4 ms·

5 years, 1 month and 28 days after S3 is publicly launched. It is just a reminder that the threat by incumbents to startups is hardly worth worrying about.

jggube 16y ago
Amazon was hardly a startup 5 years ago. And we're talking about a service and a space that's difficult to replicate and get into. S3 had resources most startups won't have to get that 5-year lead.
- smackay 16y ago
  The push by Amazon into cloud services was very different from the business they were pursuing up to then. OK, so they were essentially just wringing some money out of all the infrastructure they already had in place but it was quite a radical change for an incumbent.
- gburt 16y ago
  Amazon wasn't the "startup" in his example. His point was the 5 year wait time for a "giant"* to get a product out the door... * who, even worse for their case, already had the infrastructure, resources, engineers, etc. to get it done.
  - jggube 16y ago
    The point still stands; this isn't an example of why startups shouldn't fear giants/incumbents. Just because Google couldn't/chose not to get a product like Amazon S3 out the door to compete with Amazon, doesn't mean incumbents can't replicate and dominate a bootstrapped start-up's low-cost, innovative web app or mobile app. The statement should say that startups with innovative, hard-to-reproduce products have nothing to fear; you'll either produce a product that they'll choose not to compete with/can't compete with (Twitter, Facebook) or get bought by them. How many startups get killed because they can't compete with the big guys, though? Here's an example: http://family.go.com/assets/bubbleshare/ http://family.go.com/assets/bubbleshare/
    - true_religion 16y ago
      I'm trying to innovate in the same field that Bubbleshare was in. I only learned about them recently via reading old techcrunch posts. What killed them? Did they go through a prolonged period of difficulty?
      - peteforde 16y ago
        Founder greed and bad timing.
        true_religion 16y ago
        Ah can you elaborate please? To me it looks like Bubbleshare was the best thing ever---till it suddenly shut down. I find glowing reports about it from TechCrunch, then.... nothing, it just dies. So what happened?
        peteforde 16y ago
        Disclaimer: I was not involved, but several people that were are friends. These friends did not inform my answer here, which is just my opinion based on many sources. BubbleShare was a Toronto tech darling started by the always brilliant Albert Lai. They were WAY ahead of their time. All I'm comfortable sharing here is that they received buyout Offer A, which Albert rejected in favour of doubling down for a better deal. Unfortunately fortune did not smile and BubbleShare ultimately accepted Offer B, which was significantly smaller than Offer A. The site was sold to Kaboose, which is a Canadian family content company. As usually happens when startups are acquired, the key talent left (Albert started Kontagent) and innovation on the site halted. I'm not an analyst, but these things usually distill down to "too early / too early / too late". I'm not sure that people were ever lining up to pay them money to use the service, and that might give you pause before going down the same road. Many products are cool but aren't solving a problem causing paying customers real pain.
StavrosK 16y ago
Wait, who's the incumbent and who's the startup? Amazon was founded four years before Google...
- jcampbell1 16y ago
  I didn't mean it as an analogy, but there are plenty of examples if you are looking for Google vs startup. Twitter/Buzz, Groupon/Google Offers, Facebook/(Whatever Google's Social Strategy is). 5 years to clone a product that Google already has the infrastructure for and is within Google's core mission seems excessively long.
  - ma2rten 16y ago
    How is this within Google's core mission? Their mission is not to provide IT services to other companies...
    - jcampbell1 16y ago
      I'll spell it out very clearly: Google's mission is "to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful." Gmail helps my company organize our email and communication, and makes it accessible from any computer anywhere in the world. S3 helps my company organize our information and distribute it around the world. S3 helps dropbox organize their users information and make it accessible from any device. An S3 clone is clearly within Google mission.
      - bad_user 16y ago
        Gmail is a product, S3 is a piece of infrastructure used by other products. Google's mission is also to make money, companies make money by focusing on their core strengths. I would rather have Google not clone other people's products, Microsoft did that and they failed over and over again. S3 may help you organize your information, but that information is probably not public, and if it is then Google's services can access it anyway - they also aren't a charity - if you're looking for charity (i.e. products released for the betterment of the world only) then you need to search for non-profits.

