Unformatted by Greg Docter: Hypotheses

Showing posts with label Hypotheses. Show all posts

Sunday, August 10, 2025

A running list of tar pit ideas

What is a “tarpit idea”?
These are the startup ideas that seem good — almost too good to be true! — but have been tried by many founders before with little to no success.
Tarpit ideas are often not hard in obvious ways. They might seem so easy and good that it’s unbelievable that no one has done it — but when you look a bit deeper, you realize that they have been tried. Over, and over again.

Via: Tarpit ideas - what are tarpit ideas & how to avoid them

To put my mind at rest, these are ideas I think are tarpits.

On-Chain Games / Game Items

People do not actually care about taking a sword from one game to another, or whatever.
Games are self-contained ecosystems. Objects are valuable only within their specific contexts.

Personal CRM

no one wants to treat their life like work
the tech has been there for 10+ years to make this happen, alas

Micro-transactions for content/blog posts

economics don't make sense (transaction costs!)
friction doesn't make sense

Ethical investment platform

making money > making money "ethically"
See: Nuclear Weapons Investors Tap ESG Billions [Bloomberg, August 25, 2025]

Dedicated decision making software/tools

generalized tools do the trick
it's a niche audience

Decentralized Twitter using Crypto

Harder to use
Smaller/niche user-base
Not even 2x better than web2 social, let alone 10x needed to get folks to truly switch

Watch 🎬 Tarpit Ideas: The Sequel

Monday, March 3, 2025

No, GenAI isn't Killing SaaS

I thought the internet moved past the "SaaS is dead" takes months ago. Apparently not!

"SaaS is dead" generates engagement and points to real shifts happening in tech, but at this point it's stale and it's always been wrong.

Here’s why the arguments for “SaaS is dead” don’t hold up:

The argument is so broad as to be (almost) useless
The argument is internally inconsistent
Sufficiently valuable software is very complex
Comparative Advantage Still Matters
GenAI ➡️ More Software ➡️ More SaaS, Not Less
SaaS Companies Are Riding the Wave
Performant AI Agents Are Neither Simple nor Isolated

Think "SaaS + AI" not "SaaS vs. AI."

Mastodon Learnings & Blockchain Applications

Blockchain applications could learn a thing or two from Mastodon.

A few hypotheses on LLMs

An autopilot is a system used to control the path of an aircraft, marine craft or spacecraft without requiring constant manual control by a human operator. Autopilots do not replace human operators. Instead, the autopilot assists the operator's control of the vehicle, allowing the operator to focus on broader aspects of operations. Wikipedia

Fitness landscapes, COVID, and markets [an unfinished post]

[Note: this is an unfinished, very rough blog post i last updated on 6-16-20. Some of the ideas still resonate with me, maybe i'll properly update/finish it in the future 🤷]

"I'll assert that market is the most important factor in a startup's success or failure. Why? In a great market -- a market with lots of real potential customers -- the market pulls product out of the startup."

Marc Andreesen, The Only Thing That Matters

📈Convexity Machines 🤖 Roles & Characteristics

In Convexity Machines - Short Post I set some basic criteria for what I've dubbed "Convexity Machines."

Convexity Machines are digital environments with user-generated randomness
Users have potential for large gains (status/$)
Users’ mishits are small/harmless
Optionality exists to select gains, forget losses