Business Plan Archive and a couple of my flaws...

An article on ten reasons for failure for dot coms is at Business Plan Archive. (Hat tip to local blogger, Anthony, at http://bizzbangbuzz.blogspot.com/. )

Business Plan Archive 3) Too early? Too bad. Timing issues continually pop up in the post-mortem of the dot com shakeout. Many of the web's wrecks came to market with high-cost products well before the infrastructure was ready to receive them. The digital entertainment category is one good example. Companies like Z.com, Pop.com, Icebox.com, Digital Entertainment Networks and Pseudo Networks all may have had good products, but they were much too early for the broadband marketplace."

Generally, I think that there are too many ways to fail to really study failure in great detail. People don't aim to fail. Rather, it is better to study greatness and then walk along those pathways. But, of course, it helps to know, generally, where the sticking points reside.

Before I got into politics and community activist work, and while I've been here, I did a lot on the internet. I'm a failed dot com businessman. I have owned a slew of domains and have two or more shelves of failed business plans to show for it.

By in large, I failed in Pittsburgh with these ventures because I was too early. I was way too early for Pittsburgh's markets and for setting up the headquarters in Pittsburgh.

I was talking to bankers and possible investors before Netscape went public. The Netscape IPO was the single biggest day for wealth creation from any company, ever. I knew that this was to happen, but, I couldn't get others to come along for the ride then.

Later, I saw that most Dot Com ventures were not really doing much except for selling stock and burning investor's money as they grew their equity. It was formula for a crash -- and it happened.

Speaking of Netscape, I was part of a group of netizens that urged them, years after their IPO, to put out its source code in a dual format with a PUBLIC DOMAIN version. They didn't. Mozilla was formed. But a year or more later, after the rush of community was gone, the code licenses were changed again.

Oh well. Live and learn. In the past, I have been guilty of being too forward thinking. This habit is going to be impossible to break. To make up for it, I try hard to not repeat, "I told you so."