Is it possible today to create a startup and change the world?

Question

Startups

Hello habrausers. I want to know your opinion on the creation of new startups today in 2013. Do you think it is possible today to repeat the success of twitter, google, Facebook and other successful companies by inventing something new and useful to people (as they say, to change the world)?

I look at today's "startups" and it seems to me that most of their founders conceived them simply for the sake of being. No, I don’t want to say anything bad about them, everyone who stays and does something is certainly well done. But to be honest, many of them themselves come up with a problem and try to solve it, and there are a lot of such startups every day.

There is a feeling that everything that could have been invented and some new revolutionary developments should now be expected only from large corporations that invest in other industries, such as google

. Do you think it is possible today for a simple programmer to make a start-up and change the world?

Answer 1

Can!!! Unrealized ideas - a shaft !!! Hands do not have time to hit the keyboard ... For example, read the ideas of the fathers of the genre. Who stood at the origins (at least take our programmers of the 80s) smoked the right grass (then it was held in high esteem) and generated a bunch of useful and powerful ideas, but computers didn’t allow them then. Sometimes I read academic programming magazines of those times and am very surprised at the breadth of thought ... The problem is that it takes a long time for one, and it is difficult to assemble a reliable gang. In addition, as a rule, all good ideas, as a rule, are at the junction of either electronics, or biology, or bizine, or something else, you need to be either a multi-specialist, or, again, collect a gang, and it’s also difficult to feed a gang at the promotion stage, you have to keep all on rice (in terms of nutrition) and on promises, in terms of morale.
But let's not be unfounded, let's give examples. Make a normal speech recognizer and you will turn the world upside down. Make the neural interface normal and flip it over again. A smart home as such, and no one has done it (only visibility). Automate everything - people like it...
Start small, like design a new home PC architecture, and if it's cool, then flip it.
At the same time, always look to the future, LCDs are the last century, there will only be projectors, design games right away for virtual reality systems ...
And everything will be great !!!

Answer 2

at the beginning of the 20th century, it was also widely believed that in physics everything that was possible had already been discovered, and there was nothing more to discover

Answer 3

Facebook was created when there were already forums and even social networks, such as MySpace.
Google was created when there were already search engines like Yahoo.
Need more examples?

Answer 4

possibly

Answer 5

I also have the right grass ... Make a normal car radio based on a mini PC with a solid-state hard drive ...
Make a well-designed media computer (media center) (20 terabytes)) and spin it up ... A normal set for water cooling is not sold in our country either ...
Door lock finally design on a microcontroller so that a cell phone is instead of a key ...

Answer 6

Do you think it is possible today for a simple programmer to make a startup and change the world?

One can only make a prototype. It takes a team, investment, and the list goes on to change the world.
Sea of ​​unrealized ideas. For example, a distributed news system (similar to bitmessage). So that the news is published not by Uncle Sam, but by any person who wishes. To not be blocked. To have user ratings.
Personally, I'm tired of bought news and silence of facts. Perhaps such a startup will really change the world if it is not strangled in the bud.

Answer 7

I agree that it is possible, because. there are still so many areas in our life that have not been optimized, not serviced, not improved - so that it would be more convenient for us lazy people to live - that this is just an unplowed field. Especially considering that the computer era has not even turned a hundred years old, the Internet era is even fifty. We are at the very beginning of the journey - I don’t want to create.

Answer 8

Chances are very small (<1%) based on statistics.

Answer 9

You put the question in such a way that it is obvious your desire to justify yourself, calm down - and go to bed, like " you can't, well, okay "

Answer 10

Do you think it is possible today for a simple programmer to make a startup and change the world?

To a simple programmer - hardly. Something else is needed.

Answer 11

By the way, here is an example of a normal approach to generating ideas (like brainstorming):
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EBPmMRiI70

Answer 12

Why not. Study the needs of people and business, you may find a problem that, when solved, brings benefits and profits.

Answer 13

Great question, back in 2013) and how many successful startups that have changed the world for the better shot during this time, no one kept statistics?)
For example, the first thing that comes to my mind is additional reality and Pocemon Go)))

Answer 14

Almost all large companies started with garages... What does this say? This suggests that there was an idea, but not always funds. Let's take for example Odessans who created Looksary, here is an example of one of the successful startups at the post-council. The main thing is a clear goal, a dream, I would say a crazy dream. And the team, of course. As for facebook, twitter, google, there is a lot of competition among startups in this area. But what if you create startups in undeveloped niches, for example, medicine or something else?