This talk is about commercial failure, not technical failure.
Some products seems a bit too simple and/or reinventing a-square-wheel to me (a syntax highlighter ?!)
I'm gradually learning to just work on something, as sitting around waiting for some magical idea is a waste of time. Not to mention, you can discover much bigger problems and opportunities from working on anything as opposed to nothing.
you can discover much bigger problems and opportunities from working on anything as opposed to nothing
That turns out to be so true. Once you start working on something and talking with potential customers there will be plenty of opportunity to adjust or scale your idea or even to jump to something totally different that you never would have known about if you hadn't just got started in the first place.
Obviously given the choice most people would prefer a world beater idea. One that has the potential for a lot of money and self actualization but you could wait forever for that idea to materialize.
Since you can't make the perfect idea happen you're way better off picking the best idea available and just starting.
What's your definition of "really well"?
Patrick, the bingo card guy has been hanging around the joelonsoftware forums for 5+ years and selling his product for equally as long.
Last I heard, he was making roughly $35,000/year. Even in the mid-west, this is barely enough to survive (for one person..let alone an entire company). I would hardly call this a commercial success.
Now that's he's gone full-time, there's no doubt in my mind that his revenues will be prodigious.
Now that's he's gone full-time, there's no doubt in my mind that his revenues will be prodigious."
The app took him a few hours to make (I seem to remember this on from JoS). I think the service he has now was created by freelancers he hired (which is a smart move for someone without a lot of time to work on their business). The development of the app was trivial, but the amount of time and effort he has put into marketing is not.
Even working full time for 5 years, if you are marketing it every day (which he was), you should be able to get a better ROI than this.
My feeling is that the reason he isn't making that much money is because the market for such an application isn't that large. I see that he is also coming out with other services/products, which is further proof that he is moving on to bigger and better things. He probably should have done this a few years ago.
Even so, success isn't based on what you could possibly do in the future, it's what you have already achieved. My main point still stands: he made some money, but should not be considered a commercial success.
Of course, he chose a small market. He was basically monetizing some spare time. And there's no doubt that he'll be more ambitious in the future, now that he has more time to spend on these projects.
I consider making $35,000/year in a few hours a week to be a "commercial success." Especially, since the kind of work he is doing is easily repeatable in other niches.
If you have followed his story at all on the JoS boards, It sure doesn't seem like only a few hours of work a week. If he is only working on it a few hours a week, he even has less credibility. It's little more than a side project that is now making some money.
I think it's great that he's making money, I just get tired of seeing interviews, articles, and posts claiming that he is running some kind of really successful business.
"Especially, since the kind of work he is doing is easily repeatable in other niches."
Marketing experience can be used in other niches. However, if you spend 5+ years on a niche to make $30,000, you are doing something wrong.
A commercial success to me is the ability to live comfortably off of the business (and quit your day job). I suppose Patrick has quit his day job for $30K/year, which I think will make it difficult to survive without savings. (even in Japan).
If I put up a random web page on a free hosting provider, slapped Adsense on there, and started making $1/month, it would also fit your definition.
You set the bar on "pretty well" way too low. This is also the problem with a lot of startups (and why they end up failing).
I you've hit on the point, though. Obviously I have a lower set of criteria for what makes something a "success" than you do; I don't believe something needs to actually take the exponential curve up to VC heaven to be worth doing and a commercial success - whether or not the business model could, in fact, support that.