Sorry to all of the non-readers out there…took a little braincation from qrisper.  But now I’m back, still obscure as ever!

I got the chance to sit down with a few investors to discuss the viability of this little site called qrisper.com.  While I’m still new to all this, I was confident in my pitch and my value proposition.  Not once did I think I would make the newbie mistake of boldly claiming that I have no direct competition.  Man, the incredulous looks I got when I did say that…classic!

I weaved myself out of that little situation by explaining that yes, there are tons of Q&A sites out there but none of them aggregates answers…at least not yet.  They couldn’t argue with that.  But then they hit me with the apparently common investor hullabaloo of, “How will you protect yourself from competitors that have millions in funding that will most definitely copy your idea, which by the way is super duper fantastic?!” (Ed. – quote has been paraphrased and embellished for effect).

I guess that is something to be wary of but nothing that keeps me awake at nights.  Because that decision – to copy another company’s idea to make your own – is not an easy one to make.  Some things to consider before making such a decision:

• Where are you in terms of your own product development?
• How flexible are you with your product roadmap?
• How easily can you modify your existing infrastructure and user behavior?
• Are you willing to completely scrap your existing methodology, if necessary?
• Are you willing to take the risk of rebuilding your entire infrastructure, if necessary?
• Do you require board approval to completely change course?

My take is that it’s actually hardest for those well-funded startups to scrap their idea to chase another (endowment effect).  A small, nimble startup could come out of nowhere and try to run with your idea.  But that’s just called competition.  Those guys face the same hurdles that you do in building a brand/userbase.  And the big guys, they’re too busy actually making money (or trying not to lose money) to worry about things like innovation.

Bottom line – yes there is always a risk of copycats.  So what?  Just keep an eye on it to make sure it doesn’t fester and act accordingly.  Also note that this response won’t help you get funding.

I was talking with a friend the other day about how I was building qrisper.com.  He was quite impressed with the amount that I had accomplished so far and at some point said something like, “Dude, at least you fing took the initiative and actually built something, not like the 90% of the population that just sits at home watching fing LOST all day (sorta also paraphrasing @garyvee).

To the uninitiated, that sounds like a tremendous compliment.  And while I truly appreciated the sentiment, I had fast discovered that taking that first step was merely a formality and, for the most part, completely meaningless.   Because once you’re over on the other side, you quickly realize that there are tens of thousands of people that are just as determined, if not more so, and they’re all a lot smarter than you.  They all took that first step months, nay years ago, and are already way ahead of you in terms of building the next great thing and pursuing that same pool of funding.

So to summarize, being an entrepreneur isn’t glamorous, it does nothing for your health and you will most likely fail.  Yet for some reason, I want nothing more than to keep going and prove everyone wrong.  That researcher who said that entrepreneurs aren’t risk tolerant, just overconfident in their abilities…think he had something there.

Slightly off-tangent but this is probably why the U.S. has such a history of entrepreneurship.  We’re instilled into our identity starting from grade school that we can accomplish anything, as long as we put our minds to it and ignore all of the naysayers.  And if you believe this article, that could also explain why Americans have the highest rate of depression in the world.

Anyway, to end on a pseudo-positive note, last night I dreamt that I was climbing a mountain covered in poop.  Each time I went to grab onto something, I got nothing but a palm full of sticky, brown poop.  It was the largest amount of poop that I ever handled in my dreams, ever.  Touching poop = $$$ (in Korea anyway).  Looks like I have a mountain of cash headed my way!  Yay!

So one of the feature requests for qrisper.com was the ability to add photos.  A pretty simple request…the execution piece was easier than I expected.  It was implementation, specifically figuring out how and where it made the most sense for users to add photos, that gave me the most trouble.

But before I even got to the implementation bit, I had to ask myself, was I asking too much from the users?  First, they would have to answer a question.  Then if they were further inclined to add validation to their answer, they could upload an image.  Well, after having gone through the process, I can say with a clear conscious (and with not a bit of biasity) that uploading images onto qrisper.com was more fun than I expected.

