doing something related to images on the Web, even if they weren’t getting paid for it.
Passion for what you are doing is the single biggest determinant of success or failure. Get passionate, believe in something, so that when the problems come, you can survive the roller coaster ride.
–Prompted by Flemings’ confession.
The best companies are created when you create a new experience. Facebook didn’t come along and do better by being Google; they created a new experience.
Khosla was asking Flemings whether Stipple’s success depends on retraining Web users to mouse over images, so that they can discover the linked product information and offers. Flemings said people are learning from Facebook that images can be tagged and explored; Khosla advised him to find ways to identify Stipple with the experience of shopping through images.
Startups are about creating the most options at every step of the process, since you never know where the path is going to lead you. I liken the early stages of a startup to a roundabout. There are six roads leading in different directions. Too many startups, egged on by their VCs, pick a road too early. Before you decide to spend four or five years pursuing this road, it’s valuable to go around the circle a few more times.
This point came up in a couple of different contexts—once with Stipple, when Khosla was advising Flemings not to focus too soon on just one way of monetizing Web images, and later when he was quizzing MacManus about CodeLesson’s business model, which currently revolves around fees for programming courses (a potential problem when competitors like Codecademy are offering free instruction).
Figure out what your unfair advantage is. Look for unfair forms of credibility. Go hire the one person your customer would take seriously. Lock up one critical feature that every enterprise needs.
Khosla made this point several times—it’s apparently one of his favorites. The first time, he was urging Flemings to figure out features Stipple could add that Getty Images or other players in the publishing and advertising business would have a hard time duplicating. Later, he gave similar advice to Lozinski of Oomnitza, whose enterprise applications are similar to software made by SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, Salesforce.com, and others. If Oomnitza came up with a feature that every business wanted—the way Amazon got an early patent on one-click purchases—it could be in position to grow much faster, Khosla argued.
Be the integrating force.
Another point related to Oomnitza. “SAP can do SAP really well, and Oracle can do Oracle, but Oracle will never do SAP,” Khosla said. If Oomnitza offers a way to help companies work across their existing enterprise software systems, “then you have a proposition that none of your competitors can beat.”
One of the most under-invested ideas in the Internet space is the idea of emotion. If you think something is beautiful, you want it. Read Fascinate by Sally Hogshead and engineer at least one of her seven emotional triggers into your product.
After Johnson’s initial description of ArmedZilla, Khosla seemed underwhelmed. He felt Johnson was emphasizing the site’s utility to veterans, and missing its potential appeal as a place for them to forge social and emotional connections. “I would love to see a product that had
