Guy Kawasaki's Truemors by the numbers post has generated a fair amount of comment from bloggers (nicely summarized by Rick Segal). His point, lost in all of the noise, is that you can prototype and build companies very quickly these days. The results are frequently businesses that don't have high overheads, and thus don't require masses of revenues to succeed. Think plentyoffish.com, and its ilk.
So, who cares if Truemors doesn't appeal to the Silicon Valley elite masses! If it has appeal, can cover the minimal costs, and build steady traffic, it will be a steady source of income down the road. A number of web developers are doing just this today. There's also a steady business building these new sites, doing the initial marketing to show the viability of the site, and then selling them off to others.
Alec Saunders is the Vice President of Developer Relations for BlackBerry make Research in Motion. This is his personal blog, with his personal viewpoints. Prior to this Alec was the CEO and co-founder of Calliflower — the easiest way to hold a meeting, online, on a conference call, or on the go. A double-decade veteran of product management and marketing, he spent nine years at Microsoft where he helped launch Windows 95, the first two versions of Internet Explorer, the Universal Plug and Play initiative, the push into home markets, opt-in email marketing and what might well go down in history as the very first direct email list ever.
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Thanks! I appreciate your positive perspective. This makes the 3rd positive mention of Truemors in the blogosphere.
Guy
It's not a bad idea, Guy, and with the Facebook API out there will be a bunch more people doing it… the marketing model just got a ton easier.