I was skimming the post on ArsTechnica about possible future of display technology and stumbled across this story in the forums. This is a great read for thinking about getting into the technology business. Be careful that ‘good enough’ strategies don’t clobber you. Have I written about ‘good enough’ strategies yet? I should since a lot of techies have some belief that ‘superiour technology will always win’.
In reality completely untrue. The technology business is very large and there are many factors that come into play in being a (notice I said ‘A’ not ‘THE’) success.
- Cost to the consumer to buy the end product
- Ease of distribution
- Ease of understanding uses for the technology
- Cost to build
- Cost to manufacture
- Getting your product out in time
- And of course the laws of the physics
These factors and many more come into play when creating something that will be successful in the marketplace. If you haven’t thought about these factors at all I believe there’s a high correlation to failure. There’s always lucky flukes but best to not rely on flukes.
Obligatory excerpt:
The tale of Candescent Technologies Corp. shows how two of the technology world’s most cherished ideas are often just plain untrue. First, that antiquated old technologies are always sitting ducks for “disruptive” new technologies that come along to challenge them. Second, that every engineering problem can be solved if you have the best and the brightest working on it.
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