<story><title>Question for PG/HN:  Where do you think we stand on your list of &quot;ideas&quot;?</title><text>About three years ago, Paul penned his essay &quot;Startup Ideas We&apos;d Like to Fund&quot;.  Three years along, how do you think this list stands up today?  Are any solved (in part or in whole)?  Anything new you would add to the list?&lt;p&gt;I ask, because I remember reading this years ago and getting inspired to work on a few things (that didn&apos;t pan out).  Given the popularity of (and success of YC), it would be interesting to see what Paul and HN see as the state of the world for this list.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrewstuart</author><text>We built something alot like: 22. A web-based Excel/database hybrid.&lt;p&gt;The question is though, what problem does it solve?  It was very hard to explain to people why they would need it or care about it.&lt;p&gt;Spent a year developing it and spent alot of money on it.  For nothing in the end.  A very cool technology and I still like it alot.&lt;p&gt;Lesson: build something people want, or that solves a real problem.  Don&apos;t build a solution looking for a problem.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>david927</author><text>That&apos;s funny because I&apos;m also building a web-based Excel/database hybrid, and I&apos;m also a bit concerned about demand.  But your story doesn&apos;t deter me at all, for two reasons: one, because I&apos;m crazy; two because of La Femme Nikita.  Let me explain.&lt;p&gt;People talk about ideas as being worthless, etc.  No, they&apos;re not.  You can&apos;t get an oak tree with a mustard seed.  But there&apos;s a big difference between even oak trees.  Idea and execution are the same thing, just two ends of a continuous line.&lt;p&gt;The films &lt;i&gt;La Femme Nikita&lt;/i&gt; and &lt;i&gt;Point of No Return&lt;/i&gt; have nearly the exact same plot.  The former is one of the greatest action films ever made; the latter is one of the worst.&lt;p&gt;That whole &quot;build something people want&quot; is only for people who want to make money.  And honestly, if what you want is to make money, be a dentist.&lt;p&gt;People waant Facebook and Twitter and Farmville.  But they need core technological innovation.  They need better ways to work with data.  You did the right thing, Andrew.  It wasn&apos;t a waste of time.  And I won&apos;t stop either, because the world has far too much of what it wants and far too little of what it needs.</text></comment>
<story><title>Question for PG/HN:  Where do you think we stand on your list of &quot;ideas&quot;?</title><text>About three years ago, Paul penned his essay &quot;Startup Ideas We&apos;d Like to Fund&quot;.  Three years along, how do you think this list stands up today?  Are any solved (in part or in whole)?  Anything new you would add to the list?&lt;p&gt;I ask, because I remember reading this years ago and getting inspired to work on a few things (that didn&apos;t pan out).  Given the popularity of (and success of YC), it would be interesting to see what Paul and HN see as the state of the world for this list.</text></story><parent_chain><item><author>andrewstuart</author><text>We built something alot like: 22. A web-based Excel/database hybrid.&lt;p&gt;The question is though, what problem does it solve?  It was very hard to explain to people why they would need it or care about it.&lt;p&gt;Spent a year developing it and spent alot of money on it.  For nothing in the end.  A very cool technology and I still like it alot.&lt;p&gt;Lesson: build something people want, or that solves a real problem.  Don&apos;t build a solution looking for a problem.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>josephcooney</author><text>Are you kidding? 80% of &apos;enterprise&apos; systems involve a spreadsheet that is (conceptually) a database. Some business users use the words spreadsheet and database interchangeably. Almost every enterprise system I&apos;ve build involved Excel as one of it&apos;s data sources. Users often give you requirements in terms of excel formulate etc, or ask for screens that are &apos;just like excel&apos;. Microsoft has even recognized this and now offers &apos;server-side excel&apos; 
as part of office 2007. &lt;a href=&quot;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excel_Services&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excel_Services&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;d suggest that if this product wasn&apos;t a success you either didn&apos;t understand how end-users currently use spreadsheets as a &apos;poor man&apos;s database&apos; or the marketing let you down.</text></comment>