Story of two founders:
Number 1, guy I know, a year ago quits his job on Wall St after 15 years and announces he is going to start a company that takes on LinkedIn and another great social/expertise startup using a simpler, modern attack. Very clever actually. Gets going. Starts pitching. Convinces a few guys to quit and work for nothing with him. Works on raising money. Year later, it’s not built. Tech guy has to get a job. They solider on.
But a few months before that, Number 2, guy I know who has started two companies previously, starts writing a simple web app that works on web and phone to basically implement a variation of this. 3 months later releases it. Kind of works. Techcrunch. Tons of people ping him to invest. People sign up.
This is the difference between an a) technical founder, b) build-it-first product approach, and c) minimum viable product launch approach (that’s Mr. 2) vs. a) finance guy, b) powerpoint first, c) better than the incumbents approach (that’s Mr. 1).