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The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

sethgodin.typepad.com

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Re: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

#21

Post by hibrian »

jmtame wrote: post #13
hibrian wrote: post #8

He makes an interesting/controversial point: "It still takes ten years to become a success, web or no web." ... "Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul." I wonder how many people doing startups are prepared for success to take ten years.

I wouldn't look too far into the number "ten years" and think it applies to every single startup. Obviously, this isn't true, and I think he's using it more as just a way of saying "it takes a while."

Right, "ten years" probably means "way longer than you think". Or maybe he does really mean about ten years.

Anyway, it's an interesting path to the ten years. Maybe you've just (http://www.paulgraham.com/bronze.html) got a bad idea that's not worth hanging on for ten years as it'll always suck. Probably an early milestone is to get (http://www.paulgraham.com/fundraising.html) ramen profitable. If you can't get there in n years, reboot (?) Maybe (http://www.paulgraham.com/bio.html) some comp sci phd angel/vc former founder will figure out the algorithm to optimize the ten years to reduce it by an order of magnitude.

Re: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

#22

Post by jmtame »

paul wrote: post #20
menloparkbum wrote: post #15

The iPod was designed and manufactured in less than a year. It sold 125,000 units in the first month. That's his definition of a dud? Likewise, Google went from being a stanford research project to the best search engine in less than 3 years. His premise is wrong and the article is an apologia for being slow. Every huge success on the web, and in the computing/internet sector in general has been the result of being b…

By what year was Google a "huge success"? Do you realize that they started working on it in 1996? (the company wasn't formed until late 98)

If you want to look at a company like Google, at least mention that they're generating $16 billion in revenue a year. Yes, they took 10 years, but look at the power of their brand, all of the applications they've built and gotten into the marketplace, plus all of their revenue. They're also "the best place to work at" (so you know they're doing a lot more than just product development). Google isn't just a search company anymore, and that's not what they've been spending all of their time doing since 1996.

10 years? You better have something extremely impressive if you're given THAT much time.

How did this get so many votes up? Is the HN community getting soft or what? ;) (I can sense the massive downvotes on this response already)

Re: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

#23

Post by menloparkbum »

paul wrote: post #20
menloparkbum wrote: post #15

The iPod was designed and manufactured in less than a year. It sold 125,000 units in the first month. That's his definition of a dud? Likewise, Google went from being a stanford research project to the best search engine in less than 3 years. His premise is wrong and the article is an apologia for being slow. Every huge success on the web, and in the computing/internet sector in general has been the result of being b…

By what year was Google a "huge success"? Do you realize that they started working on it in 1996? (the company wasn't formed until late 98)

Google was a huge success by the time it went out of beta. I think this was late 1999.

By 2004's IPO Google's success would be considered "the standard by which success will be defined for the next 20 years" type of huge success rather than merely another run-of-the-mill Silicon Valley $100M exit type of huge success.

Re: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

#24

Post by netcan »

menloparkbum wrote: post #15

The iPod was designed and manufactured in less than a year. It sold 125,000 units in the first month. That's his definition of a dud? Likewise, Google went from being a stanford research project to the best search engine in less than 3 years. His premise is wrong and the article is an apologia for being slow. Every huge success on the web, and in the computing/internet sector in general has been the result of being b…

I think you need to take this in Seth's Audience's context. He is not writing for startups. He's writing for businesses.

Take Amazon (established 1994). It was a great success as a startup in 2-4 years (IPO in 97'). It got big fast. It made waves. It challenged the way the industry needed to work & it presented a net gain for the economy as a whole. It became profitable in 2001/2 (7-8 years). A reasonable definition of a successful business . By 2004 - 2008 (10 - 14 yrs) it's a stable business it is clearly here to stay. The elements of its strategy that made it successful in the second half of its life (the profitable one) are the slow & steady ones. Reliability, customer service, trustworthiness, customer goodwill, a long lived affiliate program...

But I agree, some of the examples he gave were probably not the best.

Re: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

#25

Post by aneesh »

pistoriusp wrote: post #7

This is actually similar to PG's "How Not to Die" essay: http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html

From that essay: "It may take a while, but as long as you keep plugging away, you'll win in the end. Both Blogger and Delicious did that. Both took years to succeed. But both began with a core of fanatically devoted users, and all Evan and Joshua had to do was grow that core incrementally."

As the saying goes, great minds ...

Re: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

#26

Post by aneesh »

astrec wrote: post #4
michael_dorfman wrote: post #2

Nice article, but what's the deal with the title? I mean, his point is that patience is the secret of success-- the web doesn't really factor into his argument at all....

His point seems to be that on the web tactics work (or don't) really quickly but it's a trap to assume the same of strategy.

Can someone tell me the difference between a tactic and a strategy? I thought that tactics were, by definition, specific short-term action points, and strategy was the big-picture long-term vision.

So then wouldn't his argument be true by definition?

Re: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

#27

Post by hooande »

hibrian wrote: post #8

He makes an interesting/controversial point: "It still takes ten years to become a success, web or no web." ... "Listen instead to your real customers, to your vision and make something for the long haul." I wonder how many people doing startups are prepared for success to take ten years.

I've heard that it takes 10 years to achieve true mastery of any craft. He said it took ten years to "become a success", but that isn't limited to just one company. Personally, I plan on trying and failing as many times as necessary over the next 10 years until I get to be really good.

Re: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

#28

Post by skmurphy »

menloparkbum wrote: post #15

The iPod was designed and manufactured in less than a year. It sold 125,000 units in the first month. That's his definition of a dud? Likewise, Google went from being a stanford research project to the best search engine in less than 3 years. His premise is wrong and the article is an apologia for being slow. Every huge success on the web, and in the computing/internet sector in general has been the result of being b…

The original iPod was an outside design. MP3 players had existed for several years. The initial perception was that it was a dud. See for example http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/10/23/1816257&#3... "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame."

But they did keep at it, and the iTunes app was a much the innovation as the iPod.

My take is that as a small player you have to be strategic. Not everything that you try (your tactics) will succeed. As to how long a new technology takes, it's worth reading "The Long Nose of Innovation" http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jan2008/id20080... on how long an invention takes to become a successful product. Ten years is a reasonable time frame. Google and Apple built on considerable earlier work. Google's money making innovation was their advertising model, without that having the best search engine technology might not have allowed them to prosper.

Re: The secret of the web (hint: it's a virtue)

#29

Post by paul »

menloparkbum wrote: post #23
paul wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By what year was Google a "huge success"? Do you realize that they started working on it in 1996? (the company wasn't formed until late 98)

Google was a huge success by the time it went out of beta. I think this was late 1999. By 2004's IPO Google's success would be considered "the standard by which success will be defined for the next 20 years" type of huge success rather than merely another run-of-the-mill Silicon Valley $100M exit type of huge success.

By what metric was it a huge success in 1999? They had a good product, but most people had never heard of the company. I remember having to explain that it was "kind of like Yahoo, but with good search and none of the other features", and they were always like, "well, good luck with that." (obviously thinking to themselves, "another stupid .com")
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