How would you approach facebook?

[Darkside]

Imagine if the Google guys looked at Alta Vista and Yahoo back in the 90's and said "Gee, those guys got the search engine market cornered ... hey Sergy, whatdya say we go buy a Subway franchise instead?"

No one EVER has any market cornered because once investors get involved, the business focus shifts from satisfaction of customers, to satisfaction of shareholders. That gives Fastlaners opportunity every single time. Guaranteed.

I'm not saying that it's impossible, just unlikely. Like I said before, another company has to revolutionize how social networking is done in the same way that Google revolutionized how search is done; they didn't just come with a product that was similar to Yahoo; their search engine was far superior which is how they managed to gain momentum.

 

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[Russ H]

Last time I checked, over 90% of operating systems were Windows and the other 10% are Mac users so they're forced to use the OS system. That's about as close to a monopoly as you can get. Keep in mind that Mac does hardware as well as software so that's why 1/3rd of their revenue is accounted for by that whereas Windows is sold on third party hardware so when you take the hardware out of the equation Macs revenue from the OS is probably less than 10% of their total revenue.

FWIW, I know all about Microsoft's "dominance".

I'm sure there was a company in 1900 that was the dominant buggy whip maker, too.

Our point is: We're in transition.

1. Apple used what they'd learned from the Mac OS and interface when they developed the ipod, iphone, and ipad. These devices are part of the transition.

2. More people are using their cell phones to browse the web these days.

Dominance of an OS on a PC platform is no longer the target-- in the next few years, more people will be using their cell phones for things they used to use their computers for.

Google sees this--- that's why they developed the Droid.

MS again is lagging. I'm sure they'll play catch up, and may do quite well.

But the market is changing: An OS for the PC is not the big target.

-Russ H.

 

[Russ H]

Imagine if the Google guys looked at Alta Vista and Yahoo back in the 90's and said "Gee, those guys got the search engine market cornered ... hey Sergy, whatdya say we go buy a Subway franchise instead?"

No one EVER has any market cornered because once investors get involved, the business focus shifts from satisfaction of customers, to satisfaction of shareholders. That gives Fastlaners opportunity every single time. Guaranteed.

I'm not saying that it's impossible, just unlikely. Like I said before, another company has to revolutionize how social networking is done in the same way that Google revolutionized how search is done; they didn't just come with a product that was similar to Yahoo; their search engine was far superior which is how they managed to gain momentum.

Darkside-

I don't want you to think we're ganging up on you-- but we're trying to "wake you up".

An integral element of being a successful entrepreneur, and one of the fastlanes, is to develop a product that is BETTER than what is out there. It may be faster, more customer friendly, offer better service-- or, it may just do things in a different way.

Many of us on these boards LOOK at the world that way:

What is innovative?

What does things better?

and, perhaps most important:

Where are there things that could be improved?

*******

Because you're right: Newer, better things are not impossible, just unlikely.

THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE.

To discuss and develop those unlikely things.

One of the first steps in identifying those things is to see it in the world around us.

Hence this discussion.

I respect you playing "devil's advocate"-- but your view that the status quo is hard to beat is going to prevent you from even *seeing* opportunties-- b/c your attitude will be "Nah, too hard, can't be done".

And you know what? You may be right. The next wave of anything might be too hard, or too unlikely, or the idea could be used by someone else and implemented more effectively.

But if people like Bill Gates, or Marc Zuckerberg, or Richard Branson, or Steve Jobs would have had that attitude, we would not have had a Microsoft, or a Facebook, or Virgin, or Apple.

-Russ H.

 

[Kung Fu Steve]

Haha, agreed but there is always room on the side of the doing for dreaming to keep motivated. Think of all the "what would you do with $xxx", "how would you earn $xxx in xx months" posts.

I don't even look at those threads =)

 

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[Darkside]

Darkside-

I don't want you to think we're ganging up on you-- but we're trying to "wake you up".

An integral element of being a successful entrepreneur, and one of the fastlanes, is to develop a product that is BETTER than what is out there. It may be faster, more customer friendly, offer better service-- or, it may just do things in a different way.

Many of us on these boards LOOK at the world that way:

What is innovative?

What does things better?

and, perhaps most important:

Where are there things that could be improved?

*******

Because you're right: Newer, better things are not impossible, just unlikely.

THAT'S WHY WE'RE HERE.

To discuss and develop those unlikely things.

One of the first steps in identifying those things is to see it in the world around us.

Hence this discussion.

I respect you playing "devil's advocate"-- but your view that the status quo is hard to beat is going to prevent you from even *seeing* opportunties-- b/c your attitude will be "Nah, too hard, can't be done".

And you know what? You may be right. The next wave of anything might be too hard, or too unlikely, or the idea could be used by someone else and implemented more effectively.

But if people like Bill Gates, or Marc Zuckerberg, or Richard Branson, or Steve Jobs would have had that attitude, we would not have had a Microsoft, or a Facebook, or Virgin, or Apple.

-Russ H.

I'm not against people trying to come up with innovative ideas to create very successful companies. My point is that it's very difficult to compete against a well established company unless you have a very innovative idea and absent that you should try to instead create something in an area that is less competitive.

For instance, before Groupon created their website 2 years ago, the online social coupon business was in it's infancy. They took advantage of the lack of competition to gain a foothold and now because of their tremendous success there are about 180 copy cat companies that have sprung up. What are the odds that any of those copy cat companies will become more successful than Groupon? Not very likely.

Rather than try to jump on the bandwagon of every success story, those entrepreneurs should instead look for another area where there is a need and try to fill it. It's much easier to start a successful company in a new market than to try to fight it out with competitors in an already saturated market.