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O bubble, where art thou?
If you don’t do your blogosphere reading on the weekends you may have missed Mike’s insightful post on whether Web 2.0 is a bubble or not. In a post called “Bubble, Bubble, Bubble“, he addresses the question of whether this is 1999 repeating or if the initial signs of failure we’re seeing - three more companies joined the “Deadpool” this week - represent a new “beginning of the end”.
I’m linking to his post because of two things. Firstly because I respect Mike’s opinion and he’s in a privileged position to assert whether we’re in a downward or upward slope. Second, because he talks about something I’ve thought and written about in the past, in a post called “Web 2.0 and the necessity of failure” - failure in a time of innovation.
Should we be apprehensive about failure?
Not in my opinion. Sure, companies are going down, but this goes to show that even if we have the tools to build products easily, not everything is going to work out of the box. There won’t be room for dozens of Myspace clones, Ajax homepages, or Wikipedia competitors. People ultimately decide, based on a number of factors, which products end up being successful and which will fail.
Signs of failure get us back in touch with reality. They are the undeniable proof that real people make or break products and companies. That we should be focusing on solving real problems instead of coming up with novelty ideas that “may work” because everyone in the IT world seems to be in catch-all mode.
It this a bad time to start a company?
Definitely not. Any time is a fantastic time to start something if you have the right idea. Sometimes I wonder if I’m naive by believing any company will work at any time if the idea behind it is solving real problems for real people.
I don’t need an ajax homepage where I can see the weather or moon, but I need one to keep in touch with news and information relative to my business. I don’t need a new Myspace but I need new ways to stay in touch with my business peers. These examples only to say that if you have a problem to solve, whether the solution is software, hardware, or a service, you should go ahead and do it. No “bubble” will affect you if what drives you is the passion for solving things.
I agree with your assessment. Even with Coke and Pepsi, there are still room for more, even smaller sodas like Jones. In the web world what’s different now from 1999 is that investors aren’t going to throw their money at ideas about new business. It’s going to go to people with proven track records and solid business plans as it should have been in the first place.
Now more so than 1999, we are seeing more startups made up of just a few people, usually self-funded, creating applications so that by the time they sell, they have something of value. In most cases, as you mentioned, these people have created something not to make money, but out of passion or simply to solve a problem they need solved.
Comment by Wade Winningham — January 8, 2007 @ 2:31 pm