With sex, sometimes it is better to delay things a bit. That might be true for business on the internet too. Or is it? Read on and you will know…

Timing is important for an Entrepreneur. You don’t want to be to early or too late to the market. And costs are important too. These are simple facts that we all agree on and which will never change.

But the context around those facts do change and are of great importance. Yahoo was the first big web index when bandwidth was expensive, there was no advertising model, every new customer had to be acquired and developers were treated like movie stars.

In other words: it was an expensive and difficult time where Yahoo was able to grab a large part of the market through their first mover advantage.

Digg.com is definitely not a first mover and not the first consumer controlled media outlet. It is often described as quite similar to Slashdot, even by the founders. And the businessmodel is based, comfortably, on Google Ads which can be installed on every website within a few minutes.

Other examples: Skype (not the first VOIP solution), Google (not the first search engine) and Gmail (not the first web based email).

In 1997 you could easily pay 100.000 on servers and 10.000 a month for a leased line while you can get close to infinite bandwidth and traffic for $16 a month now. And you will get better uptime than in 1997 too.

It seems that being fast, first and expensive isn’t that attractive anymore. It seems that the longer you wait the bigger your audience, the cheaper your developers, bandwidth and storage and the higher your return from advertising.

Suddenly it pays to be patient. It might even be worthwhile to wait a bit. Tomorrow is better than today.

In the current fast moving and innovative internet economy the companies who take their time, learn from mistakes and take advantage of a bigger piece of the pie are rewarded for their patience.

So, hurry, get back to work!

I wish I came up with that title and post but I didn’t. It is from Paul Graham and you can read it here: http://www.paulgraham.com/startuplessons.html

One thing I loved in the article is this paragraph. I think it is something every entrepreneurs can recognise:

If an ordinary employee were asked to do the things a startup founder has to, he’d be very indignant. Imagine if you were hired at some big company, and in addition to writing software ten times faster than you’d ever had to before, they expected you to answer support calls, administer the servers, design the web site, cold-call customers, find the company office space, and go out and get everyone lunch. And to do all this not in the calm, womb-like atmosphere of a big company, but against a backdrop of constant disasters.

Flickr.com was a Flash gaming site that had a nifty feature: exchanging photo’s.

eBay started out as demo for Auction Software. That was the original businessplan.

The people selling shovels where the real winners of the gold rush.

I’m talking about hidden economies.

Focus is great when you are a start-up. But you might just be stubborn and not know the difference.

Let’s assume you start a bar for hippies, but every night your bar is filled with hard rock fans. Do you have a problem or an opportunity? Ebay clearly saw the opportunity, Flickr did too.

I sometimes wonder what the hidden economy of Fleck will be, and if there is one. Maybe you should take another good look at your job, business or project too?

Is there a hidden economy you don’t know about yet?

Have you ever noticed that beautiful young girls often have quite unattractive girls as best friends? I noticed.

I think the reason those girls become best friends is because they both benefit:

The beautiful girl looks better… by contrast
The ugly girl looks better… by association

They are both better off. It is a symbiotic (both species benefit) relationship that benefits both parties.

But we also know that relationships between girls are never forever. Within days, weeks or months the relationship becomes a victim of parasitism (one species benefits, the other is harmed) when the beautiful girl tries to boost her ego by complaining to her other friends that the ugly girl is stalking her. Kids can be cruel. And so can VCs and Entrepreneurs…

I watched two girls playing together today. One was strikingly beautiful. The other girl, well, just not that beautiful. It made me think of the relationship between a start-up entrepreneur and a seasoned venture capitalist. An entrepreneur want to be best friends to the VC. He admires him for the money he manages and the people he knows. He is the ugly girl trying to look better by association. He knows that he is young, unproven and without much power. It’s a frustrating and humiliating time.

But it it’s not all roses and sunshine for the VC either.

When the ugly girl is alone she checks herself in the mirror and knows “one day, I’ll be just as funny, beautiful and popular”. And when that day indeed comes, the ugly girl suddenly gets her revenge. She is tougher, cooler and smarter than the beautiful girl and forgets all about her. Even about the symbiotic relationship they once had. And so does the Entrepreneur.

Once the entrepreneur is famous, recognized and praised he forgets who helped him there in the first place.

I heard a VC complain recently that entrepreneurs are just like sick people. When they visit a doctor and get well, it was because they were strong and healthy. But if they die, it was the doctors fault. Nobody ever thanks the doctor, or the VC, for their well being.

