How Timing Can Make or Break a Startup – Brandon Watts
What comes to your mind when you think about companies like Webvan, Dodgeball, Pets.com, Kozmo.com, and WebTV? All were pioneers in their markets in many ways, but all were—in some respects, anyway—failures. In the business world, it's the unlucky fate of certain companies to serve as proof, or even punchlines, about how ambitious technology companies can implode in sometimes spectacular ways.
But while it's easy, and occasionally instructive, to critique a company once it’s gone and dissect the reasons why, it's important to remember there's one tricky element that all startups face and few manage to fully control: timing.
TIMING TRUMPS (ALMOST) ALL
Startups like to tell themselves that execution beats everything. That idea is widely endorsed within the tech world, but it's probably ...