Back in the day LPB was someone with low pings (remember dial up was 150 to 300ms sometimes) and they'd have an upper hand on games before they were "unlagged" with prediction code.
I think this is a point in favor of the parent, actually. As you said, you described solutions, and the "problems" found by inverting them are not really things that people would say. To some degree, the founders thought "this product would be awesome if it existed" not "I'm solving a painkiller-level problem here"
For example:
- Facebook: "it is hard to connect to young people at my school" (what do you mean? I'll just go to the campus bar)
- Apple: "I want to get into home computers but I don't know how to solder" (ok, let's start a soldering school?)
- Amazon: "I don't want to leave the house to buy books" (???)
Product "problems" are almost never things that real people would say out loud. But yeah, going down the list:
- Facebook: Connecting to others is a real human need at almost every age. "I feel like being social but I just want to lay on the couch" is an actual "problem" for products to solve.
- Apple: "I want to get into home computers but I just want to pay someone to give me a finished board" is totally a real problem in 1976.
- Amazon: "I'm feeling lazy but I want this book" is also 100% a real problem.
For Amazon, it was actually about vastly expanded inventory. It was often hard to find books if you didn't live near a large retail book chain. I remember having trouble in high school finding some english class books driving around the suburbs.
Yeah I have been a customer of Amazon for over twenty years because of this. I used to spend time looking through microfilm catalogues of my local bookshop before Amazon and it's super nice to not have to do that anymore.
TLDR; A Lot of internet coupled with a lot of trial and error - fun times.
But seriously, I first started researching online how people trained their dogs for obedience and to do simple tasks. Read a couple of books on the subject, signed up for an online class (COVID lockdowns and all), watched tons of Youtube videos, which were more informative and way more practical than the classes and books and practiced a lot with my Dog. She picked up really fast and within a couple of months I had her doing some serious obedience tasks. I would say she and I learned together ;) After that, I amped up the work consistency and focused on the specific task she needed to do in my case to become a service dog. Now with that said I want to plug something here, there's a group called STSK9 that has an outstanding online dog training university. I found them way down in my path and I still may register since I love what they are doing to help teach people how to train dogs and from what see on their site + social media interactions their students and dogs get the best in the biz.
Link to their site https://www.stsk9.com/
Hypothetically | hiring designers and engineers | fully remote
[TLDR: I’m a YC alum who has raised $7m for this idea, inspired by taking care of my sick mom. You’d be the first hire.]
If you're sick, nobody really knows what you should to do get healthy. Your doctor gives generic advice and rarely follows up, and you're left to Google and hearsay to figure out the best diet, exercise, and drugs to get better. Today, you have to just try things and see if they work.
Our app lets anyone run experiments on themselves to figure out what actually works. People use us to find the optimal dose of a drug, determine the impact of a habit, or figure out whether a supplement does anything.
The product comes from Zain's own experience caring for his sick mom. Our users' pain points are literally painful: chronic pain, sleep issues, brain fog, flare-ups, and more. We have a chance to use design & engineering to help people going through the toughest moments of their lives.
As we scale, we are building the world's first continuously-learning knowledge base on human health, and unlocking a revolution in precision medicine for everyone on the planet.
Our two founders helped build Forward Health and Clubhouse. We've raised $7m from top investors in Silicon Valley: Khosla Ventures, Bling Capital, South Park Commons, SciFi VC, plus 35 angel investors including the founders of 23andMe, PayPal, Counsyl, Cancer Commons, Opendoor, and more.
We're in an interesting spot. On one hand, we have a huge roster of engaged advisors and a ton of runway. On the other hand, we're pre-product and the team is just the two of us. This is a rare opportunity to be on the founding team of a high-growth startup and learn the skills to start your own thing someday.
Did you know Airbnb has a full ban on parties? If you're a neighbor and you find a party, you can call Airbnb and have it dealt with: https://www.airbnb.com/neighbors
I'm sure they have full bans on all sorts of abuse. I'm glad they have a web page for people to find, but that's obviously not a solution to the problem.
The municipality I live in does not give a single fuck about Airbnb's "Neighborhood Support Team". They're simply going to license Airbnb rentals, and permanently revoke the licenses of any resident who doesn't meet an onerous (and likely to become more onerous) set of criteria set out in the ordinance. Neighbors hate Airbnbs, and usually with good reason.
It doesn't help Airbnb that they have irritated basically every faction of our board. The more conservative board members are responsive to resident complaints about nuisances and safety. The lefty board members are responsive to concerns about Airbnb displacing housing stock. Restrictions make everyone on the board happy. I don't have a dog in the fight (I've enjoyed several Airbnb stays) but I'm not going to be sad when this happens in the next couple months. Abuses stemming from people (and companies) turning single-family houses into unlicensed hotels aren't tech company tech support problems.
I graduated from Beach High School about 18 years ago. Without going into detail too much, the public school system failed me, and Beach High School was the stepping stone that allowed me to go to college. I would be living a very different life right now if Beach High School didn't exist.
