Making something people want is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for start-up success, and it's one that I see tripping up early-stage startup founders the most. Its incredible how many people build in a vacuum for 6+ months, and then release an overly-complex product that doesn't address a single real customer need.
Being able to rationalize "why now?" is much easier after the fact, as the OP demonstrates with his list of his now-successful companies. Doing the same looking forward is much trickier.
Being able to rationalize "why now?" is much easier after the fact, as the OP demonstrates with his list of his now-successful companies. Doing the same looking forward is much trickier.
I agree, and think the retrospective analysis on this is often really sloppy. In hindsight, the iPhone was clearly at the right time, and the Newton was clearly at the wrong time, but the track record of anyone distinguishing between those is very poor. Even Jobs, famous for some of the big wins on that score, was wrong about timing as often as he was right (e.g. NeXT was about as timely as the BeBox with its initial launch).
Making something people want is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for start-up success, and it's one that I see tripping up early-stage startup founders the most. Its incredible how many people build in a vacuum for 6+ months, and then release an overly-complex product that doesn't address a single real customer need.
Being able to rationalize "why now?" is much easier after the fact, as the OP demonstrates with his list of his now-successful companies. Doing the same looking forward is much trickier.