Chatted with a friend and fellow developer after a workout. He asked what I was working on, and so I gave him a tired half-answer.
How did you decide on that? Aren't there a ton of academic search engines?
The question caught me unaware. I stumbled through it. It was pretty bad. Of course, on the drive home I was angry with myself for not immediately shouting the answer.
Did we need another search engine when Google was founded? Did we ever think we'd need another social network, prior Facebook? And after that, Twitter? There were definitely enough code-hosting platforms before GitHub, and there will always be enough photo-sharing apps, though they keep cropping up.
Turning a startup into a winning company isn't always about being there first. In fact, sometimes being first means being before your time in a bad way. And it isn't always about a single, paradigm-popping feature. There are startup graveyards dedicated to the next big thing.
I wish I knew the parameters that led to the perfect product and company. I don't. I do know that I've researched a paper, and often review the literature, using tools that are currently available.
And while there are many academic search engines, none of them do it right. And that's why we chose this space.
