This is more to scratch my own itch. The online photo situation is so huge that there might even be a few, or many other people who like what I've built. If so, great. If not - I don't care, I built something I wanted to build. It isn't going to be radically different, just "sort of" different. Hopefully fun, too.
Sometimes I think hacker attitudes are way too dramatic. "Precious development time", "... my baby." Discouraging projects unless they are "radically different." Commit 100% or don't bother! Utmost passion and dedication to your online power saving widget! GO BIG OR GO HOME!
A lot of really good software was created on a lark. Some of it even became financially successful. It doesn't need to be quit your job and drop out of school to make the next Google (using Haskell, this time) or else you're wasting your time.
That said, at my day job I have genetically engineered biomolecules to act as a massively parallel neural network which can design new derivative investment instruments on the fly and corner the market on them before other hedge funds even know they exist. As a clever side-effect, this process unearths retrotransposon based cures for AIDS hidden in "junk DNA". My work has been "certified green" because the biological residue from the computations can be dumped onto ocean oil spills and automatically transform the petroleum into vegan friendly biodiesel which swims to shore on its own. I have also hacked my roomba to perform an advanced form of lasik surgery which restores sight and plan on sending it on a world tour to communities in the rain forest afflicted with "river blindness." Hopefully these advances in the state of the art more than make up for the time I'm wasting on my boring photo site.
EDIT: gotta give a shout out to my homies at CERN for hooking one of my molecules up with a free trip to the 11th dimension after they find the higgs. thanks, guys!
"What would you do? Would you just support him blindly or would you advise him to do something else?"
Regardless of the idea, I would advise setting a squeal point in advance, a condition such as [cash < $20k] that will immediately trigger the action of giving up and looking for a job.
Aside from that caveat, I would give much the same advice as others have given here: focus on the needs of your users, keep your burn rate low, and code like a madman.
Common advice for new Go players is "lose your first 100 games as quickly as possible." Players who follow this advice invariably win their first game long before playing 100 games.
Fair enough. You made your point and it's a valid one.
But my observation is that it is very hard to beat the competition unless your product offers something compelling over theirs. Not impossible, but hard.
P.S. Chill out guys. It's not like as if i told menlopark to scrap his idea. I told him to change his game plan. To differentiate his product from the competition like what Fotonauts did.
Sometimes I think hacker attitudes are way too dramatic. "Precious development time", "... my baby." Discouraging projects unless they are "radically different." Commit 100% or don't bother! Utmost passion and dedication to your online power saving widget! GO BIG OR GO HOME!
A lot of really good software was created on a lark. Some of it even became financially successful. It doesn't need to be quit your job and drop out of school to make the next Google (using Haskell, this time) or else you're wasting your time.
That said, at my day job I have genetically engineered biomolecules to act as a massively parallel neural network which can design new derivative investment instruments on the fly and corner the market on them before other hedge funds even know they exist. As a clever side-effect, this process unearths retrotransposon based cures for AIDS hidden in "junk DNA". My work has been "certified green" because the biological residue from the computations can be dumped onto ocean oil spills and automatically transform the petroleum into vegan friendly biodiesel which swims to shore on its own. I have also hacked my roomba to perform an advanced form of lasik surgery which restores sight and plan on sending it on a world tour to communities in the rain forest afflicted with "river blindness." Hopefully these advances in the state of the art more than make up for the time I'm wasting on my boring photo site.
EDIT: gotta give a shout out to my homies at CERN for hooking one of my molecules up with a free trip to the 11th dimension after they find the higgs. thanks, guys!