This will be fun... hope I can actually make it! Reading his book now. Some interesting stuff. Keep drawing parallels to Waterloo and Toronto in my head which makes reading less fast.
Sensational, yes, but it is possible that being more than just a pr0n collector made Hollywood pay more attention to them as there is some strategic advantage to shut them down. They may have assisted with the investigation to speed things along for whatever reason. I would bet they were more than enough reasons to arrest mr Dotcom but the complexity and the cost might have made it a tough target vs other 'low hanging fruit' law breakers (FBI has limited resources too).
I could have sworn that 37 Signals did this 'first' in that they popularized the idea of 'lean' or iterative product design around a SaaS model in 2004ish. It is the whole philosophy around the birth of Rails as I remember it. If you go way back into their blog archives it is likely there:
I will give them 'first' because they built a framework around the idea of building fast and cheap.
Because startups are hot (again) and trendy (again) people are just looking for 'the right way' to do it. The real secret is that it is really hard work and knowing that you don't know everything while holding true to your vision.
Many of the ideas in Lean Startup are not new at all. And Eric Ries even admit to this!
Paul Graham wrote many of them on his essays[1] (one example: Launching Too Early, from 18 Mistakes[2], is rephrased as iterate on Lean Startup), and so did 37 Signals (the core of the MVP concept is outlined on Half, not half assed[3]).
Lean (which is usually placed along with Agile methodologies) and startups' synergies were mentioned 4 years ago by infoQ (the same site where the article on this post is from)[4], which also made the connection between the works of pg, Jessica Livingstone and 37 Signals.
The metric and funnel anayslis (an important piece of the measure part of the build/measure/learn loop) come from 500 Startups head Dave McClure's recurring presentation Startup Metrics 4 Pirates (which nowadays borrows from Lean Startup ubiquitous language).
The Lean Startup does bring some new ideas to the table (innovation accounting for instance), but the most important part is that it outlines some really overlooked ideas (like using cohorts[6] as a way out of the Vanity Metrics[7] pit).
I think a concept video, as long as it isn't too outrageous, is a decent way to inspire people. Some people watched minority report and said "I want to build that" -- concept videos could achieve the same. At the end of the article he mentions RIM's videos. I would say those are totally different as I think most of the basic components of that world are in the device or rumoured to be coming soon. That is cool. If someone can grab their latest device and make one of those workflows happen how good will they feel and what could come next?
Yes there are bad videos and they may have an unclear purpose but I think it is all about the context of the video.
My thought on why that works for YC is that you are an educator. This thought is influenced not by your credentials but by students that I have known go into YC and what they seem to get out of it from an observers point of view. I don't think it should be about making money... it should be about education first, it would be nice if it at least covered everyone's costs (plus a little bit).
A post on higher ed and incubators is what lead me down the incubator math question... I just need to finish up the original post.
