You know, the spider! Many good ideas don’t come from a specific field such as databases…. this gem comes from my daughter Phoebe, this morning as I was getting my bike ready to ride us to school. She said “don’t give up papa, keep on going! Just like Incy Wincy Spider, he climbed up, got washed out by the rain, but didn’t give up either!” Smart chook, that Phoebs.
By the way… the key to not being held hostage to investors’ whims, is not to have any investors to begin with! Money doesn’t generally solve problems, it actually creates more. If you have to make it all on your own, you get this wonderful focus. In a nutshell, never spend money you don’t have.
In a nutshell, never spend money you don’t have.
Ah, but most folks I know turn to VC when they need more because they already have spent money they don’t have — they’ve lived off of their savings, taken loans, and maxxed out their credit cards while working on their plan. So the problem is figuring out when to give up — because you shouldn’t spend money you don’t have, whether it’s a business loan or credit cards or VC money.
Or rather, have a backup plan — if you get a business loan, then what happens when that $$ runs out?
There’s a book called “The Dip” by Seth Godin, precisely about quitting (when appropriate). It is indeed a missing skill, quitting some stuff to succeed on others. Or, put differently, quitting is not always bad.
Anyway, so how come these people have already spent such a lot of money… where’s the business model and revenue stream? Such things can’t be an afterthought.
A product or service is only real when it’s released. And once it’s out there, it should be part of some money-making concept if a business is to run on it.
Nifty ideas are often not products, nor can they sustain a business.
Oh, there are business plans, but the problem with software is that you need to spend time creating it first, and likely giving it away for free at first (whether web-based or not) to garner interest. You say a product or service is only real when it’s released but some people hit the point at which they (financially) should quit, and they think “oh, just a few more months…”
This isn’t my approach. I’m merely painting the other side of your important point, that spending money not your own can get you into trouble very easily.
Ha! Vindication! I said it was “eensy weensy”, and my wife said “no, it’s itsy bitsy spider” and laughed at me.
Scott
Yep, agreed. It can indeed. But, software can generally be built in stages, where a core/subset of the envisaged product can already be useful – and therefore sold.
In many cases, I think websites have no business at all, whether now or in the future. They can’t and therefore should not exist as businesses. They are merely expressions of nifty ideas.