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Lucky? If you change the definition from "find" to "find and prove" it holds quite nicely (but doesn't sound as good). This works on the theory that there are

by Djehngo 15y ago

Lucky? If you change the definition from "find" to "find and prove" it holds quite nicely (but doesn't sound as good). This works on the theory that there are no applicable, proven, scalable, repeatable business models. (Due to the presence of established competition) Models proven to be un-scalable and or un-repeatable is trivially possible. Models which are scalable and repeatable but un-proven can exist, the company will be executing the business model and in that they will be demonstrating the viability of it assuming the company will lives long enough that this is possible. (Good ideas can still fail if they hit an early setback and don't recover) If the model is proven to be scalable and repeatable then there has to be someone who proved it to be so (And given the quality of the business model and its lack of glaring flaws they will still be around). With this in mind the original proving company is first to market and likely has a huge advantage, so unless the original product is markedly worse than the new one the model is not scalable and repeatable due to competition (contradiction)

seats 15y ago
My example is my own company, slicehost. I don't believe that we needed to find and/or prove the business model. It was a simple hosting model, we just thought we could do it more efficiently. Granted along the way new models arose from the automation inherent to the efficiency, but we already had profitability and traction at that point, it wasn't a requisite to 'making it'. Now is efficiency gain (or conversely quality improvement) alone enough to make it qualify as a brand new business model? I'd argue that it is not. My anecdotal support for my theory here is that we felt initially that we were taking very little risk in starting the business. It was clear and obvious to us that we could survive on the implied margins of other providers and acquiring customers in hosting at that point in time was relatively non-competitive.

by Djehngo 15y ago

seats 15y ago

My example is my own company, slicehost. I don't believe that we needed to find and/or prove the business model. It was a simple hosting model, we just thought we could do it more efficiently. Granted along the way new models arose from the automation inherent to the efficiency, but we already had profitability and traction at that point, it wasn't a requisite to 'making it'. Now is efficiency gain (or conversely quality improvement) alone enough to make it qualify as a brand new business model? I'd argue that it is not. My anecdotal support for my theory here is that we felt initially that we were taking very little risk in starting the business. It was clear and obvious to us that we could survive on the implied margins of other providers and acquiring customers in hosting at that point in time was relatively non-competitive.