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Is Reddit the next monopoly?

Andy Black

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I can probably guess which are the easier ways. Probably freelancing or doing some service business. But for me, that kills the ambitions I have in me.
Providing a service is a quick way to get started and engage the market quickly.

Have you watched MJ’s video here:
I’m not saying you’re flat broke, just that building a business around a skill is a nice route from employee, through freelancer, to business owner.

Also, I worked for a startup who’s goal was to create the next social network. Allegedly €40m of funding down the toilet because their goal was to “create a social network” instead of help people and get paid doing it.
 

RealDreams

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I would not create a social media. The forces against you are huge and your time so limited.

If being rich and free is your goal, there's far easier ways to make big money.
Yeah that was my intent. My goal is "getting rich" but in a way that makes me think I'm doing something worthwhile. What do you mean for easier ways? Since I've read Unscripted I'm trying to do what's difficult because that's where there's less competition and more opportunity for innovation, given that you have the skills.

But I often wonder how to compete against these big tech companies...
 

TheKingOfMadrid

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I can probably guess which are the easier ways. Probably freelancing or doing some service business. But for me, that kills the ambitions I have in me.

Saying that there's little chance a normal person would manage to win against big companies is a little self-defeatist honestly. I've seen "small" businesses destroy big industries thanks to technological innovation/automation. When Google beat Altavista they weren't as big as they were now (obviously).

The same is true for pretty much any service we have today. It's true that the capitalization of these big companies is absurd, but I don't think it's a complete game-loss for most entrepreneurs. Or maybe, not yet. But it seems the direction is the one you mentioned sooner or later.

The reason I want to start some sort of social network is that I want to learn to code, and it seems a good way to both learn by doing and maybe managing to make it succeed? Worst case scenario I learn a skill and maybe more.
I'm also a CS student so the two might overlap.
Definitely not that haha. Let's say it's a business that is 24/7 with people paying constantly for the service.

You need to be careful with your strawmen as In the post you're replying to, I never claimed the normal person cannot compete.

I said that you need to jealously guard your ideas because if you don't bad things happen such as - Big companies replicating your new innovation before you && your idea being stolen and created by those who can finance it faster.

The point I was demonstrating is that high skill is not always a precursor to monetary success.

Of course you can compete with big tech, as long as you become a noticeable thorn in their side you will either have the option to continue competing or exit for a nice sum.

Anyway it sounds as though you have plenty of time so it's worth getting to grips with what it would take to launch a social media platform from a technical point of view. It'll be a great portfolio piece eitherway.
 

RealDreams

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Providing a service is a quick way to get started, and you engage the market quickly.

Have you watched MJ’s video here:
I’m not saying you’re flat broke, just that building a business around a skill is a nice route from employee, through freelancer, to business owner.

Also, I worked for a startup who’s goal was to create the next social network. Allegedly €40m of funding down the toilet because their goal was to “create a social network” instead of help people and get paid doing it.
I did watch the video. I'll take that into consideration, thank you.
 

Kid

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Reddit is strange beast, it's 6th site in the USA (higher than netflix and ebay)
yet they make scraps when it comes to earnings.

Problem is that people on Reddit don't want to spend cash.
They are going ballistic when someone posts something
of commercial intent.

There were few cases where actually someone advertised
his site and had some signups.
Most of the time those offers were from someone
deep in the community - aka having posted lots of value first.
But that's exception rather than the rule.
 
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RealDreams

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I started noticing Reddit is conquering the internet with subreddits in every possible niche.

With their economies of scale, the marginal cost for them to create a subreddit in every niche is basically null (since it's an all in one social network). I wonder how that translates for normal, small business owners who try to create niche social networks. Do you think it's still possible?

Not to talk about the fact that the hard work is being done by the users (moderators) of the subreddits (without retribution). The real owners of Reddit probably only know 2% of all the subreddits out there.
 
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TheKingOfMadrid

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I would not create a social media. The forces against you are huge and your time so limited.

If being rich and free is your goal, there's far easier ways to make big money.
 

TheKingOfMadrid

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Yeah that was my intent. My goal is "getting rich" but in a way that makes me think I'm doing something worthwhile. What do you mean for easier ways? Since I've read Unscripted I'm trying to do what's difficult because that's where there's less competition and more opportunity for innovation, given that you have the skills.
The easier ways I know would not be your definition of 'worthwhile'.

You're partly correct about the difficult skill = opportunity route however you also need to be very jealous of your ideas as many people with fantastic skill have been left penniless after great ideas due to either; richer people replicating the success in higher volumes to broader markets OR their idea being stolen as with the microbiologist(?) that posted here a few weeks ago who had his idea stolen.

Plus with the social media idea you have to know how long it would take to execute because to do something innovative there on your own would take a long, long time.
 
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RealDreams

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The easier ways I know would not be your definition of 'worthwhile'.

You're partly correct about the difficult skill = opportunity route however you also need to be very jealous of your ideas as many people with fantastic skill have been left penniless after great ideas due to either; richer people replicating the success in higher volumes to broader markets OR their idea being stolen as with the microbiologist(?) that posted here a few weeks ago who had his idea stolen.

Plus with the social media idea you have to know how long it would take to execute because to do something innovative there on your own would take a long, long time.
I can probably guess which are the easier ways. Probably freelancing or doing some service business. But for me, that kills the ambitions I have in me.

Saying that there's little chance a normal person would manage to win against big companies is a little self-defeatist honestly. I've seen "small" businesses destroy big industries thanks to technological innovation/automation. When Google beat Altavista they weren't as big as they were now (obviously).

The same is true for pretty much any service we have today. It's true that the capitalization of these big companies is absurd, but I don't think it's a complete game-loss for most entrepreneurs. Or maybe, not yet. But it seems the direction is the one you mentioned sooner or later.

The reason I want to start some sort of social network is that I want to learn to code, and it seems a good way to both learn by doing and maybe managing to make it succeed? Worst case scenario I learn a skill and maybe more.
I'm also a CS student so the two might overlap.
 

RealDreams

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Definitely not that haha. Let's say it's a business that is 24/7 with people paying constantly for the service.

You need to be careful with your strawmen as In the post you're replying to, I never claimed the normal person cannot compete.

I said that you need to jealously guard your ideas because if you don't bad things happen such as - Big companies replicating your new innovation before you && your idea being stolen and created by those who can finance it faster.

The point I was demonstrating is that high skill is not always a precursor to monetary success.

Of course you can compete with big tech, as long as you become a noticeable thorn in their side you will either have the option to continue competing or exit for a nice sum.

Anyway it sounds as though you have plenty of time so it's worth getting to grips with what it would take to launch a social media platform from a technical point of view. It'll be a great portfolio piece eitherway.
I agree. I'm not saying knowing how to code alone is enough. Indeed, it probably isn't.

I'm also trying to learn some corporate finance on my own because I realized that if you don't know how to efficiently invest and manage your money, you are pretty much going to war without guns.

I think the key in business is to know (and learn) as many skills as possible. Some will say "just hire someone", but not everyone has a steady stream of income to afford hiring professionals. I don't, for instance.

Whenever I think of the big entrepreneurs, all of them are polymaths. They have domain expertise in at least 2 domains. Zuckerberg had computer science + psychology. Elon has physics + economics + engineering. Steve Jobs computer science + marketing + design. That's just an example but you get the point.

The 24/7 service, you mean some sort of SaaS?
 
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