Anyone considering internet entrepreneurship should read that urgently. A lot of what he says is true (specially if you consider VC investment). Extract
- Have a revenue model, right now
- Be a complete business, not just a feature
- Affect real people, not just bloggers
- Get a real, memorable name
- If applicable, get unaffiliated with Web 2.0
- Find some friends who don’t drink the kool-aid and get their honest feedback
- If you are revolutionary, make sure that a revolution is coming
- If you are evolutionary, then there needs to be a big enough market to address with a “we’re a little better than them” vision
- Fit your business into an existing food chain
- Do not expect to be Google and, just as importantly, do not expect them to buy you
- Ignore the hype and have fun
However i firmly believe absence of business model from day 1 is not a stop to investment if the innovation can be disruptive enough and valuable to the end users. The internet is a dynamic innovating playground. But also a business playground. At least if you want to make money out of it. Making it Web2.0 is just not enough to generate interest from users and investors.
Actually to be honest this “web2.0” expression starts to get on my nerves as no one really knows what it is. So let s call it the “new web”.
And if you don t like the “web2.0” expression you can take the poll here and explain why
Hey Ouriel,
Indeed, the guy who wrote these pieces of advice is a pretty smart guy.
About you being fed up with the Web 2.0 thing, I had tried to conceptualize it a bit on my blog. Here´s the link:
http://itaddict.blogspot.com/2006/06/from-web-10-to-web-20.html
Posted by: Jeremy Fain | 19 July 2006 at 04:15 PM
Another interesting read on this subject (I drink my own KoolAid in this case...):
http://microsoftstartupzone.com/blogs/barak_shein/archive/2006/05/04/541.aspx
Posted by: Barak | 21 July 2006 at 10:50 PM