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Under 30 and On The Cutting Edge
conq writes "BusinessWeek has an interesting piece on cutting edge technology entrepreneurs under 30. From the article: 'Don't look at what the industry is doing,' Erchak says. 'Look at what they're not doing and focus on that. That's where the real disruptive technology comes from.'"
I'm surprised we made it to 2006 without thinking of this.
The two new ones are a simulator for pharmaceutical development and a new approach to solid state light sources. Those may or may not work, but they're real developments.
This all makes sense because by age 30, most of us nerds are broken shells of mangled human flesh: Thick glasses, crooked spines, carpal tunnel syndrome, high blood pressure... long term effects of working in the high speed world of information technology.
And lets not forget about the stress-related impotence! How do you expect anyone to be innovative when they're out of libidious mojo?
We hit our mid-life crisis at age-15 when we spend all our allowance on the newest AMD chips, graphics cards, and video games.
I'm half way through my 20s and I'm not looking forward to being a grizzled and worthless dinosaur in the next 5 years... but such is the price we pay.
=P
(sorry to anyone over 30)
Capitalism: When it uses the carrot, it's called democracy. When it uses the stick, it's called fascism.
Having been involved in a number of successful businesses over the years, I can tell you that good ideas are a dime a dozen. There's no huge mystery about what's successful and what isn't... look around you.
The difference between someone who is successful and someone who isn't is execution. The world is full of people who dream big but don't get off their ass and do it.
What people don't get is that you don't have to be the dominant player on the block to make a LOT of money, but what it does require is taking a risk and putting yourself out there. Find your little niche and set up shop. The world is like a raging river of money. You don't have to set up a very big flume to get a pretty good stream coming to you.
And if (or when...) you fail the first couple of times, learn from your mistakes, get back up and try again.
Just a step at a time, folks. Just take a step a time. It's not how fast you're stepping, but the fact that you're stepping at all.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
This tripe from Business Week is just another paean to the cult of youth, a slap in the face of those who've actually been around a while.
People forget that the "under 30" crowd was responsible for some of the stupidest, lamest, and most ridiculous excesses of the dot bomb. The recipe for dot com success was to only hire "young" (under 30, RCG) developers, because you "can't teach an old dog new tricks". It didn't work then, and it's still stupid now.
The best development environment is a mix of young, middle aged, and older developers. The elder developers season the brashness of youth with experience (and pointing out why web businesses to just sell 50# bags of dog food are stupid), and the younger ones inspire creativity where the elders had become complacent.
Would you trust a 25 year old bank president? Would you want to drive a car designed totally by a 22 year old recent college grad without the benefit of verification by a senior engineer? I wouldn't. So why in the hell should our software and computer hardware be only the product of young minds?
Business Week should know better than to shill for the "young is best" nonsense. We've seen where that crap leads - I read lots of articles just like it in 1998 and 1999. For shame.
BTW, I'm 44, and I said it was stupid the last time this "concept" got touted too - seven years ago...
use Sig::Witty;
Actually, my point is that you DON'T need to find something that "nobody else is filling". It's incredibly hard to find totally virgin territory. If you're waiting for that to happen, you'll probably have a very long wait.
The play with a much higher probability of success is to find a niche with a lot of demand. The fact that there are a lot of players making money there means that it's a successful niche! The trick is to find a way to elbow your way into your share of the business (that's also called "marketing"). Of course, you want to choose a niche that you're good at.
Take Internet hosting companies. Tons of 'em, right? Well, that's because the market is big enough to support tons of them. You don't have to reinvent the idea of a hosting company to have a successful little business with recurring income. That's just an example -- there are lots of little businesses like that.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
The toilet.
Does the toilet have an open port? I'll just try to log on remotely and dump a file.
Saves time. This is a paperless transaction.