There are similar features in Facebook where you can become a fan of certain things and add a jumble of images to your profile.  But I never felt a connection with those random images that quickly became clutter.  On qrisper, I feel like there is an emotional attachment , where the images you upload are tied to the opinions you provide.  And that adds a level of enjoyment to uploading images that I haven’t felt in other sites.  That concludes the self-promotional portion of this program.

Syke!  Another feature that has just become available is the ability to choose the 5 primary topics that you’re interested in and customize the top navigation bar.

Finally, I had been looking into getting a Linode to host qrisper.  However, I quickly learned that maintaining my own server is something that I’m not ready to tackle at this moment.  So Host Nexus, here we come!

With the growth of social everything, you hear this more and more: recommendations are better from your friends; your followers can provide better answers; tap into that social graph’s fat ass.  Ok the last one I made up but you get the idea.  There are a number of issues with limiting yourself and your questions to your social graph.  Let’s use Aardvark, another question and answer company that Techcrunch posted about as an example.

My understanding of how Aardvard differentiates themselves from their competitors is that when you ask a question, Vark will dive into the profiles of your friends and their friends to find people that will most likely be able to answer your question within 5 minutes.  John Battelle’s spidey sense went off the charts for this company.  Mine is going off too…albeit for different reasons.

The first assumption that Vard is making is that the answers you get from your social graph are better than anything else available to you.  Two questions: why is it better and what if your social graph isn’t that big or it’s actually very big?  Example: Ashton Kutcher (with 2 million followers) and Joe Bloggs (with 126 followers) asks for recommendations for some really good mutter paneer in NYC.  Will either of them get a better answer than searching Google for “best mutter paneer nyc”?  (I’d recommend Haveli)

Basically your answers are limited to the extent of your social graph.  So the more popular you are, the better answers you’ll get.  Well, I’m screwed.

The second assumption is that their answers are so good that you’re willing to wait, on average, 5 minutes to get an answer.  5 minutes in internet time is like 5 billion years.  If I’m on the street with a bunch of friends, looking for a good Indian restaurant, here’s the conversation that I’m likely to have.

Me: Hey guys, I’m really jonesing for some peas and cheese in a savory curry.  Do you know a place?
Friend 1: Nope.
Friend 2: Nope but I’m on aardvark.com!  Let’s ask there.
Friend 3: Isn’t it Vark.com?
Me: I think it’s aardvark…isn’t it?
Friend 1: It’s aardvard like Haarvard.
Friend 2: Dude, you’re useless.  I just sent the question…just have to wait 5 minutes for an answer.
Friend 3: What?! 5 minutes?! Dude, 5 minutes is like 5 billion years in internet time!
Me: Yeah and don’t you only have like 50 followers on Twitter?
Friend 1: That’s you dumbass.
Friend 2: Better than asking qrisper.com.  What do you have like 50 users now?
Friend 3: Oooh burnnn!
Me: I haven’t launched yet!
Friend 1: I’ll try Hunch while we’re waiting.  I hear they’re good at helping us make decisions.
Friend 2: Yeah, only after answering questions like, “Are you menstruating right now?”
Me: Screw this. (types mutter paneer nyc into Google/Yelp/Urbanspoon/etc., gets an answer in 0.09 seconds).  Let’s go here.
(5 minutes later)
Friend 2: Hey, vardvark’s saying we should go to where we are now.
Me: (muttering) I haven’t launched yet is all…

While I can see people using Vark to complement a web search for answers, it won’t replace it.  The criticisms for sites like Yahoo Answers are valid, but intentionally limiting your answer pool to your personal social network isn’t the answer either.  Targeted social networks, such as Stack Overflow and Chowhound are doing a better job of providing answers.  But they aren’t the be all, end all.  That would be qrisper.