Last week I had a long debate with a couple of talented people over the business model of a company they want to start. I saw absolutely no way it would make money. They were sure it would be wildly successful. On the drive home from the meeting it occurred to me that if you are doing something interesting, most people will think your business model is stupid.
When I joined Jotspot, I had many similar conversations. “Nobody will pay for a wiki when there are open source wikis for free,” “Mainstream America is never going to embrace wikis,” and my favorite, “I think a porn wiki is the only way you are going to make money?”
It turns out, if you are doing something new, the business model isn’t obvious. If it was obvious, somebody would have already done it. The only people who need to believe in your business model is your investors, your staff, and of course, you.
[...] Scott Johnston is a blogger and developer at Jotspot, one of my favorite web 2.0 companies around. He’s got a great post about business models and the fact that even if you have a great one, some people will think it’s stupid. In fact, if you have a great business model some people should think it’s stupid. Last week I had a long debate with a couple of talented people over the business model of a company they want to start. I saw absolutely no way it would make money. They were sure it would be wildly successful. On the drive home from the meeting it occurred to me that if you are doing something interesting, most people will think your business model is stupid. [...]
[...] I talked earlier about how everybody thinks your business model is stupid. This morning the NY Times had a quote from Reed Hastings, the CEO of Netflix, that said it much better: [...]