Lead Bullets (2011)

Lead Bullets (2011)(a16z.com)

119 points by Envec83 9 years ago | 43 comments

The other time this story was discussed here (probably in 2011, linked to techcrunch) someone pointed out very insightful comment from person claiming to be employed at a time at the Netscape in Marketing (or Sales?). According to this employee the real reason why the web server was selling was not the regained technical supremacy, but mere fact that it was boundled with mail and directory servers that customers were actually interested in. I have no way of checking whether it's true, and there are no comments on this story today on both a16z site and techcrunch, but the idea that even someone who made the company succeed and have learned valuable lessons from it may have not seen the whole picture left a deep impression on me.

js2 9 years ago | |

I was at Loudcloud/Opsware from 2000 through the HP acquisition. I don't know what happened at Netscape, but at Opsware we had to improve the product.

santoshalper 9 years ago | |

Free mail and directory servers would not have been enough to overcome a massive performance deficit. Especially not in the 90's when web server performance was still a major issue.

FeatureRush 9 years ago | | |

Here the source comment is reproduced in this old HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3156724

philippz 9 years ago |

Nice excerpt from his book "Hard things about hard things" - can absolutely recommend it.

mi100hael 9 years ago | |

I really struggled to get through it. There's something about the rich guy from England now living in SF who went to Columbia using phrases like "oh snap" and quoting Public Enemy that just feels fake and obnoxious.

stumblers 9 years ago | | |

Ditto, I also struggled with it. I really, really didn't like the book (but really wanted to). Since then he's a standing example for my own ad hominem thinking, as in I have to keep reminding myself to separate the person from the point they're trying to make. Embarrassed to say I've never met him but can't stand him.

philippz 9 years ago | | |

I agree. But i think it was not meant to be read like a roman rather than a reference book. :) Which makes it hard to read it like roman - storyline missing.

seibelj 9 years ago |

It's so much easier to win when the product is the best. You can still lose because of 5000 other reasons, but the best product makes everything else so much easier.

throwaway2016a 9 years ago | |

Being the best is overrated. Three times in my career I was on an engineering team that built an objectively best in class product. Three times it failed because the competition out marketed us and/or beat us in the customer service department. Despite them having inferior products.

Don't get me wrong. You need to have a good product. Your product can't be awful but it only needs to be about 80% as good as the competition before you can win in marketing and other ways.

crystalmeph 9 years ago | | |

How much of them beating you was marketing and how much was customer service?

World class customer service by itself can be a market beater, even when the product you are backing up is more expensive / lower quality for the same feature set. People like to know that when they have problems, they'll get answers quickly.

raverbashing 9 years ago | | |

"It's the best but doesn't do X"

"It's the best but it still hasn't launched"

"It's the best but documentation is bad and nobody knows how to use it effectively"

"It's the best but has no support option"

ams6110 9 years ago | | |

Product needs to be good enough to provide value/solve the customer's problems. Other products may be objectively "better" on some measures, but those measures may not be relevant for all users.

FeatureRush 9 years ago | | |

Absolutely true, the whole idea that there is one dominating factor in success is a dead end. Just looking at SaaS: bad marketing means no growth and wasted product, bad product means no retention and wasted marketing.

donclark 9 years ago | | |

I think something similar can be said for (hardware/products) China/Shenzen. Example: https://www.wish.com/

seppin 9 years ago | | |

Having a technically superior product is useless. Having a "better" product (including design, usability, and yes marketing) is what I believe OP was talking about.

beaconstudios 9 years ago | | |

customer service is part of the product. Saying you had the better product but other companies beat you on customer service is denying that the customer is paying for capabilities, not software, and that customer service is part and parcel of providing the capability they desire.

Zombiefruit 9 years ago | | |

Zune: case in point.

underbluewaters 9 years ago |

Can someone explain this metaphor for me? My understanding is that a silver bullet kills mythical creatures. You can't also kill a werewolf with a bunch of lead ones.

VLM 9 years ago | |

Fred Brooks 1986 titled "No Silver Bullet"

Nothing is ever really new in software development or IT. Today, sure, people are like "Fred who?" but as surely as virtual machine wax and wane, someday a generation will arise, for awhile, having read Brooks and his timeless observations on software development. Maybe I should quit my job and write book introductions professionally?

I'm not sure if there is a legal copy out there on the net, but here's its wikipedia page anyway. Hurry, or the deletionists will get it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Silver_Bullet

gukov 9 years ago | |

I thought the article applied to real life very well.

You often procrastinate by overthinking and overplanning when the best approach to check off that item on the to-do list is to just do it.

silver bullet == not acting in hopes to eventually come up with a magical solution

lead bullet == the solution is dull but obvious, you just do it

SerLava 9 years ago | |

Silver bullet means an easy way out- usually clever but always relatively easy in the execution.

dmckeon 9 years ago | |

Many cheap fast improvements now are better than one perfect improvement later. (see also: "I don't need it perfect, I need it Tuesday" (Sam Goldwyn?) and "cheap, fast, good: pick two."

I think the bullet part of the metaphor has more to do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_bullet_%28medicine%29 than with Fred Brooks, the Lone Ranger, or werewolves.

metaphorm 9 years ago | |

you're right, the metaphor has drifted from its original context and meaning. silver bullet, in this context, is being used to mean something more like "magic bullet" i.e. a bullet that always hits the target on the first shot, and thus only one is ever needed.

fao_ 9 years ago | |

Well you should be able to kill a warewolf with a gattling gun.

fermigier 9 years ago |

2011

beat 9 years ago | |

In the past six years, technological advances have rendered this essay obsolete. The SBaaS (Silver Bullet as a Service) market has allowed many companies that previously had to work hard to have the best product to simply add a service that makes them better than the competition.

coredog64 9 years ago | | |

SBaaS will be extinct by the time the PaaS (Profit as a Service) offerings hit the market.