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Be excellent at 1 thing. Trying to be all things to all people is a great recipe for failure. If you love pets and have great connections in that community, it

Be excellent at 1 thing. Trying to be all things to all people is a great recipe for failure. If you love pets and have great connections in that community, it's a crap-ton easier to build a "pet stuff" store than a "everything under the sun" store.

michael_dorfman 16y ago
But that doesn't mean that there's a market for the "pet stuff" store, necessarily. In other words: Be excellent and one thing, but make sure that one thing is worth being excellent at. Trying to be all things to all people is a great recipe for failure, but it's not the only recipe for failure. There are lots and lots of ways to fail.
- Gormo 16y ago
  I think most of the big successes that came out of the dotcom era were the ones that applied internet technologies to enhance markets that already existed. Amazon worked; bookstores are a very viable market. Ebay worked; flea markets are common in every town. PayPal worked; everyone has a checking account. There are also plenty of pet stores. Pets.com could have easily been a success if they had built their company properly. What you're saying seems to validate the article's point: execute a proven "commodity" idea well, and you can succeed. Bet the company on an experimental vision, and you risk failure.
Retric 16y ago
If you love pets and have great connections in that community Building a pet community and then up selling stuff is an ok idea, but it's also a different idea than just creating a pet store online. Limiting yourself to just selling generic pet stuff without said community is a poor idea. PS: If you go to pets.com now you see the second version, but they initial push was all about selling stuff and not building a community. The issue is one of trust, if you sell yourself as a store it's much harder to build a community than it is to have a community and then sell stuff (the good) stuff

michael_dorfman 16y ago

But that doesn't mean that there's a market for the "pet stuff" store, necessarily. In other words: Be excellent and one thing, but make sure that one thing is worth being excellent at. Trying to be all things to all people is a great recipe for failure, but it's not the only recipe for failure. There are lots and lots of ways to fail.

Gormo 16y ago
I think most of the big successes that came out of the dotcom era were the ones that applied internet technologies to enhance markets that already existed. Amazon worked; bookstores are a very viable market. Ebay worked; flea markets are common in every town. PayPal worked; everyone has a checking account. There are also plenty of pet stores. Pets.com could have easily been a success if they had built their company properly. What you're saying seems to validate the article's point: execute a proven "commodity" idea well, and you can succeed. Bet the company on an experimental vision, and you risk failure.

Retric 16y ago

If you love pets and have great connections in that community Building a pet community and then up selling stuff is an ok idea, but it's also a different idea than just creating a pet store online. Limiting yourself to just selling generic pet stuff without said community is a poor idea. PS: If you go to pets.com now you see the second version, but they initial push was all about selling stuff and not building a community. The issue is one of trust, if you sell yourself as a store it's much harder to build a community than it is to have a community and then sell stuff (the good) stuff