Web2.0 Entrepreneurs… the time is now
- Posted by Tengku Zahasman on April 25th, 2007 filed in Thoughts, Entrepreneurship
- (588 Views)
Seriously, there’s never been a better time to start a Web2.0 bussiness than today. Maybe people have been saying this since last year during the Web2.0 bubble burst, but if I were to compare between last year and now, I personally think that the current year is the better time to venture yourself in this field. Here are some of the reasons why:
Many Web2.0 sites has emerged - More Web2.0 sites out there means more experiences and examples to be learned from. We hear Web2.0 sites that rises and falls. They had their stories mentioned everywhere, in many places such as TechCrunch, in Web2.0 portals and startup communities, even on their own WebApp blogs. They give you hints on what you should or should not do when venturing in the Web business. These are all valuable lessons to be used as a guide for us in building our own business. Maybe some of you think that more Web2.0 sites means more competition. I doubt it. The way I see it, you can leverage those Web2.0 sites for your benefits. Think social networks and social media.
Hardware costs are way too cheap - For a development PC, you don’t need the latest processor and the latest operating system. An XP on Pentium IV with 512MB RAM would be more than enough to comfortably and efficiently write programs or do design works. That kind of specs will only cost you around RM1500 (USD410) per machine today, maybe even less. Add a flat panel LCD monitor (which now costs only half-a-thousand) and you’ll be more than energized to start developing your web app. But then again most of you already have a good machine to work with so you probably not need to worry so much about PCs. What you may need to worry a bit is the cost of getting your own dedicated server and the cost of an office space if you ever need one.
Availability of many development frameworks - A few years back everyone writes their applications from scratch. Programmers wrote the same repetitive codings again and again and this has wasted a hell lot of time. But worry no more! Today, there are many stable rapid web development frameworks to choose from. We’ve heard of the successful Ruby on Rails. If you’re more of a PHP developer, frameworks like symfony, CodeIgniter or CakePHP gives you a great base to start off writing your applications in no time. For AJAX, we have scriptaculous and JQuery to save the day.
Availability of many development tools - Again, IDEs for PHP suck a few years back. Today, there are Komodo Edit (which I use most often), ZendStudio, PHPEdit and so many other cool IDEs out there complete with their autocomplete features, collapsing of codes, good formatting, nice syntax highlighting, files management, etc etc etc. Some of them are even free! Image-editing softwares has also improved so much that you can do more stuffs with less work.
Availability of multiple resources - AJAX scripts, CSS layouts, framework tutorials, you name it. Everything is out there on the web. You only need to use them. Open source applications can speed up your development. No longer do you need to reinvent the wheel. If you’re stuck with some weird problems, just type the error in Google and there’s a 99% chance that you’ll find a solution.
Blog numbers have quadrupled - There are gazillions of blogs out there ready to talk about your WebApp and do the advertising for you. There is Google Adwords to help you advertise with very little cost. And in desperate moments, PayPerPost is there to quickly bring you to fame.
Social sites are getting too popular - It’s very easy to create a hype around your WebApp nowadays by utilizing the many different social networks available. You only need to have a cool appearance and ideas and your WebApp will go boom.
Tags: internet business internet startups Web 2.0 entrepreneur
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May 17th, 2007 at 2:17 am
Well, agree with most of the points here.
Increased number of web apps competition does not necessary mean to be a bad thing, in fact, often it indicate that this is where the market is. If you are doing something that nobody tried before, you may have to worry if there is really a market there.
The cost necessary for a web apps startup is much much lower now, especially in term of hardware cost. But I would like to disagree with the worry about office space though, for a small startup consist of 2-3 people, I think office space should come really really late in the picture.
As for the development framework, would suggest also the addition of Django for all the Pythonist.
As for viral marketin, Emergence of blogs is a good thing for small startup, tools like digg and reddit , also play a big part in creating buzz around new web apps. But it is how the web apps stand after all the buzzes and hypes cool down that really matter. Hmmm…think about it, maybe blog is not so good for startup, it somehow distract people blogging more than coding, haha.
Well, perhaps you already read about him, just in case you haven’t. I would highly recommend Paul Graham’ articles.
May 17th, 2007 at 4:05 pm
Points taken kahfei…
But im interested with your thought that blogging may sometimes distract developers to be blogging more than coding (im experiencing it right now lol). But since blogging is also regarded as a marketing tool, I think it may worth it. Better yet, apoint someone who doesn’t do codings to do the blogging
June 27th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
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