Andrew Chen › Comments

"Thank you sir! Solid advice." - Andrew Chen

"The point is, depending on the context, it might make more sense to focus on tech or desirability or the business aspects depending on what the biggest risks are. So if you're in the right situation/environment/context, you can go off and focus on the most important thing. Viability happens to be something that is easier if you are say, in the cancer cure market, because as long as your solution is feasible, you will have a business for sure." - Andrew Chen

"Dave, that's right - probably you want to build the most minimum version of whatever addresses the biggest risk in your business. So for some folks that might be desirability, for some folks that might be the minimum viral product, or whatever." - Andrew Chen

"David, thanks for the additional comment. I reposted it, and also added some thoughts from Kristee Rosendahl, a fellow apple alum." - Andrew Chen

"Chris, my hypothesis is that you can get much of the benefit by deciding to make design a priority and recruit a strong design team that has real say within the team. Of course it's even better to have the CEO and the rest of the team really understand design. But before even getting to that, how many companies even let their design process drive versus their business or engineering goals? In most startups, design is typically just a supporting function that sits alongside product, and most product managers that control the roadmaps come from engineering or business backgrounds. How many MFAs are there as product managers versus MBAs?" - Andrew Chen

"You hang out with nerds :-)" - Andrew Chen

"you prove it :-)" - Andrew Chen

"Great comment, thanks for the thought. Glad to hear that you've figured out a balance." - Andrew Chen

"Amazon has lots of local optimizations that don't make sense from an uber scale :-) My girlfriend actually worked in their UX department and all sorts of stuff drove her mad. But hey, it still works as a business, and Amazon does so many other things right. I think the core value proposition is so strong that this other stuff doesn't affect it as much." - Andrew Chen

"Yes, it works in the short-term, and that is exactly the danger. The question is, how long does it work before it starts to degrade the experience enough to go the other direction? Leverage is great until you go bankrupt. So there are limits, and it's up to every product designer to figure out what they are." - Andrew Chen

"Thank you sir! I think Mint is an interesting example of this, where the company took a very top-down approach which helps with the overall product consistency, but as you guys have added features you'll need to refactor your design." - Andrew Chen

"I think Steve Blank's advice has a lot of similar with the small-group, qualitative "lead user research" approach of a firm like IDEO. The thing I've struggled with in reading his "4 Steps" book is how to apply it to consumer products and services rather than enterprise. He and I have had some interesting email threads on exactly that issue." - Andrew Chen

"Yes, I think IA and IxD are the toolset needed to address this creeping kind of debt. The question is though, when you're in the middle of a startup going 10,000 feet a second, trying to rapidly iterate and push your product out, what's the right way to build this into your process? Especially when startups are generally started by technically-inclined entrepreneurs that know all the benefits of agile, but all the costs of taking a planning/research-oriented approach? To me, it starts with the conversation and the business case that this is an important issue to address. IxD and IA are skillsets to address it, but you have to make entrepreneurs CARE about this issue first." - Andrew Chen

"I'm not saying that big company corporate experience is better than a lifestyle company. It might be, or not. But neither teaches you much about a VC-backed startup. A lifestyle company in an interesting space might teach you something, because you might end up a VC-backed co in disguise :-) Similarly, another good option is a VC-backed startup in any stage. Probably the earlier the better. Again, I'm just talking about people who are looking to learn and practice before starting their own VC-backed gig." - Andrew Chen

"I made up "product design debt." Maybe there's already a word for it on the design side. The "technical debt term" is very popular amongst engineers." - Andrew Chen

"unfortunately there's not a lot out there - most of it can be gathered by searching for jargon terms like K-factor, viral coefficient, viral factor, viral loop, etc. There's been a couple in-depth talks about it, so make sure you do the searches on Slideshare also." - Andrew Chen

"Now that I totally agree with - if you take my critique as centering around geographic specialization, I think it's key for Seattle to develop a unique community around a high-opportunity industry. The current generation of internet is all about community, UGC, social, and viral, but you're right that Seattle entrepreneurs might take the lead in the next generation - wonder what that might be?" - Andrew Chen

"Adam, good to hear from you. Well reasoned post. The reason why I headed straight for the community vs commerce distinction is because that is hands down the biggest difference in thinking I've observed while down here. As I mentioned in another comment, this is 100% anecdotal and unscientific. At the same time though, I know (and have named in previous blog posts) at least a dozen teams, and by extension, 100s of employees who really know their community and viral methods cold. I can't say that I really have met anyone from Seattle who really gets this particular niche skillset, which I think is responsible for a lot of the PayPal alumni's success, Facebook's success, etc. Maybe I am missing some teams in Seattle that really get it but I'm just unaware?" - Andrew Chen

