Take the "seems like a bad idea" bit. Many of the big hits are really well-worn ideas done with better marketing, better timing, and a user experience which makes it available to new markets.
Dropbox? File sharing. Facebook? Geocities. Both are interesting in that they take something that was a giant pain in the neck but useful enough to put up with anyway, and then they make it usable enough that virtually anyone can do that stuff routinely.
But the meta-cognition isn't all that important. What's important is that they're getting out there and helping new companies learn and grow. They can be wrong all day (or not) about the why because they've developed a process which provably works, and which they can measure and improve upon.
Can you honestly not tell the difference between Facebook and Geocities?
Also, the fact that Dropbox and Facebook were "unoriginal" is exactly what made them seem like bad ideas at the time. I saw Dropbox present at demoday, and the main question on my mind was, "How is this different from the million other attempts at online file storage? (xdrive, etc)".
Isn't this an example of the winner take all phenomenon?
It seems to me that both Dropbox & Facebook are example of companies pursuing good ideas that lots of other companies were also pursuing. They just happened to be the ones that executed the best (and possibly also had the best luck) so they were able to win the market.
If this is the case then your job as a funder of startups might be to try to identify the companies capable of out executing everyone else on a good idea that a lot of people are working on.
This is much different than the great idea that looks bad phenomenon that pg discusses in his essay.
If I had the time, I would do a bunch of research into trying to determine what made Dropbox, Facebook, AirBnB, et al, succeed in their markets. I assume the answer involves the founding teams, but what traits did these founders have that others did not?
I don't have the time though, so if any bloggers/journalists are reading, this could be an interesting article, or even book, if you get enough info.
Whether or not this info would actually help another team become successful is another story though.
The big successes that I've seen all have exceptional founders, but that's clearly not enough. Timing is a huge component as well. Often a good idea will fail simply because the market or technology isn't ready. My own experience with Gmail reflects some of that. When we decided to write the whole frontend in JS, everyone said that it was a bad idea doomed to failure. It had been tried before (e.g. desktop.com) and had always been a disaster. They were right about the past, but wrong about the future. We released Gmail right around the time that browsers were finally getting good enough, and were were very careful to keep our code as fast and slim as possible.
The actual formula that academics use is Performance = AMO, ability * motivation * opportunity. I think there are a couple of modified versions but I can't remember what they are off the top of my head.
I've found that in instances where my ability is 7 and motivation is 34 but opportunity is something like, say, 23, I've had better performance than when my ability is 22 and my motivation is 12 compared with a 13 opportunity.
This is to say that my experience confirms that there probably is some completely subjective formula that will fool people into thinking there is some reason behind my good luck. :-)
I am sure that you knew that browsers were finally getting good enough. Getting the timing right is still difficult but it is not pure luck. I suppose you also need some luck (and skill) to convince others that something is now becoming possible. Finding an investor that also sees the opportunity can be hard.
Take the "seems like a bad idea" bit. Many of the big hits are really well-worn ideas done with better marketing, better timing, and a user experience which makes it available to new markets.
Dropbox? File sharing. Facebook? Geocities. Both are interesting in that they take something that was a giant pain in the neck but useful enough to put up with anyway, and then they make it usable enough that virtually anyone can do that stuff routinely.
But the meta-cognition isn't all that important. What's important is that they're getting out there and helping new companies learn and grow. They can be wrong all day (or not) about the why because they've developed a process which provably works, and which they can measure and improve upon.