What’s Gotta Go

Hate being perpetually behind the curve? I sure do. I work in the tech industry, specifically with online development and marketing these days. I’ll admit to not being the best around at what I do, but I do feel like I am well above average (if I say so myself). That said, I hate always seeing everyone else make the big bucks riding the wave of the latest trend. I’m always a step (or many steps) behind.

Really I can’t complain too much though, I have had made a good living and work with same great guys these days. We work hard to put together worthwhile products and sell them ethically.

What bugs me is I have been with some companies that had some good ideas that we created that were novel for their time, but never made it due to poor marketing and mis-management. Worst part is those experience have sucked some life out of my enthusiasm to build the “next great thing.” Of course, there is money to be made riding just behind the latest wave as well, so don’t feel too much pity for me.

I guess if I am honest with myself, I actually don’t mind seeing other people make it big on great ideas. What bothers me is seeing guys make it big with crappy products that have been done so many times before, but for some reason their outfit rose to the top. I am sure you can chime in on some great examples. Two of my biggest are Ebay and MySpace.

Ebay is a mammoth outfit that dominates the market now - no question. There have been so many other auctions sites, even sites well before Ebay, that offered better tools and interface. Ebay caught on though, and once you own the traffic it’s hard to justify going elsewhere.

MySpace - has their been a more poorly designed and limiting interface on any site builder out there. Ok, yes there are likely plenty of them, but MySpace is poorly designed, requires “hacks” to do anything worth looking at, but they have become the star of the social networking scene. Not the first, not the best, but kicking it in a big way.

So many other examples could be shared, so please, do.