Entrepreneurs – Want a Leg to Stand On? Choose Open Source, Cloud or Magic
As a tech entrepreneur and startup veteran, I’ve been thinking a lot about what it takes to start a new company these days.
Assuming an entrepreneur wants to be successful, my conclusion is that the only real choices for the basis of a new technology company are open source, the cloud (including SaaS) or innovation that can be considered “indistinguishable from magic” (with due respect to the late Arthur C. Clarke).
Why?
The name of the game these days is to do more with less. As such, for a business to stand a chance of surviving let alone thriving, it has to be delivered as a service through the cloud (read: easier to adopt, cheaper, more scalable) or be based around a low-cost, open, customer-driven delivery model.
…Or, you’ve got to invent something that is so groundbreaking and world-changing that the market would tolerate the old guard of closed-source innovation. Something about which tech-savvy, forward-thinking individuals are gap-mouthed and incredulous when they first see it. Think Linux circa 1992 (wow, UNIX on a PC), virtualization circa 1999 (what? Windows running on Linux… with sound?!?!?!) and the iPhone circa now (the touch screen is like magic).
I’m not a futurist, of course, but short of a flying car, I’m not clear on what magic could be coming our way. Any guesses?
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April 7th, 2009 at 9:48 am
Nice one Javier. I’m sure most VCs would agree with you.
April 26th, 2009 at 10:18 pm
I whole heartedly agree. I’ve recently started a new business helping SMBs to grow their business during the downturn. We use sales, marketing and discrete technology.
Everything we do is in the cloud – our intranet, email, collaboration, instant messaging, VOIP/phone, sales & marketing automation (including accounts, ledger & CRM), online meetings (webinars), web site content management, email campaign marketing – and I’m sure a few more. Most of it is based on open source, where possible.
It’s a heady time to be starting a business – but we deployed advanced technology to our colleagues and collaborators quickly and cost effectively. We went from zeros to heros in less than a week – with enterprise-grade technology infused into our business processes.
Good look Javier – Hyperic is a great product – it doesn’t fit into my current venture – but it’s a firm fixture on the “hot list” for future…
-lee-
June 2nd, 2009 at 7:49 am
The whole cloud computing thing definitely has some potential to it – the question is how quickly it all evolves and who wins. Personally, I would probably need to do a good deal of Bart Simpson lines (nice one, btw :)) for the idea to sink in more or less.
February 5th, 2010 at 4:57 am
At last, I found the right place to read some quite interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.