Joe Kraus writes, There’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur because it’s never been cheaper to be one. Excite.com took $3,000,000 to get from idea to launch. JotSpot took $100,000. The 30X difference can be attributed to many reasons but Joe lists top four - Hardware is 100X cheaper
In the last 10 years hardware has literally become 100X cheaper. It’s two factors – Moore’s law and the rise of Linux as an operating system designed to run on generic hardware.
- Infrastructure software is free
Back in 1993 we had to buy and continue to pay for maintenance on everything we needed just to build our service - operating systems, compilers, web servers, application servers, databases. Costly and time consuming to negotiate. Today. Free, open source infrastructure is the norm. Get it anytime and anywhere. No license cost, no maintenance(This is debatable though).
- Access to Global Labor Markets
Startups today have unprecedented access to global labor markets. Back in 1993, IBM had access to technical people in India.Today, with rent-a-coder, elance.com and just plain email, we have access to a world-wide talent pool of experts on a temporary or permanent basis.
- SEM changes everything
Ten years ago to reach the market, we had to do expensive distribution deals. We advertised on television and radio and print. We spent a crap-load of money. Today search engine marketing changes everything. But the real revolution is the ability to affordably reach small markets. AdSense & other online advertising networks can create provide a new form of instant revenue & monetization for startups Some one wrote Technorati’s main revenue stream is Google Adsense.
Category :Entrepreneur
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