Milk: Kevin Rose's New Company Aims to Solve Big Problems on the Mobile Web

[MatthewPhillips]

To summarize: Kevin doesn't really have an idea yet (or at least doesn't have one that he wants to announce), but he did hire some people and he's not going to stick by any idea that isn't immediately successful.

Oh, and: mobile.

Isn't this a non-story? An announcement of an intent to create something in the future?

[eoghan]

I don't think it's fair to call it a non-story. I think this approach is refreshing. Get great people together, play on their strengths, find something that works, grow it. But importantly, I think it's significant since Rose has clearly demonstrated his creative potential and you'd be foolish to bet against him doing some interesting stuff with Milk. It might be a non-story if it was about you or I.

[bonch]

Yes, but Kevin Rose. I hope now you understand.

[abstractbill]

Thinking back to pg's weekend post (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2403696), this seems like a good example of the kind of thing that drags down the quality of HN.

The article itself is very nearly content-free, and definitely does not gratify my intellectual curiosity. Reading it just felt like a waste of my time.

Most of the comments here are pretty mean and snarky - attacking Kevin Rose, Digg, Milk, or all three.

Hacker News used to be a lot better than this. I flagged it, fwiw.

[erikpukinskis]

As a dreamer who has difficulty taking projects past the proof of concept stage, I think it's fascinating Rose is starting a skunkworks/experimentation-style company. I would love to have a business like that where I had a staff and we would quickly develop ideas to the proof of concept stage and spin off companies. That's not something you see much in the wild... all you really hear about are the companies where a team took an idea all the way (to scale, if not to profitability).

I find this far, far more interesting from a business perspective than most of the "so-and-so is launching a startup" articles.

And honestly, I think it's far more relevant to hackers than, say, the Path announcement. Rose is basically starting a company where the business strategy is hacking. Not customer development or venture-backed growth... just hacking together cool projects and see what sticks.

So, not flagged.

[jokermatt999]

If it weren't for TechCrunch's heavy focus on startups, I'd suggest they be banned from Hacker News in general. They provide information, but their tone is generally exactly what people are worried about Hacker News turning into. Annoyingly, I've seen a few cases in the past where TechCrunch's post have gotten more upvotes than the original source's blogpost (I believe it was a Google announcement).

[kylelibra]

A development lab, not an incubator, but they don't plan on growing the team beyond ten people for at least a year. What do you all make of this?

My initial reaction is that they have assembled a team of people to work on crazy ideas to see if any of them catch on and then ideas that catch on will be spun off into separate companies. Sounds like a good match for Kevin's product ADD, but I feel like this could quickly spin into Digg again where people are spread too thin working on products with no future.

[Apocryphon]

So, solutions in search of problems, then.

[alanfalcon]

So what happens if Milk quickly stumbles upon the next Twitter? It sounds like Kevin would expect to still develop new ideas, but wouldn't Twitter have faltered if Ev continued to try new things instead of deciding to focus on his success with Twitter?

[aresant]

What's funny is that Ev stumbled on Twitter while working on Odeo . . .

[DarrenLehane]

I like how they got 'milk' on Twitter and Facebook.

How long until they pick up milk.com? - http://milk.com/value/

[cdsanchez]

Not really directed to you (unless you have the answer):

Is there any way for regular people (i.e not large corporations or Kevin Rose) to request a screen name from twitter, assuming that they have a registered business with the same name? I realize twitter isn't mandated to do so, but it would be nice if small startups or individuals could request screen names if the screen name is inactive.

[enduser]

This is brilliant. 10 people really is the limit of organizational size where everyone can know everybody else and what they are working on. Better to focus on gathering the best group of 10 people and empowering each to do brilliant work.

You weren't meant to have a boss: http://www.paulgraham.com/boss.html

[samtp]

What about when those 10 people are working on 5 completely different ideas? 5 - 2 person teams to make 'world-changing' products? I don't think so

[stevederico]

Great quote from Rose- “People talk about pivoting all the time now, but if something isn’t working after four months, we’ll just shoot it in the head and start again,”

This "Small Team + Many Ideas" format is very exciting, and I look forward to seeing its agile manner against the traditional format.

[tsuipen]

Or: "Small Team + Big Ideas," no? Since the article says, "A year from now, he expects the company won’t have launched 20 small, cool ideas, but it will have developed four-to-six big, audacious ones."

[aresant]

A small team building multiple different projects to see which one "catches" and THEN focus on successes.

My inner shiny-object entrepreneur says this is awesome.

My inner Confucius says he who chases two rabbits catches neither.

As an entrepreneur that, like most, struggles with FOCUS this seems like letting the inmates run the asylum.

Fun to watch, but not sure a recipe for success.

[danilocampos]

I feel as though, like Digg, this is going to be an astonishingly effective mechanism for getting Kevin Rose attention.

And probably not much more than that.

What mystifies me is why he doesn't just focus on the thing he's good at: being in the spotlight. I think Digg made pretty clear the fact that he's just not the guy you want doing the day to day, tedious, mostly obscure work of running a company.

Which is fine.

Maybe he could go to acting school. Or do a vlog?

[rokhayakebe]

I apologize for the accidental downvote.

I feel as though, like Digg, this is going to be an astonishingly effective mechanism for getting Kevin Rose attention.

I think you are taking away from Kevin. He actually changed the way we consume news online. It is arguable that he invented the very social-news-voting system we are using on HN. I can guarantee you a very small percentage of people who use sites that follow the Digg model know who KR is.

Edit: And I do not mean to be rude, but how does your contribution to the internet compare to his?

[reason]

Or maybe he can do his own thing and you can focus on yours?

[daimyoyo]

So does the name on the incubator have anything to do with Harvey Milk, or am I reading too much into it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Milk

[evilduck]

I assumed it was because [for all non-human species] something that drinks milk is usually in its infancy.

[elvirs]

Well if he has money to spend, actually this may be the best approach for him because he is a nice guy but not a tech visionary.

Bringing together a group of smart and talented people and let them experiment with little apps and see what catches on may be the best way to come up with a successful product.

Also, lets not forget that we live in a time when the 'coolness' of an app makes a it a company, not its revenue.

[kssreeram]

“People talk about pivoting all the time now, but if something isn’t working after four months, we’ll just shoot it in the head and start again,”

Early adopters beware. If the idea doesn't work out for them, they'll pull the product from under you.

[jonathanwallace]

This sounds like the formalization of market forces into one company. I could see real value in fine-tuning the right team.

It's all about the execution, right? :)

I love the idea of this business model and wish them the best.

[Hominem]

So 10 super ninja rockstar pirate devs? They build out awsome ideas, sell them and move on to somthing else? Never keeping a product long enough for it to implode?

I guess he was serious about what he learned at Digg.

[evoltix]

Let me know when something has actually been created. Ideas and intentions are worthless until you actually do something with them.

[arepb]

How about just solving one problem first and then moving onto the next?

[rokhayakebe]

I would like to see more of these types of companies; a dozen of engineers, + 1 business/marketing gal/guy coming together and pushing out 12 products/year.

[rokhayakebe]

Side note: Several people have been saying KR is a non-technical founder, but you should know that he actually studied computer science.

[cryptoz]

> actually studied computer science

...before dropping out in 1998.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Rose#Early_life

[jawartak]

There's already an app for when it fails: Remember the Milk.

[keiferski]

A little snarky, no? With all the talk of "save HN", comments like this really don't seem to add anything worthwhile to the discussion.