Michael Seibel + Dalton Caldwell · 2023 · 6 min
Tar Pit Ideas (and How to Spot Them)
Some ideas seem obviously good but trap founders for years with no real product-market fit.
Key Takeaways
- 01Classic tar pits: 'Yelp for X', social network for niche, marketplace with no clear sticky side, dating app for sub-segment.
- 02Tar pits feel addictive because they're easy to build a demo of and easy to get a few enthusiastic early users.
- 03The trap: those users don't generalize. The next 100 are 10x harder than the first 10.
- 04Test: ask 'what changed in the world that makes this possible NOW?' If you can't answer in one sentence, it's probably a tar pit.
Distilled
Dalton and Michael keep a running list of ideas they see fail year after year. The pattern is almost always the same: a founder builds something genuinely cool, gets to 100 users, then plateaus for 18 months while convincing themselves the next feature will unlock growth.
Reality check: if the same idea has been tried by 50 YC batches with no breakout, the problem is the idea, not the execution. Pivot, don't double down.
Source
YC Startup School — Tar Pit Ideas (and How to Spot Them) →We summarize so you can decide whether to read the full piece. Always read the source for context.