So, a Venture Capitalist should be loyal, even when the ugly girl/entrepreneur asks for too much attention. He should respect his little ugly girl because one day she will bigger, better and better looking than he.

And the Entrepreneur/ugly girl shouldn’t forget the symbiotic relations ship that started their friendship.

And while we are on the subject: think about your other relationships too. Are you the ugly or the beautiful girl in your partnership/relationship or friendship?

Image reprinted without permission from: http://www.contemporaryartproject.com/cap/content/collection/artist_beer.htm

I know you have been checking out all those Web2.0 companies and were dying to join the race. But maybe you haven’t had any good ideas yet or you couldn’t find a good name. Well, today is your day!

We have registered 4 beautiful Web2.0 domains, made up a great businessplan for each one and are selling those domains + businessplans to the highest bidder, starting at $1…

Yes that is correct, for $1 YOU can be an entrepreneur and get a shot at making millions within a year too! Here are the names and plans + expected revenue and exit:

Domain: Headr.com
Tagline: B2B Social Networking tool
Businessplan: Companies will be able to start internal social networks. You will finally know how you are connected to the girl in administration! You will make money by offering a small company version for free (max 10 people) and a paying version (10+ people, company logo and colors, management tools, etc) for 1 euro per month per user. You will grow to 6 million users in 12 months and sell the whole thing for 600 million in 13 months. Guaranteed!

Starting price: $1 (estimated worth domain only : $9.300*)
Bid now: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722882274

Domain: Betafy.com
Tagline: monetise on the Web2.0 Beta Hype
Businessplan: This one should be bought my Techcrunch or The Museum of Modern Betas but you could do it too! The plan is simple. All those damn Web2.0 with their beta programs are multiplying like rabbits. Any you need to test them all out, right? Betafy makes sure you don’t miss a single one. You subscribe once and enter a few details (Operating system, browser type, Blogger, etc) and start-ups can buy a mailing to these people on Betafy.com. They won’t get the emailaddresses but can buy a few testers. Within a few months every start-up will want to join you and pay you handsomely for your database of 1 million eager beta testers. You will make more money then you can spend.
Extra: website up and running!

Starting price: $1 (estimated worth domain only : $11.700*)
Bid now: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722883193

Domain: Drugle.com
Tagline: Sex, Drugle.com and rock and roll
Businessplan: AJAX interface to search medical databases. Yeah boring, but you could sell quickly (20/30 million) to an old fashioned Drug manufacturer. They will buy you just so you can explain to the board what the hell AJAX is.

Starting price: $1 (estimated worth domain only : $13.500*)
Bid now: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722883581

Domain: Clicksy.com
Tagline: Professional Surfing
Businessplan: Clicksy is a new browser build on top of Firefox/Mozzila that is similar to Flock. But instead of optimizing is for Bloggers you optimize it for the Office worker. You integrate Gmail, Writeboard and OpenOffice and offer a cheap online hosting contract with a Web2.0 online back-up company. Should be a hit within 24 months (companies are a bit slower) and sell for 4 billion to Microsoft.

Starting price: $1 (estimated worth domain only : $6.500*)
Bid now: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=9722883890

Now I never want to hear anyone tell me that all the ggood names are gone. If you need another name just ask me and I’ll make one up for you.

So start bidding today for your chance to make millions. The auction will last 7 days (until May-13-06 00:46:23 PDT) and one last thing: if you buy one of these domains and become a millionaire, we get 5%…

* = just a lucky guess! No scientific or economic foundation at all.

Fleck is in Alpha…

Past the point of no return…

Yesterday evening about 20 people took a test drive with the Alpha version of Fleck. I haven’t been nervous for many things since we started but yesterday I was shaking in my pants as the first tester arrived at the Fleck office.

I welcomed everybody and explained the whole concept in about 15 minutes, urged everybody to keep everything to themselves and then told them where to download the software.

We only finished the Alpha version 30 minutes before the meeting and I fixed a few links in the test website just 2 minutes prior to the first visitor coming in.

As people were starting to test everything the pizza arrived and we opened the first few beers. After about an hour of testing we held a group sessions where Erik asked some general questions and people were able to respond.

We received a lot of feedback, some bugs and a few requests for features. The general feeling is that our solutions seems interesting and usefull and worth a good look. Some people assured us that they would use it several times a day but at least one of the testers told us he didn’t see himself using it at all.

Conclusion: we are happy to have unleashed our product to at least a few outsiders and having received the first serious feedback. Now on to a public beta…