I have followed Paras for a fair bit; he is on point when he speaks about building consumer apps for population scale.
It is sad to see him shutter despite healthy and abundant resources; have also observed many of my friends closely putting their head and heart at various consumer applications! It is one of the reasons I dreaded entrepreneurial stints - the job is humongously hard; at Probo//Pavilion- we see it everyday!
Going against Google, Meta and TikTok is mammoth task.
90% founders do not realise (going in) how engaging and sticky their platforms are - more importantly we do not spend time understanding the evolution of these platforms to global behemoths.
It is all a game of “attention” - internet has transitioned human behaviour - an average working person spends anywhere around ~6-12 hrs across various devices on an average (per day) - fair to say we spend less time with ourselves or other human beings (irl) than on devices.
Bulk of these 6-12 hrs is across apps by these big tech firms (WA, YT, Insta/Twitter/LinkedIn, TikTok, Netflix/Disney/Amazon, Gmail, Chrome, Safari, iMessage/slack/teams/zoom/gmeet) - they do have ALL our attention. Everything from hardware to OS to software runs through or via them - like a magician anyone on internet is only a node away from these companies , and they know how to get our attention. A new start-up trying their luck for customers attention, from Koramangala or GCR is literally dead on arrival.
Now this is not a ding on anyone nor am I trying to discourage anyone from starting up, but the lengths companies go to ensure screen time and attention is something everyone must take deep notes on - business is not a positive sum game. Understanding how attention economy works is key to build anything on internet - please do not be naive 🙏
The only weapon I can offer a team thinking of going against any of these behemoths, is WILL POWER. Can you suffer pain and endless stream of pain and yet keep figuring ways to move forward?
Most (young and old) founders do not wish to discuss pain and discomfort, my good wishes to them. Others drink/ smoke / sleep their discomfort away - I have tried all methods (and happy to learn more) but I am ye to find a school or a method that teaches this curriculum (may be special forces or a really strict coach/dad) but in today’s times even strictness is considered cruelty - so not sure how can I put this across to you (you = internet startup’s and teams; teams building for Viksit Bharat)
Jensen Huang said it one way on the GSB interview; another simpler one was by my dear friend when he took me to the Beatles Ashram in Rishikesh before we started Probo
“You cannot escape your demons; you can only slay them!”
Slaying will require willpower 🇮🇳❤️
