Darryl King’s blog ireckon

A lot of money is being spent again on web engineering for commercial success. During the lead up to when the dot com bubble burst every good idea got capital and the ‘web stars’ worked to engineer their destiny using a good idea and capital.

Many of them are doing something else or were up until the cycle started again.

Over the last 12 months or so the drive to engineer a site’s own commercial success has been fueled again. While companies, like ireckon, that provide development services can profit from this time (and I have no issue with profit), I still reflect on the logic behind it.

Everyone wants to be the next Youtube, Myspace, Facebook, Craigs List et alia. And while these sites are the oft-quoted ones there are plenty of other sites that have profited from the internet and converted great ideas to money. This leads to my main question:

are the majority of the ‘big successes’ engineered for commercial success, or are they successful by the nature of their uptake. And then how does one ensure that their new web opportunity (or offline opportunity for that matter) is a success? Is it by design or an accident?

I would tend to argue that the sites and products that achieve the greatest success were not built with the sole idea of being commercially successful. In some cases commercial success was a pipe dream, they were inspired to build something of value to themselves and potentially others by resolving a problem or creating something quite new.

- google did not set out to create google adwords, they set out to create an ultimate search appliance that ended up creating it’s own market and products using the core driving idea.

- Youtube was built to resolve an issue between friends but which quickly developed into one of the most successful media sharing and video communication tools.

While not a historical expert on many of the key products we take for granted, such as the ballpoint pen, lightbulb etc. the initial inventions were in general designed to break new boundaries, solve personal or public issues or to help someone. They were not built with an idea (in the example of the ballpoint pen) on how they could invent something that would last 6-10 weeks and be easily replaceable and sold in packs of 20-100, at large office supply warehouses. They were created to solve an issue with how messy and problematic fountain pens and other writing implements were. They were new and they have evolved, and many of the people who have extended the idea have done so to make profit, but the driving force was not a simple commercial idea.

Entrepreneurs who set out with ambition and desire and a clear goal to add value to others, have succeeded on scales outside the scope of normal thinking. While historically we can look back and say how well things were invented or engineered the truth is normally far from that.

Microsoft’s early days were more smoke and mirrors than a solid deep technical springboard, selling a product they didn’t even have, purely based around a concept, and ultimately based around a desire to ‘put a computer on every desk in the world’. The idea to extend computing to the masses has been of (arguably) great benefit to the world but started as an idea to create some software that was usable by more than a few technicians.

Today the bulk of the world’s computer users use products built by Gates and co.
Whether they (MS) have retained that edge or not since their stellar growth is not a topic for this post, but ultimately reflecting back on the approach being taken by predominantly mass media, but not just them, and their approaches to the web, I see a missing link (excuse the pun).

Can a website be engineered to be as successful as Facebook or similar equivalents?

Did the founders of the hugely successful web sites set out with their driving goals to be such a huge web success, or did they start to create something ‘kewl’ (read: cool) that appealed to a group of like minded individuals?

If the main success stories are success by accident - which does not mean I believe they were lucky or had no part in determining their success, in fact quite the opposite - where does that leave the major media entities, large businesses, and start ups burning VC money at vast rates, in engineering their own successes?

Can such a huge success be engineered by design?

Many web sites generate very healthy money purely utilising web technology and the knowledge economy. Many ecommerce sites make good profits and aid buinesses into growing market share. Many news portals and tv sites generate massive traffic numbers and great eyeballs, but in a world that has the ability to create and destroy markets quicker than at any time in history, can the mass market approach do more than return a small investment on the eyeballs they attract?

In the last 13 years I have heard the term ‘the field of dreams’ used repeatedly: Build it and they will come - repeated again and again until the VC inks the cheque, or the CEO authorises the expenditure. Frankly I believe that to be a crock! The reality is build something bloody useful, let people play with it and if they vote it worthy strap yourself in for the ride of your life!

The key : Pretty simple really - Build something that people actually want and can use. Build it for them, make sure they can use it and like it, do everything you can with as little as possible to get a model that has a hook and then let the wheels start to spin.

1st mover / 2nd mover advantage? I don’t believe that is the key to success. Youtube wasn’t the first, nor google or many others. There are social networking sites with many more active users than Facebook, but these sites captured enough imagination, providing an edge to their users over the competition and delivered it fast and furiously without the need to follow normal conventions.

These businesses are now proper businesses. Much money is changing hands, but that is an entrepreneurial economy at work. Idea - Proof of concept - initial success - commercialization.

I will watch and see how many manufactured commercial ideas take fruit over the coming year or so, whether the approach to be the best by virtue of how many eyeballs or other such measurements matter in the long term washup, or whether smart sharp edgy entrepreneurs create better ‘mousetraps’ and beat the mass media market to the punch.

For what it’s worth ireckon the model in business and in building your web strategy is simple:

• work out first who you are aiming to reach (it isn’t realistic to say everyone - even B.Gates hasn’t achieved that goal yet)
• work out what they want / need rather than some internal perspective of what you think they want
• find an edge to it, push it mentally until you find a uniqueness in it, or a clear distinct use for what you are doing
• build it well and keep it alive (ie. do not invest too much up front without resources to maintain it)
• ensure you have the funds (no matter how much it is from $1k to $1mill.)
• Keep it simple and follow basic rules (don’t get sold by the technology whizzes or marketing gurus)
• Give it your best shot

Meantime, I better get back to making sure we are able to help those who do have a solid plan to build their mousetraps! That’s called business.