"I think the social/viral wave really strong down here in the bay area, and has only gotten stronger in the last two years due to social gaming and facebook apps. I think you now have an entire generation of entrepreneurs trained on metrics-driven virality coupled with freemium models, and while a large % of them will just be trying to build the latest farm game, I think you'll start to see dividends over the next cycle... that's just my theory :-)" - Andrew Chen

"I'm sure this conversation is rehashed over and over again in other industries - LA for showbiz, NYC for finance, DC for politics, Silicon valley for startups, and Japan for cute robots. The advantage I'm arguing for in my post is mostly around the idea that there's specialized knowledge that you gain in a community that really focuses on it. That's not to say that you can't start in Taiwan and eventually make it into big screen blockbuster movies, but there may be more uphill battles than being immersed in it. I know certainly that in my time in the Bay Area I've learned lots of DIFFERENT stuff than I was learning in Seattle, some of it helpful and completely unhelpful :-)" - Andrew Chen

"My observations are 100% non-statistical. All anecdotes ;-) I think logically, maybe the reason why there are more UGC-oriented social sites in the Bay Area is that there's just more startups. So it's just a kind of observation bias. I'm just saying that from my personal observation, I'm leaning towards a cultural difference in the kind of regional specializations. Whether that's accurate or not, who knows, but I think it's a point worth considering (and investigating further) for those who care." - Andrew Chen

"Thanks for sharing that blog post. I remember seeing it but it was worth reading again. After thinking much more about my points, I think I am mostly pointing out that there is a geographic specialization for Seattle to go for transactional/revenue-centric business models versus the Bay Area being more comfortable going for "audience" businesses. Inherent in my "world changing" label is the idea that to change the world, you have to impact 10s or 100s of millions of consumers. Maybe that is not true? But that is really my naive definition. Anyway, this just nets out to some points around skillsets oriented around different geographies, that's all." - Andrew Chen

"Maybe one day we can grab coffee and I can tell you more about what I'm working on. I'm definitely following what I believe, including being stealth, so you may not be familiar with the specifics. Honestly though, if you disagree with what I'm saying about Seattle's regional focus being on transactional businesses, it'd a lot more helpful to hear about why you disagree rather than slamming me for supposedly not practicing what I preach. Anyway, I appreciate your passion and the time you spent reading my rambling blog post." - Andrew Chen

"Yes, wireless, commerce, casual games (bigfish+popcap+others), core games (nintendo+xbox+valve+others), and many more categories. That's definitely Seattle's specialization the same way that advertising is a NY focus and a lot of biotech happens in Boston." - Andrew Chen

"Great blog post! Please introduce yourself - would enjoy trading a couple more emails on this topic. My address is voodoo at gmail." - Andrew Chen

"Seattle obviously obviously is home to many world-changing companies, that is absolutely not what I'm contesting. I'm just making the observation that in the last 10 years, there hasn't been much to come out of consumer internet from Seattle, and I give some speculation for why that might be. Note that Google, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin are all NEW consumer internet companies - I would love to see the same pipeline of action coming from Seattle, and I think that a big reason has to do with the transactional vs audience-building mix. Thoughts?" - Andrew Chen

"It took me a little while to find it, but here was the other thing you sent me on Twitter a while back: "@andrew_chen - screw u & ur Bay Area pontifications - when u've had ur own successful exit, talk - til then, u're a big company hack & vc" First off, have we met each other? I know we know a few folks in common, and they say nice enough things about you, but the only interactions I've had with you have been hostile - and I really don't know why. I'm just blogging, and reflecting. You don't have to read my shit if you don't want to, especially if it makes you so angry. Why are you so angry about what I write?" - Andrew Chen

"It's not just stealth mode - even if I were completely out there with what I've been working on, you wouldn't want to read about it every day :-) What I do agree with though is that going deep with a company concept creates a weird little vacuum that makes it harder to hear about (and blog) normal stuff." - Andrew Chen

"I do have lots of half-written drafts :-) That's part of the fun. I'm not sure that what I'm facing is really a software or technology problem though..." - Andrew Chen

"Good blog post. I agree and view what you're saying sort of as addressing the supply and demand problem for deals in that kind of space. You won't get crazy shoot-the-moon consumer internet deals if VCs don't want to fund them." - Andrew Chen