Plumbing, HVAC and other skilled trades operate almost entirely B2B, not B2C. The very premise of this article is why that is the case...people who don't understand what is required, what is good, and how construction operates shopping solely on price with unreasonable expectations.
That $22k quote? That's how a company can pay for capacity during peak demand...i.e. paying skilled workers enough to make extra long hours with no expectation of repeat business worth the effort, paying suppliers enough to get priority access to inventory, and of course making it worth dealing with customer-is-always-right amateurs.
Uber operates by letting customers not give a shit about their drivers (and not giving a shit about them itself). In the world where people have reasonable options, relationships matter and relationships are non-fungible.
To frame it in design terms, when experienced designers provide work samples, it’s client work.
And they acquire client work through repeat clients and word of mouth mostly. Generally, people who find you “in the phone book” are less likely to have good projects and are more likely to be shopping on price.
Confrontation is expensive. Not just financially when it involves lawyers, but also temporarily and emotionally.
Particularly if you are up against a well funded institution that is free to act amorally (which is not the same as immorally).
With regard to the IP claim, its validity simply doesn’t matter. You can’t afford to show its invalidity because the university has lawyers on staff (and if it has a law school alumni in the bar and on the bench). And of course many many other parallel claims to motivate resource allocation.
Get your degree and get on with life whether that involves trying to start a company or getting a job.
And if you are going to start a company, this is the sort of thing you will probably face regularly. Good luck.
I think maybe having one ideal customer might be a useful a place to start.
But probably it isn't a good idea to invest a lot of time in tailoring experiences/services/products to that ideal customer until you have actual customers.
Because without a lot of relevant experience, the ideal customers in your imagination don't correspond to actual ideal customers in the real world:
+ People do what they do for a lot of reasons. Some walk tightropes, others wear belts and suspenders.
+ People view money in a lot of different ways. $1000 is unrealistic for many people and pocket change for others. $10/year is great for people who don't care if you stay in business and a red flag for people who do care.
+ In general we tend to imagine people are similar to us (mostly because it is easier that way). But selling to people who are not like you is what selling to strangers consists of.
I worked for a company that fell into the trap of over fitting their product for their first customer.
The customer seemed ideal in every way; they really needed the product, they were willing to be beta users while the product was going from prototype to real deal, and they were paying for the privilege.
Unfortunately, this customer had a ton of other internal issues. Rather than being forced to fix their internal issues in response to using the new product, they insisted the product conform to their broken processes.
In the end, the product wasn't a great fit for other customers without a ton of additional work. Now that I type this out, I realize two other companies I've worked at fell into the same or similar trap.
I agree. For example, I can think of creative people that have been successful that just produced what they loved, without a customer in mind. If they had started off by thinking “how can I optimize for theoretical customer X?”, they never would’ve been as successful.
Don’t make a product for others. Make one for yourself that you can dogfood. If you can’t do that, you’re on shaky ground.
Your first customer is always you. If you don't have a problem to solve that you know something about, you aren't going to make a useful product. A useful product can be a successful product.
Interesting points! Starting from a narrow perspective gives you feedback that is valuable, not noise that you can ignore. Most founders set their sights on an audience that is overfit (too narrow) or underfit (they have no experience). Striking a balance is key.
Consulting is one thing, but in the startup ecosystem I'm in I have (during the last 15 years) never ever seen a startup having a too narrow target segment (and I know several investors with the same mindset).
Every time I read about APL, I'm reminded of Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" — I'm always imagining some keyboard with just a little bit more than two dimensions; and, with sufficient capabilities, I could stretch to hit the meta-keys that let me type APL directly on my modified split MTGAP keyboard.
I read an HN comment on a similar rant that postulated Apple's goal is to force developers to write transparent UI's because writing software for Vision Pro does not make economic sense to developers...and Vision Pro needs software with transparent UI's.
That $22k quote? That's how a company can pay for capacity during peak demand...i.e. paying skilled workers enough to make extra long hours with no expectation of repeat business worth the effort, paying suppliers enough to get priority access to inventory, and of course making it worth dealing with customer-is-always-right amateurs.
Uber operates by letting customers not give a shit about their drivers (and not giving a shit about them itself). In the world where people have reasonable options, relationships matter and relationships are non-fungible.
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