Wednesday, May 23, 2007

whats wrong with too many companies trying too many ideas

I was just reading Mike's blog on the excesses in the valley right now.

Everyone will agree on the excesses part. But something perturbed me. Its a madness, but a different kind of madness. Not the one where you burn cash crazy. But the one where there's just too many people experimenting too many ideas. Almost like school projects.

But whats wrong with too many companies trying too many ideas. There are 4X companies now because

- its cheap to build something
- there’s a reward for simple ideas done nicely (youtube, feedburner)
- grip of institutionalization is breaking. Gone are days when ideas had to be big, blessed and would take years before released..

When there’s fire, there is going to be smoke. But its no wild fire like 90’s. I was there back then and I am here now. Difference is I am bootstrapped now. And so are so many others I know. Some might be partying, but no way close to peak times yet.

but it can be overwheming. too many companies doing too many things. There’s so much compeitition for even reaching the early adopters. Just keeping uptodate with TC feeds takes an hour.. and frankly Mike, thats what is happening to you. Covering the valley is/will remain a nerve wrecking job.

and whatever cycle we are in, there will always be good startups with the right idea executing the right way. ALWAYS. remember google was a me too idea as well.

Monday, May 14, 2007

research

my last month has been gruelling. it almost reminds me of my student days. I have almost become a web 2.0 researcher and its hard to summarize the learnings. Well, that sounds like so not web 2.0 like.

I believe we have entered the end of first wave of web 2.0.. there is consolidation, the reality has started to kick in, people are talking about social network fatigue fatigue and fatigue. But on the other hand, technology has just started to penetrate the mainstream. Like always, it starts with geeks, find its way to students and young generation who then teach their elders. Sometimes the gap remains for the worse or the better (now we are entering perception theories).

Now technology has started to penetrate the niches and there is no common theme to it (which again is against the essence of web 2.0). Now people are started to talk about how to adopt these new tools into existing solutions and change the way things are done. For that I am talking about broadcasting, music, publishing, at work (office management , sales, HR, CRM, product management, feedback mechanisms from customers, analysts etc etc), students, lectures, books, products, reviews, trust, friends, parties.. you get the picture.

To people who are thinking about starting a company, this is a great time to start a company. No, you are not too late. In fact, the time to start a company is when the technologies have been validated, the solutions become apparent, the curtains have been raised.. now its all about execution, take a problem and solve it to its core.. I believe the next wave of startups will be dealing with the niches, taking to the masses. To me web 3.0 is not about read/write/execute in the technology front, but taking the read/write web 2.0 and executing the ideas which will take the technology to the masses.