But other new startups, looking for that new and original thing, peddled products that were gimmicky, legally unsound, or just not super useful. On the other hand, sometimes things that seem gimmicky get revised down the road; Kozmo.com is my favorite example — the business model might not have been perfect, but the underlying idea wasn't so bad. Sometimes there's a large not-being-the-first-mover advantage.

Comments

Slashvertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

Thank you anonymous kozmo PR person for your submission!

Re: Slashvertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure of the business viability of a defunct company paying a PR person to submit a link to a Wikipedia article. Maybe he's the Flying Dutchman of advertising!

How much did Kosmo.com pay for this link?

[Anonymous Coward]

What happened to Slashdot, this is bullshit. Stop with these advertisements disguised as stories.

If you're going to name your new software slack...

[TWX]

...you're going to have a bad time.

People have been referring to Slackware as "slack" since it debuted. There should be plenty of prior art to prevent a trademark.

My new TV catchphrase based app

[grumling]

Just because something you said on a TV show became popular online doesn’t mean we need an app built around it. It would be one thing if it were a clever word or phrase, but it’s not.

So my new "Up your nose with a rubber hose." app might not be the next big thing?

For those of you under 40...

100th idiot

[dasunt]

The only way I can see these people getting their crazy plans funded is through the 100th idiot effect amidst venture capitalists.

From _Matter_ by Iain M. Banks: "100 idiots make idiotic plans, and carry them out. All but one justly fail. The hundredth idiot whose plans succeeded through pure luck, is immediately convinced he's a genius."

Re:The great lie of the market.

[fermion]

So a diamond is essentially worthless, but good upselling makes it worth a lot. This values pays for the processing and marketing of the stone. In the US, for instance, 50 years of brainwashing has made couples forgo homes and food to buy a rock. In the case of the apparently paid link, they are a delivery service. The problem is that it is hard to create enough value for delivery. Overhead, profits, and minimum wage means that someone is not going to pay a large delivery fee, the value is not going to create a viable business. Of course you could do what Uber and Lyft does, which is essentially externalize all real costs to contractors, but even in that case profit is apparently not possible without surge pricing which tricks customers into paying multiples of the expected price.