jggube 16y ago

Amazon was hardly a startup 5 years ago. And we're talking about a service and a space that's difficult to replicate and get into. S3 had resources most startups won't have to get that 5-year lead.

smackay 16y ago
The push by Amazon into cloud services was very different from the business they were pursuing up to then. OK, so they were essentially just wringing some money out of all the infrastructure they already had in place but it was quite a radical change for an incumbent.
gburt 16y ago
Amazon wasn't the "startup" in his example. His point was the 5 year wait time for a "giant"* to get a product out the door... * who, even worse for their case, already had the infrastructure, resources, engineers, etc. to get it done.
- jggube 16y ago
  The point still stands; this isn't an example of why startups shouldn't fear giants/incumbents. Just because Google couldn't/chose not to get a product like Amazon S3 out the door to compete with Amazon, doesn't mean incumbents can't replicate and dominate a bootstrapped start-up's low-cost, innovative web app or mobile app. The statement should say that startups with innovative, hard-to-reproduce products have nothing to fear; you'll either produce a product that they'll choose not to compete with/can't compete with (Twitter, Facebook) or get bought by them. How many startups get killed because they can't compete with the big guys, though? Here's an example: http://family.go.com/assets/bubbleshare/ http://family.go.com/assets/bubbleshare/
  - true_religion 16y ago
    I'm trying to innovate in the same field that Bubbleshare was in. I only learned about them recently via reading old techcrunch posts. What killed them? Did they go through a prolonged period of difficulty?
    - peteforde 16y ago
      Founder greed and bad timing.
      - true_religion 16y ago
        Ah can you elaborate please? To me it looks like Bubbleshare was the best thing ever---till it suddenly shut down. I find glowing reports about it from TechCrunch, then.... nothing, it just dies. So what happened?
        peteforde 16y ago
        Disclaimer: I was not involved, but several people that were are friends. These friends did not inform my answer here, which is just my opinion based on many sources. BubbleShare was a Toronto tech darling started by the always brilliant Albert Lai. They were WAY ahead of their time. All I'm comfortable sharing here is that they received buyout Offer A, which Albert rejected in favour of doubling down for a better deal. Unfortunately fortune did not smile and BubbleShare ultimately accepted Offer B, which was significantly smaller than Offer A. The site was sold to Kaboose, which is a Canadian family content company. As usually happens when startups are acquired, the key talent left (Albert started Kontagent) and innovation on the site halted. I'm not an analyst, but these things usually distill down to "too early / too early / too late". I'm not sure that people were ever lining up to pay them money to use the service, and that might give you pause before going down the same road. Many products are cool but aren't solving a problem causing paying customers real pain.

StavrosK 16y ago

Wait, who's the incumbent and who's the startup? Amazon was founded four years before Google...

jcampbell1 16y ago
I didn't mean it as an analogy, but there are plenty of examples if you are looking for Google vs startup. Twitter/Buzz, Groupon/Google Offers, Facebook/(Whatever Google's Social Strategy is). 5 years to clone a product that Google already has the infrastructure for and is within Google's core mission seems excessively long.
- ma2rten 16y ago
  How is this within Google's core mission? Their mission is not to provide IT services to other companies...
  - jcampbell1 16y ago
    I'll spell it out very clearly: Google's mission is "to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible and useful." Gmail helps my company organize our email and communication, and makes it accessible from any computer anywhere in the world. S3 helps my company organize our information and distribute it around the world. S3 helps dropbox organize their users information and make it accessible from any device. An S3 clone is clearly within Google mission.
    - bad_user 16y ago
      Gmail is a product, S3 is a piece of infrastructure used by other products. Google's mission is also to make money, companies make money by focusing on their core strengths. I would rather have Google not clone other people's products, Microsoft did that and they failed over and over again. S3 may help you organize your information, but that information is probably not public, and if it is then Google's services can access it anyway - they also aren't a charity - if you're looking for charity (i.e. products released for the betterment of the world only) then you need to search for non-profits.